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7:15am – 8:30am EST
Recording
‘Nature Data Narratives’ will explore the potential of ‘how urban digital arts can contribute to climate engagement’. The speakers will open different perspectives on how we can collect and visualize data in meaningful creative scenarios, how the engagement can be brought to a closer public sphere, and what impact eco-art can have in a global context.
Ilana Altman, Co-Executive Director, The Bentway, Toronto
Refik Anadol, Media Artist
Sabine Niederer, Professor for Visual Methodologies at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
Rasa Smite, Media Artist, Professor, Co-founder of RIXC Center for Art+Science
The symposium is a hybrid event connected with the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (MediaArchitecture) and the Augmented Europe partners
Curated by Susa Pop, Public Art Lab, Martijn de Waal, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Civic Interaction Design, and Dave Colangelo, Toronto Metropolitan University
co-funded by the European Union.
8:30am – 9:00am EST
Gather
Hang out in our online conference space.
9:00am – 10:00am EST
Gather
A chance for our current Student Award nominees to chat with the jury and attendees from industry.
10:00am – 10:30am EST
Gather
Hang out in our online conference space.
11:00am – 12:00pm EST
Reports on current projects related to Interaction Design, Urban Commons, and Collaborative City Making.
Organized and moderated by: Gernot Tscherteu and Juan Carvajal B., MAI Vienna
12:00pm – 1:00pm EST
Recording
Devised as an extension of the conversations at MAB23 and a stand-alone publication, Provocations on Media Architecture (Set Margins’, 2023) brings together twenty-one thought leaders across architecture, visual arts, design, curation, academia, and public policy to address the four themes of MAB23. Intentionally open-ended, prompts included “how is media architecture vectored?” and “how does media architecture distribute suspicion and trust?” Under the rubric of “provocations,” authors responded with images and brief texts, incorporating the perspective of their own creative and scholarly practice. Entries range from descriptions of relevant artworks and design projects to reflections spawned from first-person encounters with media architecture in situ to scholarly analyses to AI-assisted theory. As such discursive (whether textual or visual, or both) responses to critical provocations, the intent is that they themselves transfigure into a set of provocations through which to encourage further theory and practice.
Moderators/Editors:
Ian Callender, Columbia GSAPP
Annie Dell’Aria, Miami University
Speakers:
Matt Nish-Lapidus, Artist
Ekene Ijeoma, Artist, Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT, Director of Poetic Justice Group at MIT Media Lab
Mellisa Mongiat, Daily tous les jours
Mouna Andraos, Daily tous les jours
Anna Weisling, Miami University
1:00pm – 1:30pm EST
Gather
Hang out in our online conference space.
7:00am – 7:30am EST
Gather
Hang out in our online conference space.
7:30am – 8:30am EST
Recording
Moderator:
Elise Hodson, Royal College of Art
Marius Hoggenmueller, University of Sydney
“See the Place with Different Eyes”: Fostering Empathy by Communicating Spatial Experience
Ville Paananen, Elina Kuosmanen, Sanna Lehtinen and Simo Hosio
Cities light up in solidarity with Ukraine: From internationally synchronized illuminations to projection activism, drone shows and global art projects
Thomas Schielke
Ombra Musici II: Classical Music Performance and Public Space
Dave Colangelo, Niusha Namaghi, and Nicholas Silver
Designing Media Architecture for Digital Placemaking on Campus: Motivation, Implementation and Preliminary Insights
Luke Hespanhol
8:30am – 9:30am EST
Recording
Moderator:
Alexander Wiethoff, LMU München
One Thousand Cities
Stavros Didakis
The UnFrame AR Exhibition
Lawson Spencer, Sasa Zivkovic and Leslie Lok
AUTO{}Construcción
Richelle Sibolboro and Ana Malitzin Cortes Garcia
Exploring Participatory Design for in Urban Community Gardens
John Marcel Gemperle, Marius Hoggenmueller and Joel Fredericks
(Un)real Estates
Ian Nazareth and Kevin Gao
Media Architecture for Neighborhood Resilience
Maximiliane Nirschl, Boudewijn Boon, Martijn de Waal and Jonas Löwgren
9:30am – 10:00am EST
Gather
Hang out in our online conference space.
10:00am – 11:00am EST
Recording
Sherry Dobbin, Executive Director, SRD Culture Ltd
Moderated by May Chew, Concordia University
The Media Arts Triangle: Creative/Civic/Commerce
In 1980, Jane Dickson saw the opportunity to invite fellow artists to create digital content in place of vacant advertising slots on the One Times Square Spectacular. The sign-holder saw the advantage of keeping the Spectacular active and surprising, the artists could command valuable real estate and reach a broad, general public, and the civic culture appreciated an advertising break. Forty-three years on and there have been many single screen efforts and Times Square Arts’ 11-year programme “Midnight Moment” that unites the surfaces through a take-over of artist digital media. Globally, purpose-built or appropriated media surfaces are receiving and now seeking artists’ creativity more regularly for a variety of agendas. This talk will explore the approaches in creating a strong collaboration between creative-civic-commercial interests that maintain artistic purpose and integrity of public art, whilst also delivering the patron and audience’s aspirations.
11:00am – 12:00pm EST
Recording
The MAB Student Awards recognize the world’s best student projects at the intersection of architecture, urban design and planning, media and interaction design, and urban media art.
12:00pm – 12:30pm EST
Gather
Hang out in our online conference space.
4:30pm – 5:00pm EST
Gather
Hang out in our online conference space.
5:00pm – 6:00pm EST
Recording
Moderator:
Martin Tomitsch, University of Technology Sydney
Longue durée: Perceiving heritage through media architecture
Kali Tzortzi, Ava Fatah Gen. Schieck, Petros Printezis, Eftihia-Maria Kontogeorgopoulou, Eleni Efthymiou, Maria Vourloumi and Vasilis Maniatis
GiveGetGive
Sander Veenhof
Towards evaluating effects of digital sensory environments on human emotions in the wild
Busra Berber, Ava Fatah Gen. Schieck and Daniela M. Romano
Social-media-popular place and its media architecture: Investigating place identity of Grant-Tang Mall through online reviews
Shuyu Zhang
Integrating Interfaces into Furniture: New Paradigms for Ubiquitous Computing, Mixed Reality, and Telepresence within the Built Environment
Ian Gonsher, Mandy He, Kevin Hsu, Leon Lau, Arun Kavishwar, Jinha Kang, Maya Fleischer, Li June Choi, Vanessa Chang, Asad Khan, Ray Sun, Sicheng Li and Yumeng Ma
6:00pm – 7:00pm EST
Ozayr Saloojee, Associate Professor, Azrieli School of Architecture& Urbanism, Carleton University
Moderated by Malini Guha, Carleton University
Hit and Run: A Story of Gardens, Gallows and Grief
Four members of the Afzaal family were murdered at the intersection of Hyde Park and Carriage Road in London, Ontario, in June of 2021. Their deaths, at an intersection named after roads in London, England, are complex overlaps of politics, histories, names and places. These overlaps are slips and ruptures in geography and time that reveal how profoundly complicated sites and landscape are – well beyond our typical ways of seeing/doing and beyond our conventional visions of design. How might we enact an otherwise-architecture, along with its associated ecologies of media, images and stories? And one, perhaps, of generosity, kindness and tenderness? As a tender cartography, how might we trouble and unsettle our usual gazes, places, temporalities and discourses by re-examining our reciprocal responsibilities to history, cartography, language, and, ultimately to each other?
7:00pm – 7:30pm EST
Gather
Hang out in our online conference space.
9:00am – 9:30am EST
George Brown College, School of Design
9:30am – 12:30am EST
George Brown College, School of Design, Room 308
Zoom
Valentin Spiess, iart – studio for media architectures
Bettina Lotz, iart – studio for media architectures
Since the inauguration of the M+ Museum in autumn 2021, its media façade has become a highlight of the Hong Kong skyline. It was created as a public art gallery to share visual culture with the people of Hong Kong. Based on a similar concept, the façade of the Novartis Pavillon in Basel, Switzerland, was designed as a communicative building skin. By displaying science-inspired artworks, it brings the world of life sciences closer to the public.
Both projects are examples of media façades conceived as platforms for media art, offering their owning institutions powerful opportunities to enter into dialogue with the public and the surrounding urban space.
In this workshop we will explore what it takes to create a successful media art platform in the context of landmark architecture. Using the two examples above, we will show how media must be understood and conceived as part of the architecture. Projects are most convincing when the media elements become an integral part of the architectural design and are seamlessly integrated into the building. Equally important is the curation of the content. It must be tailored to the thematic focus of the respective institution as well as its spatial and cultural context. Art curation must also be ongoing to ensure continuous high-quality content. In the final part of the workshop, we will look at the tools needed for artists to work with architecturally unique media facades. Participants will learn about the playout system specifically developed for the Novartis Pavillon media façade.
9:30am – 12:30pm EST
George Brown College, School of Design, Room 319
Zoom
Filippo Lodi, UNStudio
Diana Juris, UNStudio
Rosanna Vitello, The Place Bureau
Kar Yan Cheung, Bruce Mau Design
Eirene Keh, Bruce Mau Design
“The more we trust, the farther we are able to venture.” – Esther Perel
12:30pm – 1:30pm EST
George Brown College, School of Design
1:30pm-4:30am EST
George Brown College, School of Design, Room 319
An opportunity to meet and connect over coffee and snacks.
1:30pm – 4:30pm EST
George Brown College, School of Design, Room 308
in person only
Miriam Arbus, Psychic VR Lab
In this workshop participants will learn skills that prepare for our current and future of digitization and web3. We will learn the ins and outs of the STYLY platform for creating and sharing Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). A comprehensive overview of how to create and publish immersive and interactive AR and VR scenes will be presented, and participants will be guided to begin the creation process of their own XR content.
Along with the technical skill-sharing, the workshop will also focus on discussions of applications of AR/VR, potential smart city features, possibilities of NFT exhibitions using AR/VR and how to integrate XR to future proof planning for our cities.
Material covered in this workshop will include: uploading custom models, adding interactions and animations, creating and editing XR scenes via the browser based STYLY studio interface. Participants will also get an overview of how to import from Blender, and how to use Unity and Playmaker in conjuncture with STYLY to create complex XR scenes. The workshop will also explore the potential of site-specific and location based Augmented Reality.
6:00pm – 7:30pm EST
Assembly Gallery, Toronto Metropolitan Univeresity
The first night of our in-person event will culminate in an industry/student mixer event. We’ll welcome representatives from industry, such as Daktronics, Moment Factory, Cadillac Fairview, Wireframe, and ARUP, and up and coming media architecture students, practitioners, and researchers to mingle and make lasting connections.
8:30pm – 9:30pm EST
The Bentway
Join Public Visualization Studio for a tour of their work Atmospheres, presented as part of The Bentway’s BEYOND CONCRETE summer season. Atmospheres is the second phase of Adaptive Artifacts, an interactive art and technology project that explores how environmental conditions such as wind, temperature, and humidity impact human comfort in public spaces.
9:00am – 9:30am
ENG at TMU, George Vari Engineering Building (ENG), Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU)
9:30am – 10:00am EST
ENG 103, Toronto Metropolitan University
Recording
Opening remarks and recap of Online conference by Dave Colangelo, MAB23 General Chair.
Land Acknowledgement by Verne Ross, Centre for Indigenous Studies, University of Toronto
10:30am – 11:00am
ENG Building, Toronto Metropolitan University
11:00am – 12:30pm EST
ENG 103, Toronto Metropolitan University
Recording
Susan Blight, Artist, Assistant Professor, OCAD University
Moderated by Immony Men, OCAD University
The Resonance: Anishinaabe Life Taking Up Space
This talk introduces the concept of resonance in Anishinaabe Life as a theory of change. In his book Ojibway Ceremonies, Anishinaabe author and linguist Basil Johnston offers a meaning of midewewin as The Resonance.. He draws from the grammatical final, -wewe, which refers to sound and can be found in words like baswewe (it echoes or resounds). I am drawn to this analysis of midewewin as The Resonance because it offers a spatial interpretation of how a practice impacts neighbouring objects in its field. The talk begins with an analysis of how our language–Anishinaabemowin– takes up space, visually and aurally, and the potential for political and spiritual change it holds. I will be engaging with the work of Dylan Robinson, Lucille Atlookan, Jessica Bissett Perea and Joshim Kakegamic and my own practice as an artist working in public space.
12:30pm – 1:30pm EST
ENG Building, Toronto Metropolitan University
1:30pm – 3:00pm EST
ENG 103, Toronto Metropolitan University
Recording
Sponsored by Cadillac Fairview
Moderator:
Sherry Dobbin, Cultural Advisor, SRD Culture
Speakers:
Julian Sleath, General Manager, Yonge Dundas Square
Cheryl Catterall, Creative Director, Moment Factory
Kim Heppler, Senior Director, Client Design + Delivery, Cadillac Fairview
Jin Fan, Founder and CMO, ClearLED
Cities have increasingly become exhibition spaces for art, particularly in densely populated areas that already contain (or are built to feature) a high concentration of media architectural infrastructure such as LED screens and projections. This symposium will bring together collaborators from leading arts organizations, industry, civic representatives, and artists to speak about best practices and future trends in urban media art infrastructure and programming.
3:00pm – 3:30pm EST
ENG Building, Toronto Metropolitan University
3:30 pm – 5:00pm EST
ENG 103, Toronto Metropolitan University
In-Person Recording
Zoom Recording
Stephanie DeBoer, Associate Professor, The Media School, Indiana University
Kristy H.A. Kang, Associate Professor, School of Arts, Media and Engineering, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University
Yomi Braester, Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, University of Washington, Seattle
Kingsley Ng, Associate Professor, School of Creative Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University
Luke Hespanhol, Senior Lecturer, Design Lab, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney
Taqi Shaheen, Associate Professor of Practice, Department of Media Studies, Institute of Business Management, Karachi
Shujiao Xie, Ph.D. student, School of Art, Design, and Media, Nanyang Technological University
A group of international media scholars, artists, and curators will share and provoke discussion on emergent frameworks, theories, and entry points for approaching the diverse situations, spaces, and strategies of urban screens and media facades. Widely present in a range of interconnected global/local and online/offline arenas, media screens and facades remain distinctly situated – often in ways that are not yet fully accounted for in the (largely Euro-American) approaches most readily available to us. How do we better account for a fuller range of urban screen contexts and circulations? How might our theories and frameworks better learn from – and be informed by – urban screen expressions that may not seem proximate? What entry points might enable us to newly address the range of screen situations, both comparable and distinct, to more robustly challenge our understandings of their possibilities and perils?
6:00pm – 7:30pm EST
Assembly Gallery, IMA Building, Toronto Metropolitan University
Recording 1 – Compendium
Recording 2 – Provocations
The second evening of the in-person event will feature an Exhibition Opening and Book Launch. See below for more info.
9:00am – 9:30am EST
ENG at TMU, George Vari Engineering Building (ENG), Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU)
9:30am – 10:00am
ENG Building, Toronto Metropolitan University
A rare open slot in a conference program. Take the time to make a connection, continue a conversation, or just take a break!
10:30am – 11:00am
ENG Building, Toronto Metropolitan University
11:00am – 12:30pm EST
ENG 103, Toronto Metropolitan University
Moderator:
Joel Fredericks, University of Sydney
Interior Media Architecture: Using social media as a tool for Data Informed Design Solutions
Tracy Huang, Joel Fredericks and Sophia Maalsen
Engaging Cities: From Urban Space to Media Interface
Simone Shu-Yeng Chung
An Updated Model of Trust and Trustworthiness for the use of Digital Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in City Making
Brydon T Wang
From Media facades to Façade media
Christian Rhein
12:30pm – 1:30pm
ENG Building, Toronto Metropolitan University
1:30pm – 3:00pm EST
ENG 103, Toronto Metropolitan University
Moderator:
Victor Perez Amado, Toronto Metropolitan University
TEAR/DOWN: Exploring the domestic hauntings of a densifying neighbourhood
Erin Ashenhurst
Circulation in Virtual Media Architecture: Exploring the Spatial Logic of a Continuous Circulation Space
Maarten Overdijk, Aaron Oostdijk and Rob Van Dam
Room of negotiation
David Menzi
Living Shadows for Living Architecture Environments
Philip Beesley, Kevan Cress, Matt Gorbet and Timothy Boll
Relationality in Intermedial Architecture: A Creative Producing Approach
Nicholas Medvescek, Ravin Raori and Kavita Gonsalves
3:00pm – 3:30pm EST
ENG Building, Toronto Metropolitan University
3:30pm – 5:00pm EST
ENG 103, Toronto Metropolitan University
Recording
Sekou Cooke, Architect, Sekou Cooke Studio
Moderated by James Bird, University of Toronto
6:30pm – 8:30pm EST
Aperture Room, Toronto
Recording
The MAB Awards recognize the world’s best projects at the intersection of architecture, urban design and planning, media and interaction design, and urban media art. Check out this year’s nominees!
Before and after the award ceremony, Michael Ang will present Digital Calligraffiti.
Michael Ang is a Canadian artist and engineer whose work applies technology to create light objects, interactive installations, and software tools that re-appropriate the digital into a physical form.
MAB23 Keynotes are world-renowned experts in public art, curation, architecture, and urban theory. They bring a range of experience and expertise to bear on our main themes: Equity & Access, (Dis)engagement, Civic/Creative/Commercial, and Intermedial Media Architecture.
Our symposia feature panel discussions that will put leaders in the field in direct conversation with one another to address pressing issues in Media Architecture.
Our awards gala will be held in the Aperture Room in the historic Thornton-Smith building on Yonge Street. The event will feature drinks, indigenous-inspired appetizers by Chef Taylor at Provisions, and an awards ceremony where we will celebrate some of the best work in Media Architecture.
The first night of our in-person event will culminate in an industry/student mixer event. We’ll welcome representatives from industry, such as Daktronics, Moment Factory, Cadillac Fairview, Wireframe, and ARUP, and up and coming media architecture students, practitioners, and researchers to mingle and make lasting connections.
Open to all in-person attendees, the MAB23 exhibition will feature an LED sculpture, Ethera, commissioned by StrongLED and built by students in TMU’s Architectural Science department (more info below), new video works by TMU Image Arts students on Cadillac Fairview’s main screen in Yonge-Dundas Square, and additional works on Yonge-Dundas Square screens every night.
The second evening of the in-person event will feature an Exhibition and Book Launch. We will be launching two publications:
Provocations on Media Architecture: a publication featuring responses to a provocation about Media Architecture by artists, designers, and thinkers such as Melissa Mongiat, Eliza Chandler and Lisa East, Ekene Ijeoma, Anthea Foyer, John Cayley, Scott Roders, and Susan Blight.
Media Architecture Compendium Volume 2: Drawing on cutting-edge research and global studies, this transdisciplinary collaboration offers an in-depth account of Media Architecture’s evolution and its real-world applications.
Ethera
Lead Design: Ariel Weiss, Jana Stojanovska
Faculty Advisors: Vincent Hui, Dave Colangelo
Lighting Design: Nathan Whitford (Urban Visuals), Marko Cindric
Industry Partner/Lighting Supplier: StrongLED
Coordination: Ling Ding
Workshop Contributors: Jordan So, Filip Tisler, Jason Ramelson
Fabrication Team: Jake Levy, Dean Roumanis, Rachel Kim, Luke Jin, Irene Kim, Masrur Ananya
Ethera is an interactive and LED-based public art installation. Through its polycarbonate and recycled glass filled skin along with its LED lighting system the installation plays with both natural and artificial lighting conditions. The play between these two conditions creates an immersive and dynamic experience that invites visitors to engage with the installation and aims to encourage a childlike playfulness.
The workshops at MAB23 are interactive, dynamic forums that provide opportunities for exchanging ideas, forming communities, sharing knowledge, getting inspiration, learning and networking.
Registration information will be sent to event attendees starting June 8th. Space is limited – register early to avoid disappointment. All workshops will be offered in a hybrid format unless otherwise specified.
The E&P track presents emerging ideas that have not yet been fully developed, and contributions that demonstrate practical applications of media architecture. It features a broad range of disciplines covering a spectrum of topics such as prototyping media architecture, early design explorations, human and more-than-human centred media architecture, multi-modal interaction in media architecture, architectural studies, provocative ideas, etc.
MAB23 papers will address current practices, discuss theoretical approaches, and/or present novel research that explores and further develops our understanding of media architecture through relevant case studies, design processes, and community and industry examples.
The MAB Awards and MAB Student Awards recognize the world’s best projects at the intersection of architecture, urban design and planning, media and interaction design, and urban media art.
