SPEAKERS
Lara Lesmes + Fredrik Hellberg
Space Popular | Spain/ UK
Art and Architecture of Virtual Space
Space Popular is directed by Lara Lesmes & Fredrik Hellberg. The practice creates physical spaces, buildings, interiors, furnishings, and virtual architecture, concentrating on how the two will be fused in the future. Lara and Fredrik are visiting professors at Daniels, University of Toronto, and in past years have led Master studios at the Architectural Association in London and INDA in Bangkok.
http://www.spacepopular.com/
Shaun McCallum
iheartblob | Austria/ UK
The Architectural Object
iheartblob is an award winning architectural design studio and research collective formed by Aleksandra Belitskaja, Ben James and Shaun McCallum, currently based in Vienna. The studio has a strong focus on the Architectural Object, yet, draws on core tenets from an array of philosophical and theoretical principles whilst exploring new models of architectural thinking and constructing. The work is meant to both enchant and reflect on the crisis of thought which runs through architecture today by investigating new and established ideas as though they were materials, engaging seriously with hard hitting agendas, whilst remaining at a distance from full immersion.
Jimenez Lai
Bureau Spectacular | USA
Cartoons about Architecture
Jimenez Lai was born in Taiwan, grew up in Canada and lives in Los Angeles. Before Bureau Spectacular, Lai lived in a desert shelter at Taliesin and resided in a shipping container at Atelier Van Lieshout on the piers of Rotterdam. Lai is widely exhibited and published around the world, including the MoMA-collected White Elephant. His first book, Citizens of No Place, was published by Princeton Architectural Press with a grant from the Graham Foundation. Lai's work has been collected by MoMA, SFMOMA, Art Institute of Chicago, and LACMA.
Sandra Youkhana + Luke Casper Pearson
You + Pea | UK
Videogame Urbanism
You+Pea is the architectural design studio of Sandra Youkhana and Luke Caspar Pearson. Their work explores the integration of videogame technologies into architectural design, leading conversations on how games can engage new participants in the design of cities. They work with cultural and educational institutions, industry partners, developers, and city planners to bridge the gap between multiple disciplines and provoke new conversations about the future of architectural design through the use of games. Sandra and Luke established and lead the Videogame Urbanism studio at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where they use game technologies to realize urban design research.
Dhruv Jani
Studio Oleomingus | India
The Counterfeit Realities of Interactive Fiction
Dhruv Jani is the founder of a game & arts studio called Oleomingus; Where he practices at the intersection of post colonial writing, speculative architecture and interactive fiction. He uses games to study colonial power structures and the histories that they occlude and how hypertext might be used to pollute a single reductive record of the past or of a people.
Christian Huberts
Germany
Remembering with Games
Born 1982, studied “Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice” at the University of Hildesheim and since 2009 successfully works as a cultural and media science publicist based in Berlin.
Currently, he is a freelance editor and author for the games bookazine WASD, he curates texts on the news aggregator piqd.de and appears regularly as an expert for digital games at cultural events and on radio and TV. Further, he lectures at the University of Applied Sciences Europe in Berlin on the history and theory of games. At the Foundation for Digital Games Culture, he is a project leader for the initiative ‘Remembering with games’.
Biayna Bogosian
USA
Urban Environmental Interfaces
Biayna Bogosian’s academic and professional background extends in the fields of architecture, computational design, environmental design, data science, spatial computing, and media arts. Biayna’s interdisciplinary research has allowed her to understand innovation in design and technology within a broader environmental context and explore data-driven and citizen-centric approaches to improve the built environment.
She has taught in many well-renowned institutes around the world and her interdisciplinary research is supported by a number of National Science Foundation grants. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Media Arts and Practice program at the USC School Cinematic Arts.
Sebastian Quack
Germany
Letting go of immersion – Discoveries at the edges of play
Sebastian Quack works at the intersection of play, participation, and the politics of urban society, as artist, game designer and curator . Sebastian’s work is process-based and cooperative. He regularly teaches art and design, gives talks, and consults organizations on how to engage playfully with the world around them. Sebastian holds an MA in cultural studies and computer science from Humboldt-University Berlin, as well a fellowship from the Graduate School at Berlin University of the Arts.
