How do we imprint our history in space? Drawings and sketches documenting history in housings and on cave walls can be found in many cultures, providing a path of communication between inhabitants of different times and generations.
‘Woven Memory’ is a light, medium-scale structure, constructed from digitally manipulating bamboo, a traditional building material in Taiwan. This modular space, designed by architects Manuel Jimenez Garcia and Christina Dahdaleh, uses a new way of computing flexible materials and is made by binding together single bamboo stalks to create a structural ecology. The linear pieces provide a framework for stretching fabrics to be later inscribed with laser-printed patterns. Reinterpreting old photography techniques, artist Shih Wei Chieh impregnates these fabrics with a photosensitive emulsion, and uses sound-controlled laser beams to slowly expose the developing chemical. With the emulsion on the fabric remaining active, the exposure continues throughout the duration of the exhibition, leaving marks that visualize the passage of time, and the decay of memory.
The main structure in the exhibition was created in Taipei, and built with the collaboration of Space Media Festival workshop participants who manually bent and assembled hundreds of pieces of bamboo. A similar smaller structure fabricated in London with industrial robots accompanies it, offering a counterpoint between human-made vs machine-made.
Shih Wei Chieh will give two live audio-visual performances, laser inscribing the photosensitive structure, and marking the beginning of the decay of memory (Dec 2 & 3).
Design team: Manuel Jiménez García, Wei Chieh Shih, Christina Dahdaleh
Robotic manufacturing: Alvaro Lopez, Vicente Soler, Seiichi Suzuki Erazo
Manufacturing and assembly: Space Media Festival Taipei workshop participants
Project supported by: Dezact, Modern Body Festival, The Bartlett School of Architecture UCL
Commissioned for Space Media Festival 2016 (Taipei) and Modern Body Festival 2016 (The Hague).
Architectural installation &
2 audiovisual performances
Date
December 2-3
Time
12:00 – 20:00 (exhibition)
2 Dec, 17:00-17:30 (performance)
3 Dec, 17:00-17:30 (performance)
Venue
Pavilloen Baruch (Gemak)
Module
Exhibition
MBF x DEZACT
Weblinks
Manuel Jiménez García
Shih Wei-Chieh
Workshop: I – Encoding Flexible Data
BIOS
Manuel Jiménez García (UK/ES) is currently Co-Director of MereoLab Research Lab at The Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL)(London). He is also Course Master of Research Cluster 4 at the MArch Graduate Architectural Design (GAD) and Unit Master of MArch Unit 19; in addition, Manuel is curator of the Bartlett Computational Plexus, Coordinator of the BPro Skills Elective Module and Programme Director at the Architectural Association’s Visiting School in Madrid (AAVSM). He has taught and run workshops at Architectural Association’s Design Research Laboratory (AADRL, London), Polytechnic University of Architecture (Madrid), European University Madrid, and L’École Spéciale d’Architecture (Paris). Manuel is the co-founder of Ctrl+M and madMdesign, an architecture practice based in London. He has also worked internationally as an architect for Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Minimaforms, Amid(cero9) and Naja & deOstos. His work has been featured widely in Acadia 2012 (San Francisco), Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (London), X Bienal Española de Arquitectura (Spain), and Rethinking the Human in Technology Driven Architecture 2011 (Greece).
Shih Wei-Chieh (TW) is a media artist, e-textile prototype designer and material researcher. He graduated from Media Communication Design of Taipei Shih Chien University in 2010 and now works as an artist and e-textile consultant in Taipei. His work has been presented in many international platforms and festivals such as CTM Festival Berlin, SXSW Festival Texas, Adafruit NYU, Youfab Festival Tokyo. His material practice focuses on stretchable circuits for textiles, printed circuits, photoelectric chemicals and laser processing of materials. Following a funded 2-month long textile research residency in Mexico and 6-month long fair-trade collaboration with a local NGO (Bandui Lab) and Aztec groups 2013, he was inspired to work with traditional Taiwanese textile communities, and to explore the relation between traditional textile techniques, society, and new materials through technology.
Christina Dahdaleh (UK/JO) is a passionate and enthusiastic designer. She graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL-London) with a Masters in Architecture, under Nannette Jackowski and Ricardo de Ostos, 2015. She holds first class honours for her Bachelor Degree in Architecture from the Kent School of Architecture, 2012. She currently teaches at the Bartlett School of Architecture, is program coordinator at the AA Visiting School of Madrid, and teaches a masters workshop at UEM. Christina also coordinates the Bartlett Plexus lecture series, an initiative to bring together the creative talent of different disciplines related to computation. Aside from teaching, she is part of the research team at MadMDesign (UK), and has worked at RTKL (UK), Guy Holloway architects (UK), Faris and Faris Architects (Jordan) and Jaafar Toukan Architecture (Jordan).