For the VRC Cultural Center Graz, we have dealt the first time with the influence of new media in architecture. The question within this project was to evaluate the duty of architecture when cyberspace
provides a parallel world with unlimited spatial experiences. We developed this project 1992/93 in relation to the discussion of virtual
and physical reality. In this context we have investigated various overlappings of space. Today we know that this division of realities is
contradictory
to synergies between mediated and actual environments. Also the extension of the virtual reality discourse beyond the new media creates an unpractical frame (a mirror creates virtual space, too). Today with the development of mobile communication tools, wireless LAN, e-mail and internet our reality is already extended and architecture has
new duties and potentials
to work with. Our interest is to investigate this new duties and potentials of architecture, question new typologies and integrate new life conductions into architecture.al reality.
In our proposal for the ETH World competition in
Zurich we dealt with the virtual representation
of existing spatial networks for a “virtual campus”. It was crucial how to connect these two spaces in their meaning and differences to
give a
better orientation in the datascape and in the real campus. Especially this project has raised the before mentioned doubt about the dichotomy of virtual and physical reality.
Information and communication technologies
are more interesting to us since they are increasingly penetrating our every day life. Mobile networking by mobile phones, wireless LAN and GPS represented by SMS-messages or car-navigation systems are already in-separatable parts of our daily experience.
Electronic Medias have their own potentials
and provide their own context which has to be researched, understood and integrated into the design process in the same way the physical context and sun light is integrated. For the exhibition
“In Touch”
for the artist group Obzone we have investigated the precise spatial and communicational interrelations of media channels. For the study “Serve City – Interactive Urbanism” we have researched the local, regional, national and global context of accessible services within the world wide web.
