In a society obsessed with the visual, there is an increasing tendency to mistake good images with good architecture. Non-existent spaces are discussed as if they were real buildings, and it is often impossible to determine which designs are built or not. Even real buildings tend to imitate the aesthetics of digital architecture, leading to a hyperreal experience of physical spaces. However, the reproduction of an object is not equivalent to it - ceci n’est pas architecture.
Is it possible to find an antidote to this retinal architecture?
As a curatorial collective, we see in contemporary art the possibility to open up new perspectives regarding architectural production and representation. Consequently, we propose an exhibition - taking place in both real and virtual space - looking at artistic practices that conceive spaces capable of highlighting and uncovering contradictions between digital and real, between hyperreal and physical, between algorithmic and analog.
Felicity Hammond, You Will Enter An Oasis | Installation view, 2015 | Image © Felicity Hammond
Hammond’s computer generated imagery turns the remnants of former industry into immortalized relics, presenting them as new architectural propositions and images of simulated vegetation. She borrows the indeterminate nature of the virtual in order to conceal discarded material that has been deprived of its value, adding new domestic value to it.
Laura Yuile, Visiting Luxury Apartments in London
Yuile constructs recorded performances in which she attends viewings at unfinished luxury apartments in London. She thereby adopts a different persona and attempts to supplement the unfinished buildings with the virtually rendered images that are present in the brochures.
Shawn Maximo, Hacker Bar | installation view CO-WORKERS - The Network As Artist, MAM Paris 2015
In his practice as artist and designer, Maximo conceives immersive and hyperreal environments working with digital rendering technology to realize physical spaces that are the perfect embodiment of virtual images.
Kristin Luke, The Air Inn Venice (Venice Beach, LA), 2015, Image © Kristin Luke
The Air Inn Venice is an artwork which is both a project space and an Airbnb rental. Inverting the process of creating virtually to construct physically, Kristin Luke creates virtual models of the rental that she reproduces and uses as her artwork. She produces live broadcasts using rendered images and 3D printed models, mapping out the network of non-place, real estate and virtual/physical objects.
