“Architectural Narratives”: An Exhibition for MAS Context: ANALOG
October 12, 2012
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Tomorrow, Saturday, October 13 2012, Jimenez Lai (of Bureau Spectacular fame) and I will be presenting the joint exhibition (no, not a show about smoking drugs) ARCHITECTURAL NARATIVES, as part of the second edition of MAS Context: Analog, a one-day event of presentations, exhibitions and an onsite bookstore in Chicago organized by MAS Studio in collaboration with NEW PROJECTS. Although the event is a one-day show, the exhibition itself will be available for seeing all week, and will feature large prints (yes, of course the Kunst-Haas series will be there), and some text on my side, and lots of Jimenez’s spectacular (no pun intended: it IS spectacular) work on the other.
MAS Context: Analog (first edition here) will gather a group of emerging and established practitioners within the field of design who will discuss their work based on proposed themes. The event will include presentations by artists, academics, architects, urban designers, graphic designers and industrial designers including Jimenez Lai, Sean Lally, David Brown, David Rueter, John Pobojewski, Sara C. Aye & George Aye, Andrew Clark, David Sieren & Sam Rosen, Ed Marszewski, Marc Fisher, Claire Warner & Sam Vinz, and Dieter Roelstraete. It will also feature an onsite bookstore by Half Letter Press, a publishing imprint and an experimental online store initiated by Temporary Services. The presentations will be followed by a closing party that will include a DJ set by Dieter Roelstraete.
The event is free and open to the general public, and it is an all-day event so feel free to stop by anytime or plan to stay all day, listen to the presentations, check the exhibition, buy publications, connect with other designers, make donations for the artists or play gymnastics in perfect replicant fashion. That’s up to you. Just come for a while.
The event will be housed by NEW PROJECTS, an urban design studio, research center, and exhibition space in Chicago directed by Marshall Brown and Stephanie Smith. You can find more information about NEW PROJECTS here. It is located at 3621 South State Street, close to the 35th-Bronzeville-IIT train stop (CTA Green Line), the Sox/35th train stop (CTA Red Line) and the 35th/’Lou’ Jones/Bronzeville train stop (Metra Rock Island District). The space is also accessible via the #29 (State) bus route. Use Google maps to find your route. We encourage the use of public transportation, bicycles, and walking. Street parking is limited in the area.
As usual, a big thank you to Iker Gil, editor of MAS Context and one of the most productive people I know, for taking the time to organize everything and pushing me to crawl out of my cave.
Check the schedule and more information of the event here.
Learning to talk architecture
July 12, 2012
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“New trends and new times, new market conditions and newer communicational means are also creating, it seems, new modes of architectural production-consumption and along with them, an allegedly new type of professional with skills suited for an era where communication primes.
News spreads at an increasingly faster rate, generating an exponential inflation in the informational corpus: news and texts are forwarded, commented on, cut/cropped/quoted/linked and disseminated in the blink of an eye, and we, internauts brought up a on a steady diet of continuous feedbacks, updates and comments, have quickly grown dependent upon the continuity of the flux. We require a constant nourishing perpetuating the dynamics of a performative informational experience, which has become the default setting. We, the archinauts, have also grown accustomed to a steady diet of flashy images, renderings and videos that have become the default architectural experience. In this context, the architect renews his vows as a social interlocutor, but this time in the form of a performer who needs to grab the fluctuating attention of a public eye turned into volatile audience. Communicational skills are now, more than ever, a sine qua non for architects who leave behind any past incarnation as either reclusive geniuses or silent craftsmen and become active spokesmen, polemists or even provocateurs. The rise of the contemporary starchitectural system reflects very vividly this situation, where architects stand in the spotlight not only according to the quality of their (classically considered) architectural production, but also corresponding to their qualities as performers, or even due to their ability to keep a network of gossip circulating around them. But in this context, a recurring question keeps emerging, casting a doubt on the legitimacy of architectural discourses that are threatened to be thinned down to nothing by this hypertrophy of the communicational apparatus, which primes production over content. Might it be — I can hear Roger Waters singing — that Architecture is communicating itself to death?”
Excerpt from Modern Talking [don’t you...forget about me]
Mas Context nº 14, June 2012
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The image above was designed as an aside to the last issue of Iker Gil/Mas Studio’s MAS Context: Communication, which includes the article excerpted here, along with way more valuable contributions by Vladimir Belogolovsky, Craighton Berman, Ariadna Cantis, Center for Urban Pedagogy, Felipe Chaimovich, Eme3, Pedro Gadanho, Iker Gil, Michael Hirschbichler, Sam Jacob, Klaus, Michael Kubo, Stephen Killion, Luis Mendo, Elias Redstone, Zoë Ryan, Oriol Tarragó, Rick Valicenti, and Mirko Zardin, with a cover design by Plural via Pink Floyd’s Meddle.
You can have a peek at the article by clicking the images below, or -preferably- going online through the full article in the link provided. However, I strongly suggest having a look at the whole issue here or downloading it in pdf form. If you want the comic, though, you’ll have to buy a physical copy.
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