Spatialization as Method

Where are the visualization tools that allow the contradictory and controversial nature of matters of concern to be represented? – Bruno Latour [1]

Latour points to the growing importance of designers in contemporary society, people who possess th decisive capacity to map and visualize complex social and cultural contexts. Therewith he posits a basic requirement for design and especially architecture: Namely, given the fundamental crisis in representing the complexity of the present (and its crisis-ridden economy), the objective should be to illustrate, in particular, its contradictions—in the spirit of a different form of critique, which is not primarily text-based but rather an issue of design.

The medium of urbanist production that halfway strived for was exemplary, metaphorical, and concrete arrangements in space. In historical terms, halfway’s spatialization strategies refer to the methods of the Russian avant-garde of the early twentieth century, for example the Constructivist Laboratory, whose practices were transferred into the fundamentally changed conditions of the present day. Here resided a model (at least temporarily) in which the prototypical dialectic between art as a part of life (Art into Life) and the idea of the autonomy of the artwork seemed to be suspended.

As opposed to the familiar knowledge production formats of classical exhibition spaces, academic institutions, or publications, halfway operated with the intent to conduct and negotiate discourse production through spatialization—the translation of questions, theses, and arguments into spatial, traversable situations. To this end, a number of complementary formats were developed, each correlated with specific forms and degrees of public and temporality: from informal workshops to personal invitations, screenings, discussion rounds, indoor city tours, workshop talks, staged settings, and quotes from typical exhibition openings.

Production at halfway was conceived as an ongoing dialogical system in which especially the conventional forms of representation and thus the role of the visitors and observers were critically examined. The spatial character consciously fluctuated between laboratory, working space, studio, exhibition space, project space, workshop, and conference room. In this context a decisive factor was also the development of a display system, which informed specific formats of production and documentation.

Architectures for the Quantified Self – A micro-conference at halfway Vienna

September 20-21, 2019

The micro-conference Architectures for the Quantified Self at halfway in Vienna was a discursive platform for discussing current effects of digitized cultures on the urban. As a conclusion of the research project Curating the Urban, the question of how and by which means of (re)presentation within the field of arts-based research practices these effects can be mediated was publicly discussed.

The debate explored the type of spaces in which the “quantified subject” acts and its “dividual” constitution is shaped and sometimes created. In a culture increasingly characterized by evaluations, algorithmically generated recommendations, and more and more specific profiling, how can we conceive an architecture configured for these digitally measured subjects?