" The architecture .../... will be a means of modifying present conceptions of time and space... It will be a means of knowledge and a means of actions." Gilles Ivain alias Ivan Chtcheglov, 1958
We will act to defend architecture that is plural, used, complex, diverse, real and alive; architecture that is about action and interaction, formation and deformation, transormation and appropriation.
Situation Room as playground for [re] creation, collective action, active occupation, open demonstration, and social games will be intuitive, interactive and collective performance, showing an everyday life tools and knowledge Directory. For architecture of process, of fabrication, reaction and interaction, members of Exyzt will inhabit the gallery space, making use of the furnishings as though it were a domestic space.
More than showing past projects, we choose to set up a platform for creation and solidarity inviting people to transform the classic use of the gallery, to experiment diversity of programs and activities with basic cheap materials as moving boxes activated with the Storefront staff.
We propose a platform for action, defending an architecture that is alive. EXYZT shakes up the idea of architecture as an independent field. Working on experimental projects, EXYZT invites architecture, video, graphic-design, botany and any other concept to become devices of expression and creation.
Like a series of disparate notes, ready-to-assemble elements will be put together in situ to create this modular, domestic place, rapidly assembled viral constructions that can be implemented to create and augment a social space. Little by little, each limb of this strange apartment will grow new functions, allowing its users to do more and more things, to occupy and work in its ever-changing space. After the basic living space has been assembled an essential urban infrastructure will be added: water, electricity, radio, TV, Internet, etc... Once complete, a vast variety of individual modules will occupy the gallery space to be used for a moment, a day, or a whole night. Lightness, speed and flexibility will be essential ingredients of the Set-up.
The collective carries out temporary setups. Each project is in line with precise and determined time and special frame. The units can be shaped and rearranged to become a living and sitting space, a workspace equipped with a desk, computers and tools, or a dining room, among other forms. From week to week the space will evolve, taking on different ephemeral forms and functions with the public. The situation becomes the physical medium through which a creative and collective game is expressed. The series of projects questions the relationship between public and private and encourages the audience to move from being a spectator to be an actor too.
Exyzt invites the audience to reconsider occupied areas in a well-defined time-frame. The collective conceive and organize each project as a ludic playground where cultural behaviours and shared stories relate, mix and mingle.
Created in 2003 on the initiative of five architects, they produced and organized a first self-construction and self-documented project on a abandoned plot of land in Parc de la Villette, in Paris. By opening up to various fields, the collective group attempts to render architecture into a different perspective.
Our team is now a community of people who have chosen to act under the same principle of sharing knowledge and abilities, imagining the environment as the terrain of a participatory game, a site for play and appropriation, creating 'transient micro ambiances' as Guy Debord described the constucted situation.
Construction will constitute the first movement. Act!
+ FURNITURES: Philippe Rizzotti (architect) + Alexander Romer (architect) + GRAPHICS: Dägmar Dudinsky (Graphic Designer) + Guests + LIGHT SET-UP: Philippe DeAngeli (Light Master) + Brice Pelleschi (Photographer) + VIDEO SET-UP: Pier Schneider (architect) + François Wunschel (architect) + SOUND Cooking: Christophe Goutes (music composer)
+ LIVE: Mike Ladd + Fernando Favier + Guests
MARCH 31 - APRIL 4, 2009 POSTOPOLIS! LOS ANGELES
A live 5-day blogathon of back-to-back discussions, interviews, panel talks, slideshows, films and parties with scheduled and unscheduled guests, themed around landscape and the built environment.
Hosted by ArchDaily/Plataforma Arquitectura, BLDGBLOG, City of Sound, Subtopia, Mudd Up!, We Make Money Not Art
On occasion of Los Angeles Art Weekend, Storefront for Art and Architecture and ForYourArt are pleased to announce Postopolis! LA, a live five-day event of near-continuous conversation about architecture, art, urbanism, landscape, and design to be held in Los Angeles from 31 March to 4 April 2009. Six bloggers, from five different cities around the world, will host a series of discussions, interviews, slideshows, panels, talks, and presentations, fusing the informal energy and interdisciplinary approach of the architectural blogosphere with the immediacy of face-to-face interaction.
Over the course of five days, the six host bloggers will invite 40+ participants from a multitude of fields including architecture, urban planning, geology, defense, publishing, game design, artistic practice, oceanography, music, politics and many others to give brief presentations, each followed by a public discussion.
Postopolis! LA follows in the footsteps of the first groundbreaking edition of Postopolis! held in New York in May 2007, hosted by BLDGBLOG, City of Sound, Inhabitat and Subtopia and attended by several thousand people over a period of five days. It will be an opportunity to reflect on how blogs are participating in, redefining, and sometimes even leading the architectural conversation today, on the street, in schools, as well as in practicing design firms.
Postopolis! LA will be hosted by the following six blogs:
ArchDaily (English) & Plataforma Arquitectura (Spanish) Author: David Basulto (Santiago, Chile) Plataforma Arquitectura and ArchDaily focus on connecting architects and designers from around the world to debate about design in general and the current state of practice. Plataforma Arquitectura started in early 2006, and ArchDaily launched in March 2008. While both blogs share similar goals, they follow different approaches. The authors of ArchDaily have been traveling to the US constantly to interview architects who have an important role in education, public policy, or practice itself. Plataforma Arquitectura has become a powerful voice that has given more visibility to the Latin American architects as it reunites them and gathers their problems/rants/concerns acting as a whole. Plataforma Arquitectura is the most-read Spanish language architecture blog in the world.
BLDGBLOG Author: Geoff Manaugh (San Francisco) Geoff Manaugh is senior editor of Dwell magazine and the author of BLDGBLOG, a 2006 Yahoo! Top 25 Pick of the Year and a Time Magazine Style & Design Top 100 blog for 2007. Since its launch in 2004, BLDGBLOG has been read by more than 5 million people. Manaugh has been called "the world's greatest living practitioner of 'architecture fiction'" by Bruce Sterling, and one of the 50 "most influential architects, designers, and thinkers" in the field today by Icon magazine. Geoff Manaugh was a participant in the first edition of Postopolis!, held in New York in 2007.
City of Sound Author: Dan Hill (Sydney, Australia) City of Sound is a blog about cities, architecture, design, media, and culture-often colliding in the same post on the imagined connections between travel writing and design, or football and architecture. Dan Hill was a participant in the first edition of Postopolis! in New York City, 2007.
Subtopia Author: Bryan Finoki (San Francisco) Subtopia began as a site where research on the broad topic of "military urbanism" could be gathered. As time went on, Subtopia evolved into a larger, ongoing chronicle of how different Orwellian trends in urbanism engage the geopolitical process of constructing and living in cities all over the world today. In the world of architecture blogging, Subtopia is one of the most fascinating and unique destinations. Bryan Finoki was a participant in the first edition of Postopolis! in New York City, 2007.
Mudd Up! Author: Jace Clayton (New York) Jace Clayton is a writer & musician based in Brooklyn. His essays have appeared in such places as The Washington Post, Frieze, The Fader, Wire, Bidoun, The National, n+1, Abitare, and on his blog, Mudd Up! As a musician, he's performed in over 25 countries, released records on Soul Jazz & Tigerbeat6, DJ'ed in a band with Norah Jones, done two John Peel Sessions, and was turntable soloist with the 80-member Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. Jace Clayton hosts a weekly radio show on NYC-area FM station WFMU, 91.1 fm, featuring lots of international exclusives and live guests.
We Make Money Not Art Author: Régine Debatty (Paris, France) The blog we-make-money-not-art.com (WMMNA) is a series of reports on art exhibitions, architecture events, conferences on digital culture, and design festivals taking place all over the world. The blog also features interviews with creative people, book reviews and visits to art and design schools. WMMNA won a Webby Award in both 2006 and 2007 for best personal/cultural blog and a Media Guardian Innovation Award in 2008 as Best Independent Blog. In addition to writing about the intersection between art, design, and technology, Régine Debatty also curates art shows, organizes discussion panels, and lectures internationally about the ways that artists, hackers, and interaction designers continue to(mis)use technology.
(Logo design by Joe Alterio)
Save the Date: May 5, 2009 Storefront Spring Benefit
Honoring gallerist Max Protetch and artist Madelon Vriesendorp and thanking former Board President Belmont Freeman
Co-Chaired by André Balazs and Shirin Neshat To be held at The Standard, New York Designed by Polshek Partnership Architects 848 Washington Street, NYC
With a silent auction featuring works by Vito Acconci, Tony Feher, Dan Graham, Steven Holl, Shirin Neshat, SANAA, Sze Cheung Leong and many others
For tickets and additional information, please visit www.storefrontnews.org or contact Holly Greenfield at 212 868-8450 x206 or Holly@Livetreichard.com
