Liebe Grüße aus Graz von Superstudio
ExhibitionExhibition press preview: 20.9.2019, 10 am, please register under presse@hda-graz.at
Artist Talk: 20.09.2019, 17:00
Exhibition opening: 21.9.2019, 1:30 pm
Duration of the exhibition: 21.9.-8.11.2019, Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00
Venue: Haus der Architektur, Mariahilferstraße 2, 8020 Graz, Austria
Free admission
The radical conceptual approach of Superstudio, a group of architects and artists that formed in Florence in 1966, made 20th-century architecture history with the design proposal "The Continuous Monument: An Architectural Model for Total Urbanization" (1969). The first and only constructed version of this design was realized in 1969 in Graz as part of the three-country biennial "trigon 69: architektur und freiheit".
Fifty years after Superstudio responded to the zeitgeist of the 1960s with a criticism of the notions of progress that defined the era, artists and architects of a younger generation now examine the social conditions that accompanied the production and reception of Superstudio’s ideas. Influenced by digital image production, they have developed an immersive environment for the exhibition "Sorry, the file you have requested does not exist.", which examines the role of architects as space designers and explores the future potential of architectural tools. The presented positions address the increasing visualization of the present, questioning not just reality but also the agents that refer to this reality.
Curated by Ludwig Engel, BB Mak
Artists: (ab)normal, Hironaka & Suib, Robin Klengel / Leonhard Müllner, Lion & Unicorn, Vojtěch Rada, Stéphanie Roland, Bernd Trasberger and Superstudio
Scenography: Traumnovelle
Design: Julia Volkmar
Program coordination: Markus Bogensberger, Zerina Džubur
The House of Architecture is part of the Future Architecture Platform, founded in 2015 – the first pan-European platform for architecture institutions, festivals and producers. The focus is visions for the future of architecture in Europe. After an annual open call with young creatives from various disciplines, 23 institutions from 20 countries present an individual event program consisting of exhibitions, conferences, lectures, workshops and much more.
Five of the emerging artits and architects represented in the exhibition were chosen from the Future Architecture Open Call submitters in 2019.
Here you can get an impression of the activities of the House of Architecture in the context of Future Architecture Platform over the last years.
The exhibition takes place as part of steirischer herbst '19 and Future Architecture Platform
In cooperation with Neue Galerie Graz / Universalmuseum Joanneum
With the kind support of the Italian Cultural Institute in Vienna
Supported by Eternit Österreich GmbH and steirischer herbst '19
Scenography:
Traumnovelle
Congregation of the Machines is a contemporary reinterpretation of the spatial scenography at Künstlerhaus Graz for the exhibition Trigon ’69—Architecture and Freedom 1969. It draws upon the reference to a TV studio’s “Green Screen”, which is both a spaceless space and the possibility of all spaces. It interrogates the endless repetition of space perceptible in Superstudio’s The Continuous Monument, which found its first (an only) materialization on the occasion of the Trigon ‘69.
Traumnovelle
Congregation of the Machines, 2019
Chromagreen emulsion paint, chromagreen vinyl floor, drywall, 8 flatscreens, 12 headphones, synchronizer, cables
2128 x 473 x 240 cm
Video works:
(ab)Normal
Inspired by a passage from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (1972), (ab)Normal creates a speculative future city as imagined by a sleeping android. In a short break from work the android follows his memories back to the fantastic city of Antea—ever present and forever out of reach. (ab)Normal’s visual worlds cite their work as architects with 3D computer graphics programs. In their works they illustrate not only how dreams made by machines for machines could look like but also confront us with the question for whom virtual worlds are designed for in the first place.
(ab)Normal
Antea, 2019
Full HD video, color, sound
1’13”
Bernd Trasberger
Through an extensive research into Superstudio’s competition entry to the tri-national biennial Trigon ’69, Bernd Trasberger developed a new video work, in which historical documents and works from the archives of Neue Galerie and steirischer herbst are contrasted with contemporary quotes and reflections on the legacy of Superstudio today. For the multi-channel video installation at Haus der Architektur, Trasberger’s video Liebe Gruesse aus Graz von Superstudio (2019)—a single-shot scene—is presented in three chapters: Superstudio, Il Monumento Continuo und La Stanza di Graz.
Bernd Trasberger
Superstudio (from Liebe Gruesse aus Graz von Superstudio), 2019
Full HD video, color, sound
4’57”
Bernd Trasberger
Il Monumento Continuo (from Liebe Gruesse aus Graz von Superstudio), 2019
Full HD video, color, sound
10’24”
Bernd Trasberger
La Stanza di Graz (from Liebe Gruesse aus Graz von Superstudio), 2019
Full HD video, color, sound
8’21”
Hironaka & Suib
At HDA Graz Hironaka & Suib present a sequence from their video work The Continuous Moment, Part 1 (2014)—a speculative history, in which Superstudio’s Continuous Monument has been realized. Make-believer (2019) is a reenactment of Superstudio’s famous collage Fundamental Acts. Vita–Supersuperficie. Spring cleaning (1971), showing the very first maintenance measure for the Continuous Monument. While in Superstudio’s collage the leftover of the world is represented by a site of decay and ruin, Hironaka & Suib’s opening in the overall grid depicts the surface as a place for leisure activities.
Hironaka & Suib
Make-believer (from The Continuous Moment, Part 1), 2014/2019
HD video
continuous loop
Robin Klengel / Leonhard Müllner
Operation Jane Walk (2018) is based on the dystopian multiplayer shooter Tom Clancy’s: The Division (2016). In this work, the game’s digital war zone is appropriated with the help of an artistic intervention. Within the rules of the game’s software, the militaristic environment is being re-used for a pacifistic city tour. The urban flâneurs avoid the combats whenever possible and become peaceful tourists of a digital world, which is a detailed replica of the real world. The video documents a live performance lecture, which deals with architecture history, urbanism and the game developer’s interventions into the urban fabric of New York.
Robin Klengel & Leonhard Müllner
Operation Jane Walk, 2018
Full HD video, color, sound
16’14”
Stéphanie Roland
In her work Phantom Islands (2019) Roland explores the underlying narratives that shape our perception of reality in the post-digital age referring to Superstudio’s The Continuous Monument (1969) that anticipated virtual infinity and contemporary digital mapping. As single total environment The Continuous Monument predicted a uniform world rendered by technology, culture and imperialism. For Sorry, the file you have requested does not exist. Roland has developed fictive Google Earth satellite views featuring historical phantom islands, that once had been mapped or described in historical documents but whose existence had otherwise never been proven.
Stéphanie Roland
Phantom Islands (Estotiland), 2019
Full HD video, multi-channel installation, b/w, sound
3’
Stéphanie Roland
Phantom Islands (Pontchartrain), 2019
Full HD video, multi-channel installation, b/w, sound
3’
Stéphanie Roland
Phantom Islands (Rupes Nigra), 2019
Full HD video, multi-channel installation, b/w, sound
3’
Vojtěch Rada
Song for the Deaf (2019) is a 3D-animation that addresses the present and possible future of the architect and the function of architecture channeled through technological tools. In a virtual monologue, computer generated avatars reflect on space, time, processes and algorithms. Following a quote by Adolfo Natalini, co-founder of Superstudio, Vojtěch Rada applied the concept of the “digital ruin” to the work of Superstudio: „Ruins and projects have a point of similarity. They share the sad destiny of absence: in the former case, it is the absence of something that no longer exists; in the latter case it is the absence of something that does not yet exist. (…) In some cases, architecture discovers metabolic opportunities in ruins.“ (Natalini, 2013)
Vojtěch Rada
Song for the Deaf, 2019
Full HD video, color, sound
14’15“
Lion & Unicorn
Reflecting on which media now remains the most effective for a political statement, Lion & Unicorn came to the conclusion that there are two of them: a map and the physical reality. At the same time, physical reality is now turning into a mixed and augmented reality, and the maps have been replaced everywhere by mobile devices and interactive environments. It turns out that the most radical intervention (or better to say surprising) is the intervention into Google Maps. Superstudio claimed to have invented the Internet, but in fact they invented Google Maps, a universal and endless grid of global scale that forms our idea of physical reality, often being our only source of information about it. Celebrating the anniversary of the virtual intervention of Superstudio into the "postcard" Graz, Lion & Unicorn propose to introduce Continuous Monument into the Google-map of Graz.
Lion & Unicorn
Google Maps / The Continuous Monument
Digital collages and map locations
Performance with VR set at the opening
Im Rahmen der Ausstellung "Sorry, the file you have requested does not exist. Liebe Grüße aus Graz von Superstudio" findet am Vorabend der offiziellen Eröffnung ein internationales Symposium mit den an der Ausstellung beteiligten KünstlerInnen und ArchitektInnen statt, die in ihren Arbeiten zeitgenössische Auseinandersetzungen mit dem Erbe Superstudios formulieren.
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