metamaquettes

METAMAQUETTES:

Between the Lab and the Site

Metamaquettes: Between the Lab and the Site exhibition presents a body of works exploring subjective perceptions of space and user’s engagement. Metamaquettes (projects) are installations, models, and mock-ups that question their own nature yet create playful spaces in which to explore cognition/perception, scale, light and (im)materiality, while investigating subjectivity, neglected notions about sensory experiences, communal habits, and the ordinary and vernacular elements of culture. Being a composite word that derives from the Greek μετά/meta, and the French maquette, Metamaquette literally translates as after/post/among/beyond the models. Swinging between the real and its representation, Metamaquettes (projects) occupy the liminal space of laboratory-cum-site, becoming simultaneously both experiments and experiences. As Bruno Latour claims that science experimentation has now moved outside the laboratory, to the world wide lab, where we all engage in a series of experiments collectively attempting to survive, Metamaquettes presents new states for projects, where the laboratory and site merge into one: Models and experiments alter to spatial, and public spaces (also galleries and lobbies) turn into opportunities for experiments - in these we all collectively participate to test an idea, witnessing its appeal and prospect. By positioning installations as meta-spaces that depart from the service model of architecture practice, Metamaquettes exhibition lends a fresh perspective on the influence of installations in contemporary architecture. The minimum quality of 
this architecture is subjected to specific costs, materials, and other resources and conditions. However what in Metamaquettes appears as experimental and innovative, will soon become integral part of the new traditional.