gallery talk summary

Today I had the honor and pleasure to present my work to my friends and colleagues. I thank everyone for their time, but mostly for their thoughtful questions that made me think my own work. 

Here is the summary of the talk:

about me: most of my work is small scale structures or art installations. through them i explore immaterial qualities of space; the engagement of the user; and their capacity (as both affordable and quick) to intervene in problematic situations and affect them.

about the exhibition: Speak!Listen!Act! explores architecture as a catalyst for social space and public action. 

what is the context / discourse in relation to public space: there are three different entities - and three types of discussions about public space, very different to each other: the social and political scientists and philosophers discuss the trio of public space/domain/sphere, and how public-ness has been affected by the cyberspace and what happens within public domain, Internet, and the social media. although we often think public domain is democratic, it is rarely a space for debate 

about public space / the bigger challenges of public space: less democratic, less spatial, less ours. but it used to be that public space through the well-known example of the ancient athenian agora, it was the center for not only social, artistic, commercial and athletic life, but also civic/political. it is where people voted and decided about the commons.

this exhibition is one instance of this research and pedagogy on building an architectural approach that is more social

other media i use/consider to disseminate and explore these ideas: op-ed/media, experiential learning studio, the need to connect to multiple types of audience

the three categories: adaptive structures, tectonics of democratization, playful micro-tectures

the function of the verbs / reference to Richard Serra
how I use art installation (versus installations as part of the digital fabrication)
building a language / dissertation

on axonometric drawing

about architectural activism

And the questions:

Can you present a project from each of the three categories?
Can you explain the project Street Warrior?
How does you work relate to the Internet and the public domain?
Why did you chose to use the verbs share and the exchange?
Why do you use the verb act for The Cage? Is it theatrical?
Why are you showing this particular project?
How it relates to Tony Smith's Die?

Gallery Talk Poster

Excited to give a gallery talk today at 2pm for my Speak! Listen! Act! exhibition at Dartmouth.

Come visit the gallery!

Saturday October 29, 2016, 2pm at Strauss Gallery, Dartmouth College.

[link]

Poster & photograph: Dimitris Papanikolaou

Speak! Listen! Act! gallery talk

Please join me for a gallery talk for my Speak! Listen! Act! A kaleidoscope of architectural elements for public space exhibition on Saturday October 29, 2016, 2pm at Strauss Gallery, Dartmouth College.

For more information, please visit The Dartmouth news [Link]

bz @FORUM

Invited to lead an educational two-hour session during American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) annual FORUM. Here is the information about the topic of lecture/panel discussion with former students.


Shaking Foundations – The Art re(Turn) in Architecture
with Zenovia Toloudi

Borrowing his father’s metaphor, Pedro Gadanho characterizes the architectural profession as “cannibalistic,” being destroyed from within: a system of consumption in which young unpaid interns grow to either hate or replicate it. Current systems in architecture education reinforce this condition, leading to further division in the community. Creativity and experimentation are discouraged in contemporary corporate culture where the focus is on bottom-line profits. Architectural education and practice remain competitive and wedded to the rich-client/genius architect model resulting in a lack of equal opportunities for all. This session critiques and challenges this model, by taking an alternative approach. It is based on an artistic/architectural pedagogical model developed by Zenovia Toloudi and practice of Studio Z: Through specific examples and methods that “attack” architectural education/practice from its foundations to early professional years, the session showcases how architecture can become more experimental, more creative and more relevant to contemporary life through art. In particular, how the artistic approach can contribute to reconfigure the core essence of architecture whereby creating a new tradition.

Session as part of Track 4. It will be help on Friday December 30, 2016 between 2-4pm, at Westin Copley Place

About Track 4: Fabricating The Future | Sponsored by: GENSLER
 Discover what is at the heart of today’s innovation, tackling urban and cultural problems worldwide, alongside new technologies that are changing the design world. Think outside the box with researchers from the city’s most prestigious schools and test upcoming 3D tools that are taking the process of design to another level. Take this opportunity to challenge your mind, and to question what the world once thought to be impossible. It is time to exceed our own limits – time for change.

Polysensorial Installations - Architectural Apparatuses

Polysensorial Installations - Architectural Apparatuses

Sealed or windowless buildings disconnect humans from nature, disrupt their biological rhythms, and eventually cause them a series of problematic conditions. This talk presents a series of polysensorial installations that intervene in problematic spaces and act as architectural apparatuses for immaterial transformations of space. These apparatuses are primarily structural elements (walls, horizontal surfaces, objects, and modular systems) but can also constitute living structures that evolve in space, or playful "microtectures" that challenge perception, reveal immaterialities, and map the spatiotemporal changes. They engage subjectivity, the body, and the environment. By serving as a means to manipulate the surrounding environment, they constantly shape the way we perceive it. 

Title and abstract of my talk, as part of the Audiovisual Synthesis Workshop in the Woods.

bz @Workshop in the Woods

Invited to be part of the Audiovisual Workshop in the Woods this Fall. Very excited with this intellectual adventure.

About the Workshop

The Digital Musics graduate program of the Dartmouth College Music Department is hosting its third annual Workshop in the Woods on Audio and Visual Synthesis fromOctober 21 to October 23, 2016 at Pierce’s Inn in Etna, New Hampshire.

The workshop is free to admitted attendees and includes meals and group lodging. The workshop is generously supported by Bregman Media Labs, the Graduate Program in Digital Musics, and the Neukom Institute.

This workshop brings together artists, musicians, composers, designers, architects, scientists, and engineers for a collaborative three day workshop on procedural, parametric, algorithmic, and generative means of creating audio, video, and objects.

The workshop will be located in a remote setting where participants will have free reign to roam the grounds, take hikes, and gather by a campfire at night. The evenings include performances and collective audio-visual synthesis improv sessions.

weekend order

A package from the summer

bz @MIT core reviews

μπορεί μιά πρόσοψη να τραγουδάει;

Valéry on architecture and music:

ΣΩΚΡΑΤΗΣ: :- Οι τέχνες, όμως για τις οποίες μιλούμε, χρωστούν, αντίθετα, να γεννήσουν μέσα μας, με τους αριθμούς και με τις μαθηματικές σχέσειε, όχι ένα μύθο, αλλά την κρυφήν εκείνη δύναμη που φτιάχνει όλους τους μύθους. Ανυψώνουν την ψυχή σε τόνο δημιουργικό και την κάνουν ηχηρή και γόνιμη. Στην υλκή και αγνήν αυτήν αρμονία που της μεταδίνουν, αποκρίνεται αυτή με ανξάντλητην αφθονία εξηγήσεων και μύθων που σχηματίζει χωρίε προσπάθεια῾ και για την ακατανίκητην αυτή συγκίνηση που της επιβάλλουν τα υπολογισμένα σχήμετα και τα διαστήματα τα σωστά, δημιουργεί ατέλειωτες φανταστικές αιτίες όπου την κάνουν να ζει χίλιες ζωές καπληκτικά γρήγορες και συγχωνεμένες τη μιά μεσ᾽ στην άλλη. 

ΦΑΙΔΡΟΣ: - Ούτε η ζωγραφική, ούτε η ποίηση δεν έχουν τέτοια αρετή.

ΣΩΚΡΑΤΗΣ¨ -  ....    ....Αλλά η μουσική και η αρχιτεκτονική μας κάνουν να σκεφτούμε ολωσδιόλου άλλα πράγματα από αυτές τις ίδιες᾽ βρίσκονται στη μέση του κόσμου τοὐτου σα μνημεία ενός κόσμου άλλου᾽ ή καλύτερα, σαν τα σκόρπια εδώ κι εκεί παραδείγματα μιας κατασκευής και μιάς διάρκειας, που δεν ανήκουν στα πραγματικά όντα, αλλά στις μορφές και σους νόμους....     ....

ΦΑΙΔΡΟΣ: - ....     .... Πώς το άγαλμα μας κάνει να σκεφτόμαστε ίσα ίσα το άγαλμα και μόνο, αλλά πως η μουσική δε μας αναγκάζει να στοχαζόμαστε τη μουσική την ίδια, ούτε μια οικοδομή την άλλη; Έτσι μόνο -αν έχεις δίκιο- μπορεί μια πρόσοψη να τραγουδάει. ....     ....

....     ....

ΣΩΚΡΑΤΗΣ - Τί είπαμε; Το κοινό στοιχείο  που έχουν οι δύο τέχνες είναι πως επιβάλλουν στην πέτρα, και μεταδίνουν στον αέρα, νοητές μορφές᾽ πως δε μιμούνται παρά όσο το δυνατό λιγότερο.

σελίδα 58, 59, 60...

singing buildings

"Valéry brings Socrates and Phaedrus together out of Hades to discuss an imaginary recollection of architectural form—arguably a vision of a modern aesthetics halting the mobilized world through timeless beauty. Eupalinos is the name of this Platonic dialogue, after the ancient Greek architect who, according to Phaedrus, had the great ability to put things in order. Under his direction, formless stacks of stones were organized into the most beautiful architecture. By connecting the regular and the irregular, Eupalinos could create clear and organized forms and immersive space. Inside this quasi-total work, humans could move around and feel their presence in the world, either in silence or with a pleasant murmur Inside Eupalinos’s buildings, people could even find sublimation without effort. As he told Phaedrus in conversation, Eupalinos believed that, in realizing architecture, he built himself.

Phaedrus reports that this great architect—actually a Greek engineer who built a huge tunnel in the sixth century BC—differentiated between buildings that were mute, those that talked, and those that could sing. The mute can only be despised for their arbitrary, if sometimes pleasant forms. Those buildings content to talk Eupalinos identifies with prisons, which allow their prisoners to sigh, with department stores that provide inviting halls, readily accessible stairs, and bright, roomy spaces for businessmen, and with courthouses, whose huge masses of stone, plain walls, and few entrances can accommodate the verdicts and punishments of justice in all its majesty and rigor. Finally, Eupalinos unfolds to Phaedrus the magnificent image of the huge—singing—buildings that could be admired at the harbors.Their pure white wings reached out into the sea to protect the basins. Such a project, Eupalinos explains, meant to dare Neptune himself. Mountains had to be dismantled and poured into the waters that were to be enclosed; boulders had to be laid against the moving depth of the sea. Thus, the buildings created broad and still harbors of spiritual clarity that even gained in force through the contingent nature surrounding them. They were beautifully necessary and pure like musical tones. According to Eupalinos, singing buildings were harmonious in that they included the human body in their own system. They reflected human organic balance in its perfect proportions, and thereby became an instrument of life. As these balanced buildings discovered their position between body and mind, they exhibited their true relations."

Text excerpt by Mona Mahall, "Globalism in its Mobilized Form,"e-flux [LINK] 

bz @routledge

The physical copy of the magnificent Routledge Companion on Biology, Art + Architecture is here! It is a great honor to have contributed a chapter, under the title: "Architecture & Living Matter(s): From Art/Architectural Installations to Metabolic Aesthetics"

door to ambiances

volos architecture school