The Media Architecture Institute announces the release of Provocations on Media Architecture through Set Margins’.
Out now: / 20 EUR / 23 USD / direct sales through setmargins.press
The integration of various sensors, screens, interfaces, data, and other digital media within architecture and public space—what we call “media architecture”—both involves and demands a diverse range of modes of thinking and fields of expertise. In 2023, the field finds itself tasked with reconciling with its own consequences in order to move through the critical reconditioning charged by the social, political, and economic contexts of now:
How does media architecture distribute suspicion and trust?
What is a collage of media architecture?
How is media architecture vectored?
How can media architecture address privilege?
These questions—probed in this volume as conceptual provocations—aim to challenge the binary of techno-optimism and technological agoraphobia, offering a platform upon which to construct new, critically- and contextually- rooted theories upon which media architecture might grab hold.
Intentionally open-ended and dialogical, Provocations on Media Architecture brings together twenty-one thought leaders across architecture, visual arts, design, curation, academia, and public policy to address these ideas and themes. Authors respond with images and brief texts, incorporating the perspective of their own creative and scholarly practice. Entries range from descriptions of relevant artworks and design projects to reflections spawned from first-person encounters with media architecture in situ to scholarly analyses to AI-assisted theory. These themselves transfigure into a set of provocations, supplanting the original questions which inspired their construction, through which to encourage further theory and practice. Across the diverse and at times contradictory arguments and methods employed, new constellations and connections emerge.
Contributors include Sofian Audry, Sarah Barns, Susan Blight, Stefano Bloch, Brian W. Brush, John Cayley, Eliza Chandler, Lisa East, The Current Team (Provides Ng, Artem Konevskikh, Eli Joteva, Ya Nzi, and GPT2), Martijn De Waal, Sherry Dobbin, Anthea Foyer, Ekene Ijeoma, Jiabao Li, Melissa Mongiat and Mouna Andraos (Daily tous les jours), Matt Nish-Lapidus, Tiemen Rapati, Scott Rodgers, Ozayr Saloojee, Ana Tobin, Anna Weisling, and Hoa Yang.
The Media Architecture Institute is a non-profit organization supporting research within media architecture, urban interaction design, and urban informatics. It brings together architects, artists and designers, leading thinkers on urban design, key industry and government representatives as well as community activists. Together, they explore the design and role of media in the built environment and its implications for urban communities and ecosystems. The Institute was founded in fall 2009 by Dr Gernot Tscherteu, Dr Oliver Schürer, DI Wolfgang Leeb and Dr Martin Tomitsch, and convenes the Media Architecture Biennale (MAB), the world’s premier event on media architecture. This edition is devised as an extension of the Media Architecture Biennale 2023 in Toronto, chaired by Dr Dave Colangelo at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Set Margins’ publications frames current impulses from the margin. As a critical and creative support structure, a platform for production, a network and publisher, Set Margins’ rethinks and evolves visual communication and forms of cooperation. Set Margins’ is founded and directed by curator, editor, writer and graphic designer Freek Lomme.
Ian Callender, editor is a New York City-based multidisciplinary artist and designer exploring the intersection of the built environment and digital technologies. His work has been recognized by, among others, the Architizer A+ Awards and the SEGD Global Design Awards; presented at conferences such as the International Symposium on Electronic Art; published in ArchDaily, Hyperallergic, and MIT’s Thresholds; and exhibited internationally.
Annie Dell’Aria, editor is an Associate Professor of Art History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Her research concerns the intersection of moving image media, contemporary art, and public space. She is the author of The Moving Image as Public Art: Sidewalk Spectators and Modes of Enchantment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) as well as articles and chapters in journals and edited volumes in both art history and media studies. She is Co-Chair of the organization Public Art Dialogue.
