MediaArchitecture2007 :: September 11-12, 2007 :: Central Saint Martins Innovation, Central London :: £ 250 registration in advance only here.

Organised by Media Architecture Group in Vienna, the conference will bring together international speakers from the architecture, planning and media communities for the first time to address the increasing integration of new display technologies for building construction. The huge impact of this development for building design and the urban environment will be explored from both theoretical and practical implementation perspectives by leaders in the field. The conference takes place at the same and is co-organised with PLASA, the international lighting exhibition at Earls Court, London.

The Impact of Large Scale Integrated Displays on Architecture and Urbanism: Developments in display technology and building materials are leading to new forms of hybrid architecture that break away from existing conceptions of surface, structure, lighting and moving imagery. Light Emitting Diode (LED) displays integrated with the fabric of built structures allow prominent imagery to be integrated with the façade, even in direct sunlight. Although energy requirements are practical only when displays are used in less bright conditions, there remain significant consequences for the townscape and urban environment; cinematic topias as pervasive as Minority Report and Blade Runner have become technically feasible.

The MediaArchitecture2007 conference creates a new discourse among the latest theoretical and practical approaches. By reviewing outstanding projects and presenting the views of key architectural theorists, media activists, planners, advertisers and artists, the conference will provide the first-depth consideration of the intersection of media and architecture - the premise that architecture and media issues will increasingly be considered together, at the conceptual stages of building planning. Image has become an architectural element; media increasingly pervade the built environment introducing an important ontological element.

MediaArchitecture2007 will address these inversions in several respects:

– the impact on architectural theory of practical media façade systems
– departure of imagery from the confines of the clip towards dynamic creative based on building management and external information
– the practical challenges of large scale displays for urban planning; display viewing design in public spaces
– sustainable display and image data systems that can be specified directly by architects and installed by the construction industry and which are maintainable over the lifetime of a media façade.

Panel 1: New Technologies and New Materials

Media Architecture has been driven by technology - certainly by the refinement of LED components originally used in LED advertising billboards; but also by development of sustainable computing and network systems able to operate extensive façade data systems over the entire life-cycle, and within the maintenance constraints demanded by architects and building owners. conference panel addresses evolution of new building materials bearing ultra-high brightness LEDs and light-steering optics, but it also covers significant issues posed by image generation and diagnostics. Lessons from existing lighting control and building management system installations will be evaluated and sustainable and fault-tolerant computer systems considered. Equally important, the real demands placed on cabling systems and configuration software will be presented in the context of survivability, maintenance and the need for installation and support within an expanded construction industry.

Panel 2: Media Urbanism

The emergence of ubiquitous LED media creates new challenges for the urban space. While experience with LED lighting and moving imagery billboards during the last ten years has given rise to concerns of light pollution and regulation in some cities to prevent ingress of television-style advertising into the public space, the evolution of media architecture presents more complex issues. LED replacement of basic building lighting will produce huge energy savings during the next ten years and substitution of traditional neon brand marks leads to similar reductions in maintenance costs. Moreover, new LED lighting of unprecedented brightness allows whole building structures, rather than signage alone, to reflect corporate branding. These technologies, as much as display elements built into structural elements, shaders and cladding will transform the urban environment as much as electric light did during the last century. Unlike conventional lighting, however, LED media is readily networked; able to carry information - cultural as well as corporate - it creates a new medium in the public space.

Panel 3 - Media Architecture

Media Façades precipitate a shift in the relationship between the building and its cladding. Commentators such as Venturi have written about this evolution for many years, but now that practical and economic technologies have become available, both theoretical and practical implementation issues must be addressed. From the dialogue between geometrical structure and image: information and ornament; to the changing function of architectural surface, this panel will bring together theorists of international standing in one of the first in-depth considerations of media architecture. The panel will also address the significant practical implications of simulation, planning and specification of media façades from the conceptual stages of a new build to the installation, warranty and maintenance of integrated power, data and display equipment. As significantly, given the very outset of practical solutions, the panel will also investigate expected future developments – the nature of architectural media systems in the near and distant future.

Panel 4: The Image in Public Space

There is a fundamental relationship between public imagery and architecture which dates from the earliest built structures, and at one level new display technologies simply layer upon this history. However, at other levels new media are forging a paradigm shift in this relationship. Firstly, media façades already combine aspects of lighting and graphics in formats determined by the architecture, and differ fundamentally and not just in resolution from the rectilinear image. Secondly, moving imagery has increasingly become interactive and emergent - synthesised from or driven by information from the environment, whether it be from within the building or from the outside world, through channels such as the internet - displacing narrative clips originating in other media. Such notions of the building/environment as author promote lighting and image as significant elements of the visual perception of the three dimensional structure of the architecture.

The relationship between media architecture and fine art is less clear, however. Constraints of display resolution – often a fraction of a conventional video image - and complicated access from mobile devices reduce the potential scope of media art works. It is possible that imagery for architectural displays will become the preserve of a new class of content makers more closely related to the fields of lighting and event design than that of art.

Speakers & Curators include: Bart Lootsma, Ludger Hovestadt, Realities United, Andrew Shoben, Kari Jormakka, Joachim Sauter, David Cunningham, Mark Dorrian, Hermann Eisenköck, Patricia Austin, Tim Pritlove, Michael Batz, Peter Cornwell, Kathrin Kur, Andreas Rumpfhuber, Oliver Schürer, Mirjam Struppek, Jim Thrower, Gernot Tscherteu.

Contact: Gernot Tscherteu Conference Manager:
gt[at]realitylab.at or Kathrin Kur Programme Manager: kathrin[at]mediaarchitecture.com