Mediated Spaces - MSc Architecture
“What we perceive as reality is a tiny detail from the field of possibilities surging around us, which our nervous system has realized through computation. If all reality is a computation from possibilities, then “reality” is a threshold value”
[Vilém Flusser]
Electronic media saturate our cultural environment, so influence our perceived reality(1). Think about how many things you have seen for real, and how many on images and film. Today, it becomes unavoidable for architects to look at these issues more carefully.
I wanted to start from scratch, to test new possibilities for real, asking what new architecture could arise from our rapidly developing environment.
For this reason, I have decided not to draw plans and sections, as in a regular architecture project using representational methods, but to build prototypes, in a 1 to 1 scale, that are testing the possibilities of blurring the electronic media into the physical space.
Building functioning installations instead of drawing plans and sections, requires different resources in knowledge and materials. I have acted throughout the project as a “plugin” or parasite with my specific interests, and was traveling through a set of events and platforms, ranging from academic to commercial and cultural. This allowed me to collaborate with people having various backgrounds, from different disciplines. For this, specific credits are carefully noted at each prototype.
The project is highly influenced by ideas from complexity science(2). I wanted it to develop into a network of connected parts, rather than a main result, a singular outcome. This system of seven prototypes in the end, is communicating via the underlying concepts, through the designer-mediator.
The project was developed in a distant working collaboration over the Internet with Kerstin Nigsch from TU Vienna architecture. Using an online library called reBrain (http://www.arch.kth.se/eurb/rebrain/) made it possible to keep track of each others progress and invite others to read and interact with the project.
As a general concept, I am trying to give physical qualities to mediated experiences and mediate physical environments, to blur the threshold in-between. To make this more clear, I would like to briefly introduce four of the Prototypes.
The social habits for an architecture as media are already existing with the use of mobile phones, Internet, and so on. This condition makes these issues relevant for architects, looking into how material qualities can be extended through media and how this can mediate local spaces to distant spaces.
The diploma — Mediated Spaces (KTH, 2002)
me·di·at·ed, adj. — acting through, involving, or dependent on an intervening agency.
Mediated Spaces is a MSc of Architecture research project with the aim of exploring spaces of mediation in various scales: between the human, the physical and the virtual, between the local environment and the ubiquitous global digital media.
The project is carried out through the making of seven instrumental prototypes, that are testing concepts and experiences in a 1 to 1 scale, and are forming a rhizomatic system, informing each other back and forth. The method has been re-appropriating already existing concepts and technology in a playful way to breed new experiences.
Key concepts:
- Experience — giving physical qualities to mediated (global) experiences and mediating physical (local) environments, blurring this threshold
- Method — playful use and abuse of mass-produced technology and software; systems thinking, research through design
- Prototype — testing concepts from the knowledge base reBrain, testing the experience
- Collaborative space — group work; academic, art and commercial platforms
The expression — giving physical qualities to mediated experiences and mediating physical environments, blurring this threshold — means that electronic media like projections, sound and screens can gain materiality, and can be embedded into local environments, both spatially and time-wise.
While pursuing a personal agenda, many of the prototypes were done in collaboration with others on various platforms. The development was recorded on a website called reBrain — an online library shared with Kerstin Nigsch, a diploma student from TU Vienna, allowing a continuous discussion while working in different cities.
The diploma was presented through an interactive system map — a rhizomatic diagram connecting the concepts and the seven prototypes. The original Flash presentation plays below.
Prototype 1 — Satellite Algorithms
Spaces of algorithmic motion are linked to physical devices
A fictional entity called Satellite was created playing out complexity science concepts. It can generate spaces from various algorithmic behaviors.
To enrich the belief of the existence of these satellites, a physical model of it was created, and a film to illustrate its behavior outside the computer. It is a fictional project based on scientific data.
Images of the physical model - Screenshots of the virtual satellite
Interactive observation of this virtual entity
2001 q4 · 21Kb, Flash, Electrograph, Sound · Adam Somlai-Fischer, A+Url
Prototype 2 — Screen Threshold
Giving physical qualities to a mediated entity, blurring the threshold
You can blow on the satellite and the wind gets through the glass and hits it. There is also a magnet, which interferes with the technology of the screen and gives color to the otherwise white virtual space.
These interfaces have started giving physical qualities to this virtual entity.
To extend the experience of this prototype, the next aim became to open up this threshold, to get into this space that lies between the physical device and the dance of the satellite.
2002 q1 · 50*50 cm, 41Kb, Flash, CRT Screen, Deconstructed Mouse, Magnetism, Wind · Adam Somlai-Fischer, A+Url
Prototype 3 — Backpack Dance
Biofeedback instrument mediating music to dance. 20 testers personal behavior documented. Gives physical qualities to music
This device has been tested on 20 individuals in Budapest and Vienna.
The design of it is quite simple, with breaking off the amplifier from and old radio, and using a cheap microcontroller(Basic Stamp).
Although 20 different users have tested it, there where no two similar reactions.
2002 q2 · 30*50 cm, 6Kb, Music, Microcontroller, Radio, People · Kerstin Nigsch and Adam Somlai-Fischer, A+Url
Prototype 4 — Installation for Learning Lab
Taking the backpack experience to a communal level
The tones you could hear when you observed someone walking by the prints, but the discussion you could only hear when you have walked yourself. This was achieved through hidden sensors in the floor that you stepped on.
The communal experience became interesting, some if the visitors where starting to collaborate, and step in and out together to understand the installation. A social space was created.
2002 q2 · 80 m2, 200Mb, Sound showers, lights, Kodály hand signs, solmization · Olivier Frances, German Bender Pulido, Martin Larsson, Adam Somlai-Fischer
Prototype 5 — Allende Arquitectos Website
Informing a virtual space with qualities of a physical model
Images of the physical model
The virtual structure is responsive, it is aware of the visitors presence and rearranges its legs dependent on the visitors position.
2002 q3 · 40Kb, Steel, Flash · Nagy Peter Sándor, Pozna Anita, Adam Somlai-Fischer
Prototype 6 — Remote Home
Mediation of two small architectural spaces. Compound of previous ideas on a communal level.
The setup of the exhibition: London - Virtual space - Berlin. An old laptop hanging in the middle is running the whole installation using Flash.
The Interactive Lounge Table in London and the Sound Shaft in Berlin - disassembled mouse and keyboard
The Lounge table picks up a responsive media projection that follows its movement and shifts music to the other side when touched.
2002 q4 · 20m2, 4000Kb, Flash, Mouse, Keyboard, Projection, Sound, Milk, Fabric, Steel, Aluminum, · Tobi Schneidler (project leader), Magnus Jonsson, Adam Somlai-Fischer, Smart Studio, Interactive Institute
Prototype 7 — Installation for Magasin
Mediation of a cultural space
Here you see an Allegory collage for larger scale scenarios, where similar local initiatives could link up to form a network and share their events through people and technology mediating the spaces.
This interactive video shows a new use of the keyboard transparency. It is placed directly on a computer screen so one can touch the digital media.
2003 q1 · 150 m2, Computers, Keyboards · Kerstin Nigsch and Adam Somlai-Fischer
Conclusion
The aim of the investigation was to inform physical spaces with new digital media and interaction technology, blurring this threshold between the physical and the virtual, between the local and the global.
Architecture as media. Many new social conditions make these issues relevant for architects. Since our environments are more and more defined by technology, and our memories become mediated — viewing the world through representations — these media should be included within the tools an architect works with. Being new, one cannot really know their qualities without testing; again, this has been the reason for 1-to-1 scale prototyping. The tests showed that these qualities can create a strong personal or communal experience; later stages speculate on larger scenarios, even suggesting possibilities for building- or city-scale applications.
Systems thinking — interactivity. There is a fascination in looking at buildings as complex systems with a dynamic nature: how the space becomes aware of us being there through inputs, outputs, sensors. Perhaps this resembles nature itself. Interactivity on its own generates non-uniform output and breeds diversity, because different people have different uses — no two persons danced the same way with the backpack. The user of architecture is invited to share the authorship.
Various platforms. Part of the work was produced on external platforms besides the main line at A+URL: research organizations like the Interactive Institute, art venues like the Fisher Gallery’s Responsive Environments exhibition, commercial tests at Allende Arquitectos in Madrid. It was very interesting to see how different contexts take on different qualities of this research, and how things are tested between different professionals.
Playfully abusing technology. Re-appropriating mass-produced tools from their original use. It is not creating new things — it is altering existing ones. Is overconsumption related to overproduction? Should I create new things, or should I alter existing ones?
Concepts drawn from Vilém Flusser’s glossary; Philosophy of Complexity (Chris Lucas); “use and abuse of the tools” (Fredrik Jönsson); “creativity of use” (Jonathan Hill on Barthes); Kevin Kelly, Out of Control. Course frame: Peter Hasdell + Ana Betancour, A+URL, 2001.
Credits
Mediated Spaces is a MSc of Architecture project by Adam Somlai-Fischer at the Architecture + Urban Research Laboratory, Royal Institute of Technology, School of Architecture, Stockholm
Supervisors: Ana Betancour and Peter Hasdell
Course Assistants: Erik Wingquist and Harald Keijer
Collaborators for the prototypes: Kerstin Nigsch, Tobi Schneidler, Magnus Jonsson, Nagy Peter Sándor, Pozna Anita, Olivier Frances, German Bender Pulido, Martin Larsson. For specific credits please visit the project website.