HIGHEST GOOD by Pa.LaC.E

Pa.LaC.E

HIGHEST GOOD JANUARY 2019

The exhibition “Highest Good” by Pa.LaC.E contains

proficient contemporary, will be honoured in the

excerpts from a location situated remotely from a city,

space by a moving image, three large installations and

where norms are incomparable to ours, but no less

drawings. The “Highest Good” refers to the physical and

substantiated by a will to progress, hindered by violence

performative goals of such a place to which its people

and a need to share. The location, founded upon ancient

aspire. The newly produced body of work adopts an

customary practices and fulfilled by a technically

alternative way to navigate the gallery by the addition of a partition and by reducing natural light. In this arrangement, one enters the space which prepares the “palette” of the eye in order to access other temperaments at show.

Throughout

the

exhibition

the

production of a publication will take place entitled “Zenith Boil”, derived from creation of an artefact that makes measurable atmospheric changes.

Valle

Medina

and

Benjamin

Reynolds founded Pa.LaC.E, a Baselbased group that explores spatial and temporal breadths of history and

geography

to

conceive

of

environments and phenomena that are often cartographic, virtual and built. They are currently directing a studio entitled CHRONOCOPIA at the Royal College of Arts, London and

are

visiting

professors

at

the Department of Architecture Theory and Philosophy of Technics (ATTP) at the Vienna University of Technology leading the studio “Dom Gross”.

Valle

Medina

was

a

former

Geisendorf fellow at the ETH Zürich D-ARCH,

where

she

graduated

summa cum laude from the Chair of Computer Aided Architectural Design. Benjamin Reynolds received a diploma with honours from the

Architectural Association, London, where he lead a

Matthias Moroder

diploma class for four years.

You set up your practice during the aftermath of the economic crisis in the first half of this decade. How did

They have been fellows at the Van Eyck Academie

the working project of your practice start? How did you

(Maastricht, NL) and OMI (New York, US) and residents at

set certain interests or topics that you wanted to further

Bibliothek Andreas Zuest, (Oberegg, CH) amongst others

investigate?

and are recipients of international prizes including the 50th Annual Central Glass Award (Tokyo, JP) and the

Valle Medina

Natian Cup (Suqian, CN). Their work has been shown at

I would say, that this term of “crisis”, for me, has never

the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (ES),

really been a problem. It has never been something that

the Boston Centre for the Arts (US), Basis voor Actuele

would affect my work. In a way, the “crisis” is the same

Kunst (NL), and Van Abbemuseum (NL).

as saying “context” or “reality”, that is to say, something to react to. In relation to the origin of a project, I would say,

Their first major monograph—Paris Hermitage—was

it is about always being alert about things and also about

recently released with Cooperative Editions (New York).

being very methodical in how you record observations – even in your daily life: things that you read or people you meet. In that sense, the origin of the project could come from many different sources. And then again, there is a certain order: we transcribe a lot. So there is a point, where we find that there is an interesting form

A conversation with Pa.LaC.E (Valle

and where we find people that can support a project or

Medina and Benjamin Reynolds)

simply we initiate it by ourselves.

In January 2019, members of the curatorial team of

Benjamin Reynolds

Magazin sat down with Valle Medina and Benjamin

It may be a bit naive to say, but oftentimes, what is the

Reynolds (Pa.LaC.E) to have a conversation about the

impetus to begin a project, is always through a doubt

motifs of their interpretation on the new installation

about something. So that the project becomes a vehicle

in Vienna.

to actually interrogate something. Not just a doubt about 3

Photo: Sha Chen

something, that through the project you want to become

Matthias

clarified, but also a doubt about the context in which you

By

work. That is to say, other architects, or other architecture

project of your practice I translated the German term

or the architecture of today. A decision to do something,

“Arbeitsprojekt”, which determines a kind of framework

might just be a reactionary act. Maybe to actually divert

within which your practice is intending to operate or an

away from something that we have done before or that

investigation that you are intending to pursue in your

there is an urgency to produce, because it is the right

practice. But it seems to be also possible to solely talk

time to do it, or to do the work in a certain way. It’s about

about two projects, the single project and the project of

this idea of how do you retrieve information. If you want

your practice as being two sides of a coin. In a way, your

to talk about a project, that does not really have a start or

answers can be read as addressing this.

thematizing

the

beginnings

of

the

working

an end – and I think it goes back to what Valle said about recording or being methodical about something – a lot

Benjamin

of it starts because it is about setting up ways in which

It’s almost like in English, with the difference of

information can be transposed to projects …

pronunciation of the word “project”. I don’t know where the emphasis lies, that exactly distinguishes

Valle

this difference between something which you are

… and to space and to materials. The same amount of

asked to do and something you are trying to do over

thinking could go to designing a door handle than to

a longer period of time. We had the panel discussion

developing a new sense of material or to inventing a

in the framework of our exhibition at MAGAZIN about

program for a whole building. The work is always loaded.

customary practices, but at the same time, it is really something that happens almost at a subdermal level,

Benjamin

like beyond a certain consciousness of what it is in the

We often find that there is a thousand ways to approach

moment you are doing it. You suddenly reread your

something, but perhaps there is only one that is really

work, beyond the material and productive evidence of

relevant or necessary at a certain moment in time.

what it is you do. That’s something I really like to do.

Whatever it is you do, it can kind of grow in meaning.

Valle

Maybe it never becomes, what you first intended to do

Something else we are allergic to, is to running recipes,

or achieve. It then becomes something else.

despite being methodical.

Valle If tomorrow there is a commission for something very large, like a building, then of course it is very exciting, but for me it’s like being in the cold – the cold of Vienna in January actually –, it really is the time to start learning a new language. Even though we have a strong of how to construct things and how to be technical, the whole process of making new work is about finding languages and to risk something while producing them – as, I think, we did for the exhibition at MAGAZIN. And this process always takes time.

The same when we speak about something larger, it is a set of new terminologies you need to readapt to.

Benjamin Something we often admire with people, just broadly architects and other people, is simply being definitive in who they are and what they do. I think it takes a lot of reinforcement 5

Photo: Richard Pobaschnig

of your output and belief in just producing things, that

then there is the hard fact, that you are still retrieving

this clarity is made. My comparison is the kind of work

information from the same sources as millions of other

that is very vague and undefined versus the work that is

people. You still go to the library in the city you are

very strongly opinionated, very visually coherent stuff. I

growing up in, the same that other architects used to go

always find myself negotiating those two things. What

to. And fifty, sixty years ago, you were still reading the

does it mean to say something so boldly, which is to say

same liberal newspaper than other liberal architects, so

being that architect or that artist, versus going about

they were framed by what they read and that source.

and producing things, but never really being able to be

What I am saying is, even though there is a conscious

grasped in where you situate yourself.

decision about the cultivation of something specific and precise, there is still the fact that the ecology of media

Matthias

and sources of information are somehow shared. How

The “clarity” also seems to have a lot to do with the

much of that are you being told: “That’s who you are!”?

branding of alliances or styles – for example through exhibitions or publications –, which always stress the

Valle

similarities rather then the differences. At the end you

… and how your work is being perceived as.

are branded as something. And if you are not branded as something, then your work is read in opposition to these polarities.

Valle I thought about it in those terms, to be honest. Maybe there is a sense of truth, but at the same time, I feel that for me it is not about being counteractive to everything that is happening nowadays. We also want to be corresponding to contemporary conditions.

Jerome Becker I think, you do.

Valle Yes, but we definitely wouldn’t want to prescribe to a style of our time. We always talk about the Zeitgeist. So, you can’t escape that there are things we now all agree on, even aesthetically.

But for me it is crucial to be able to change, as time goes by. I don’t want to be catalogued into, for example, the postmodernist equivalent of a time.

You have to keep the frame open, to be able to reinvent your thinking and Jerome

your output.

It seems that the choice of the context you are working Benjamin

in does have a certain importance. Was it an active

On the other and, I think, a more naturalistic way is to

decision to begin this search for a new architectural

realize that you are producing within a time, within a

language in a setting that is not one of a private or

set of media, that is being shared, within a kind of state

public commission, but one of a 12 months residency,

of the art of thinking and discourse. So that is somehow

where you have a different context for developing ideas?

the context, which produces work. The question is really about how much are you in control of? Sure, you can

Benjamin

be reacting and you can be in denial or you can even

Those specific moments, like the residency at the Jan

consciously be counteracting those swirling factors, but

Van Eyck Academie were rather important for us. And 7

Photo: Sha Chen

Benjamin Yes, but then again, I would say that I don’t think we would have learned and interrogated our practice as much as what we would have, had we not been to these places and had these relationships and perhaps this instability.

Valle It is like a reverse. Sometimes I make this joke: some people say they have an office, because they just have the space or a project to start an office. Or a big competition was the moment to form an office.

We did everything the other way.

We started with very minimalistic means. It is more about really wanting to create a larger body of work and the space came later.

Benjamin Yes, firstly, there is the dislocation, which

is

about

finding

those

moments to actually concentrate and compound a lot of the things we still are constantly seeking out those environments in

we are interested to produce. Which is a product of

which you can realize things, you know the old “enough

the way we work, so we chose that. The second thing

space and time” that you require to make something. I

is, that we have always thought of the idea of being the

think that is the dream of the architect too, that you are

foreigner as being something kind of an advantage.

cultivating those spaces, where thinking can really take

Well, I am forever a foreigner in Europe, that’s clear.

place and genuine questions are being asked.

But again, the beginning of this conversation

has been a lot about what it means to produce in a Valle

moment like now and also then how do you approach

And you spend time in a place together with people that

that moment and space of production. These are sort of

are also not certain about things. Actually, there is more

questions that we don’t consider so important. I think

conversation as well, which we find very productive.

certain questions about what the next project is, what have we just done or what is the meaning of having just

Matthias

done that? These sorts of things are of interest!

The interesting thing of the residency as a format

That’s a long way of saying, that perhaps the questions

seems to be, that everyone on residency is temporarily

that are always clouding you and are necessary, are

displaced. So, this uncertainty is not only one of how you

always the ones we are just sidestepping to do new work.

think about things, but also of how you are in a place.

Is it responsible or is it not? That’s something we have yet to worry about.

Valle The whole question of how you are meant to live your

Jerome

life or how is the life of an architect meant to be…. well,

It reflects what you mentioned before, that there is not

we have always been a little bit flipped in the other

always a clear beginning or end. One may not try to read

direction. Sometimes I feel: now this is when all the other

your projects as absolute answers to specific questions.

architects in the world are having lunch break, but no, these patterns of normalcy are happening somewhere

Benjamin

else in our practice. It is a certain sense of dislocation too

This is the interesting thing also in the trajectory of

of how normally a day will go.

some of our work. Some of the projects begin as kind of an impetus to explore an idea. The work is a space 9

Photo: Sha Chen

to interrogate a doubt, that is a natural one. What ends

to take them further. Because part of the job is to be

up happening, because it is work and because it ends

quite extreme in the way you carry on with a concept,

up as physical matter occupying space, it actually grows

an idea or an intuition. I also want to say something

into something larger. And it grows into for example a

about the autonomy of a project: it’s funny, because for

book, or it grows into other exhibitions, which actually

example when we sometimes get asked to contribute to

have that line from the work that was produced two

some publication or to be in a group show, we find very

or three years before. I don’t know whether I think it

weird the idea of recycling things. For us it is always an

is important to think about that linearity, but certainly

opportunity, even if you are given the chance of a blank

I am always thinking: well, it always comes from the

page, to really do a project with it. So, this moment,

minds and the hands of those that build it. Then there

almost of blankness, is what really decides the genealogy

is this line: biological or conscious. It’s there! There is

of the things that are produced.

evidence. A smoking gun… You are guilty!

Benjamin Matthias

I could clearly say that there are works in the MAGAZIN

And obviously your invitation to MAGAZIN also comes

show that are there to just open up something larger, for

from the evidence. So, there is this paradoxical moment,

example, concretely there will be a book experiment in

where in a way you have an interest in erasing the

relation to something that was actually made there. But

evidence, but the evidence puts you in the position to

I am also thinking of some of the other works there as

do the things you do now.

turning into architectural proposals: for example, a roof for Basel made out of these ballasts of icons of the city.

Benjamin

Suddenly the space of MAGAZIN became the space to

But I also think that it is a bit more intrinsic than that.

build roads into other works.

That it’s again how you revisit something, that for that moment in time, when it was made, it meant something.

Valle

But maybe I am speaking more directly about what we

And it’s curious when you see, for example, the folded

did in that residency in Holland, which was in terms of

structure of the office. You will be surprised of how

the medium a performance piece, about an architect who

many different ramifications occur: the so-called one

is carving space. Who made a conscious decision to leave

project becomes maybe ten projects. In the show the

the computer, to extract as opposed to compound and to

pieces constitute a project but they are also multipliers

basically engage with manual labour.

And it happened in an afternoon and we recorded it for 20 minutes. Then it was a lot about reading that work, which then somehow through the understanding of crushing things and somehow dealing with that notion as a linguistic idea, spatially, formally, etc. It just led to so many other things and the book “Paris Hermitage” came out. That was a huge chunk of time and, I guess, also of preoccupation. And then a lecture spawned from that… So, what I am saying is, there are these kernels of operations and, who is to say, stuff that was done at MAGAZIN, is just sort of opening up something, which then spawns many new works and formats.

Valle But also, it’s about being conscious of these sorts of moments and to see what they really mean in the context of the practice, to be able 11

Photo: Sha Chen

for new ones.

objects, if you like. That only happens if you have got that sort of framework, a slower framework.

Matthias One possibility, of obviously many, is to read the

Matthias

exhibition at MAGAZIN in relation to your book

The theme of fragility present in the exhibition also

“Paris Hermitage”, which really allows to grasp these

reminds me of the inquiry you are pursuing in your

ramifications. One theme there is, I would say, the

design studio “Levitation” at the Technical University

materialization

Vienna this semester, where you have an interest in

of

simple

digital

double-curved

surfaces in a fragile way. In the exhibition this fragility

finding moments in-between two conditions.

of materializing form is addressed with very different materials and is pushed further to an investigation

Valle

of how form itself is generated through material. The

It is always a sort of struggle to find the formalities of

forms are materially suspended in the moment between

the language of the “in-between”, of something that

generation and collapse. For example, the forms being

happens at an intersection between two worlds. As you

created as negatives by the burning of the candles in

suggest, they are fragile states that sometimes require

the piece “Zenith Boil”, with their kind of crystalline wax

special tools to be detected and to be able to work with them as materials. As it is the case with the photography series to be developed with the piece “Zenith Boil”.

Benjamin Not that I think it is such a pressing subject, that I want to occupy my thinking about too much, but this notion between art and architecture – it is the old one, we know – I would like to talk about it in a certain way though.

If you walk into the exhibition at MAGAZIN and you simply see it from a surface-level: different material investigations, different display configurations and simply different decisions about the use of color and so on, the work then is so deterritorialized. But you have to understand that each of the works are the genesis of a larger architectural endeavor, addressing notions of politics, technology and the city – possibly projects in a very conventional sense – and how time is somehow the mortar that brings things together, it is the glue between many many decisions and many formats too. If you are only seeing art or architecture, or colors and material and shapes, you are really in the dark about what the exhibition is actually about. So, we do have a bit of a problem with these categorizations of something being either black or white, or “is it or isn’t it”. It is in fact a reinforcement of how people are resorting to narrowminded readings of things in the face of growing complexity and abstraction.

materialization or, in the piece “Melgroube”, the flour

Valle

forms always being in danger of falling apart.

And in the context of wanting to remain contemporary, because we are living now, but also, we are very

Valle

conscious about this idea of timelessness, because we

That’s interesting, because that’s a thing that we actually

don’t really want to be a disposable office, which in five

discovered through the making of the work in the

years is already obsolete in the discourse. So, we might

space at MAGAZIN. We identified these connections,

be operating within algorithmic complexities – if you

once everything was into place. That’s why we also were

like – but we do not necessarily have to be explicit about

quite fond of working a priori in the space, not only just

it. So, how to find where you “land” on topics and form

installing the work in one afternoon, because you are

without compromising…

forming a certain relationship between the different 13

Photo: Sha Chen

Benjamin And that’s why every problem, every architectural

question

is

always

thought about with reference to what is the best way to look at it. Of course, we have our tools to communicate with others, i.e. plans and sections, and we are always drawing them and asking people to read them as well, but is there a scenario, a social, cultural, economic scenario, which deserves a suitable medium to ask questions of it that may enlighten the scenario? Or could it not be asked, what is the more suitable way to interrogate that scenario? There is always the reality of the mode of expression, from writing all the way to using digital media, but certainly, I would agree with Valle, these very contentious

times

in

technology

and politics demand appropriate methods. This is really the entry point of our practice, what we have always done, it is about the ramifications of what things like technology do to culture and almost everything.

Matthias

Matthias

I think one is the theme of a general reception, which

If we look at what museums do now, where every

obviously, if you do work, you will always face. So, this

exhibition has to address and be understood by literally

art or architecture problem, which seems to come up

everyone, the effect on the exhibitions and the work is

often with your work, is a problem of reception and of

critical.

what architects and the public at the moment have as a basic notion of architecture. The other one concerns

Benjamin

the suitability of the questions to the work or a deeper

For us that has also to do with the studio we just started

understanding of the work, which in your case differ

at the Royal College of Arts in London, the notion of

very much from those put forward by the general

being unable to comprehend your context and the

reception, thus creating a massive distinction between

context that is being produced around you, but also

the two spheres.

the things that you produce from within that context.

That the very things that you output with a certain

Valle

sophistication and complexity with digital technology,

One thing with the reception too is, that part of the job

you are led to believe one can understand the processes

I think is to find the context where your work could

behind them, and then, you are asked by everyone to be

be readable, understood or even further elaborated.

completely comprehensible!

Because it is not about producing things within an echo chamber, where we are producing for ourselves and

Valle

that’s it. We want the conversations to go other ways.

So, at the end, we simply run as a society, it seems, through

So, in a way there is a problematic with the reality of

big generalizations: this is how it works… This is broadly

exposure, social media, we are all into it. But now the sort

how people operate and further, these general “tagging”

of cycles you are within, can also become a limitation if

systems are simply the way you can be perceivable and

they are undifferentiated and continuous. We want to

found by a search engine. So, to be incomprehensible is

be able to converse with others that can carry the same

in a dying state.

ideas further but in a meaningful and expansive way, like transmitters.

15

Photo: Sha Chen

Benjamin

think about what that could mean. And of course, that

What we are seeing in a really interesting way in the

creates quite simply complete misconceptions.

space of technology, is suddenly being – whether you like it or not– confronted with such complex contexts.

Matthias

As a reaction in politics and social realms you start to

Totally! One thing that comes out in the exhibition is

see these extremely dated, and naive understandings

also the dimension of time, that you need to get into the

that seem like the ideals of a society from 50-60 years

works. We had someone who just quickly went through

ago; the type of morally bankrupt statements that lead

and before leaving said: “I didn’t get it!”

to ultra conservative or ridiculous traditional values that make no sense in a contemporary society. This is

Valle

the result of being estranged from complexity. Suddenly

Fair enough! Time and even to be sincere and also clear

you see politics taking us back in time, and still doing

about it: in this case a text as a bonding element really

what politics have always struggled with, which is

helps. It doesn’t need to be a text that really explains or

the inability to go beyond the masses, and to become

is didactic about the things that are shown, but maybe

something rather more atomized, more specific, more

more about framing them in a certain context.

tailored to the problems every society really has. This is strange, because you could argue that technology now

Matthias

has the capacity to get to deeper resolutions of data,

It seems that an exhibition text, which is only half a

and therefore understandings of society, but instead we

page, would also be problematic. If there would be a text,

are seeing rhetorics which are just… You wonder, are we

then it would probably have to be a 60-pages text…

progressing anymore?

Benjamin Valle

What I really like are conversations, in the sense that I

Also, the pace at which all this information is running:

think that we have actually covered a lot of ground here

I was thinking today, for example, how odd it is, that

already about the approach, what it means for the work

we are constantly asked to very quickly provide certain

to be the way it is… In that sense, is it about producing a

clarity on something or even a certain profile of

60-pages text or a paragraph, I don’t know, but certainly

ourselves, without really having the time to really even

it is a question to ask what is that expression, which then acts in parallel to the work, and doesn’t compromise or doesn’t also undermine your audience too? In the same breath, I think, that there are people that ask directly: is this architecture? I don’t quite get it...

Valle Isn’t it the biggest praise to not be always understood? I mean, really! To be understood has always been a basis for been able to being sold.

Jerome I think it was much more useful to have your book “Paris Hermitage” lying there in the exhibition to explain the architectural context or your way of thinking, than maybe an exhibition text.

Matthias You were saying, that many architectural projects could come out of the works shown in the exhibition. Thinking about the notion of fragility in those works I would like to ask, if there is the possibility that you push it to such an extreme, that it becomes in-transferable?

Jerome The question is: What is the logic behind the relation between materiality and form? Which is maybe one of the key questions and has always been one of the key 17

Photo: Sha Chen

questions in architecture, I guess. And in your case, it is

that way. And so, if I use the example of “Paris Hermitage”

for sure not about the logic of tectonics or something.

there was this kind of momentum or inertia of certain

There is another logic behind… And the question would

works that we carried forward, maybe material, maybe

be: is this logic transferrable to architectural practice?

cultural questions – for sure, I think, for us they were really pressing conceptual questions – that simply kept

Valle

floating and needed further exploration.

I think this comes back to this notion of recording. Part of it is also about learning and being able to transfer

Valle

things that we may have learned while doing. If you

And it happened to be that the format of a book, in this

think, for example, of the work “Melgroube”: a surface

case, was able to really consolidate many of those things.

under different stresses, because of different weights, a

I mean, in that sense, the production was never linear.

certain intuition has been developed upon dealing with such a scale and with an unstable material. I think ideas

Benjamin

can always be transferred and transmitted, they simply

And to answer the question: I don’t think it is a case

might take on different forms. I see your point about the

where you can see “Melgroube” in the space and ask how

fact that maybe something might be just completed and

much of that later becomes either architecture or takes on another form, and I don’t even want to predict in what capacity does it transform, but certainly it will.

Matthias In relation to “Paris Hermitage”, what I like very much, is the instability of the form in the drawings that now gets transformed into something material in the exhibition – the drawings with all the dots or points somehow

blurring

the

precise

articulation of the form.

Benjamin And this is what I would like to consider as language. Maybe this is this kind of miscomprehension of what it is that we produce, which rather

than

through

different

operations, and through different opportunities and media, you kind of revisit the work and you detect a line or ultimately you detect language that has been built out of discrete decisions. This is exactly this “customary practice” question… then archived, but the translation process continues,

where discrete operations over time then lead to the

even though it might be hard to trace it back.

question “what do I make of that” and “what does it mean” and so on.

Benjamin I would also kind of agree that somehow the show

Valle

“Highest Good” has meant a lot to us because of scale,

There is also a tendency in the domain of architecture to

actually. Which clearly opens up another set of questions

be not very opportunistic or even to be able to question

and some of them pertain to: what then do you take

or even to put value in the things that one produces. So,

forward? But that is just another context of another set

in a way, it has been a long journey of trying to learn how

of questions that perhaps we have never asked before of

to actually operate in a way where you are jumping and

the work, because the work was made at that scale or in

at the same time being able to communicate visions with 19

Photo: Sha Chen

very different supports. I am just recalling conversations we had at the very beginning of our practice with artists, they were so puzzled, asking us: “Well, but is this something to be built or are you planning to show this in a gallery?” It is this sort of questioning process, were you are really confronted with the idea that yes, this could be actually blown up five times bigger and then it has a different depth to an idea. So, it is really about how to present something that already has been processed and yet to explore different subjectivities within it. But it takes the curiosity and the agility of jumping from one way of producing to another.

Jerome Another important aspect, that describes very well your way of working, is a specific concept of different tools of production and the balance between analog and digital media. How do you make these decisions?

Valle There was a point in time where we really realized that we are surrounded by sameness. We asked ourselves: can we actually craft a way in which our traces would become untraceable, or how can we make a process unreadable?

How things are made, how little or much effort has been invested in producing something digitally or even physically became a subject of interrogation. If you are using whatever software or even coding something,

that. I don’t think that we have ever aligned ourselves

how can one overlap these processes, so it is less easy to

with any of those, but I do think that we have a kind

replicate what you do?

of maturity with the development of the presence of the computer in the space of making architecture. And

Benjamin

yes, sure, we may couple work with a computer with

I think every generation considers themselves lucky

manual work and other kind of operations, but we don’t

when they’re growing up, like we’re saying: “We were

see any method better or worse! I just think that we are

there when the internet came about, but luckily we

just evolving with the tools and the tools are offering

knew what life was like before, etc.” But I think that

different possibilities. And those are possibilities which

the genesis of the use of a computer in an architectural

need to be evaluated, whether something is better with

office, for those that are ten years older than us,

hand or the computer...

happened to be at a time, when there was a certain exclusivity if you were using animation tools; tools that

Valle

were not really meant for architectural offices. And to

This fetishism of the tool is really what we have never

use them became a sort of modus operandi for the office

had!

in itself. I do think that we possess a kind of maturity with the computer. The computer has gone through

Matthias

this moment of preciousness as in the late 90s and early

I would say, that this is a preoccupation that comes up in

2000s where they were effectively saying: “If you only

the aftermath of the economic crisis, where if you don’t

knew how to use it, just look at what you can do!” That

want to go back to neo-postmodern operations, then you

was that kind of moment. Then I think there was of

have to stick to digital forms. And if you don’t want to

course this consolidation and rationalization moment.

do highly complex digital forms, which have been done

And then it became well connected with construction

over and over by star architects, then you end up with

processes, so whatever was realized on a computer could

very simple digital forms and the question of how to

be quite well realized in reality. Then, naturally there

materialize them becomes very topical – and thereby

is a period where there is a bit of a rejection of it as

the question of whether digital or analog techniques are

well: a kind of nostalgia for pre-computational periods

to be used.

perhaps, yet still using an evolved technology to do 21

Photo: Sha Chen

Valle

constantly immersed in that. That’s why I also think,

It is really hard to tell, because the context provides

that our undetectability is also a product of exactly not

different tools, of course. And technology is something

conforming to this approach. But if you ask us, the context

that we have always been interested in. Whether a

is simply one to be evolving within. I almost feel like the

practice might be more neo-post-something or fully

most appropriate word is “information”, it is not actually

“scripting” things, our case has always been not wanting

digital or computing. It’s simply just information. We

to be completely devoted to something in terms of

have this notion that we call “pulverization”, which is

technology. So, equally I see a lot of potential in scripting,

to say: we have had old understandings of things like

and a lot of potential in being more tectonic…

society, creativity, epochs, which were or could be clearly delineated, but now with the increase of information

Benjamin

and resolution of things that we want to achieve, maybe

Mature!

these streams of concreteness are just completely not perceptible and should not be asked anymore.

Valle You call it maturity, but I also call it a skepticism, because

Valle

you need to be quite selective. I think we have never

Or this is at least the approach we are also really trying

rejected any of those things, but it’s more about how to

to push to an extreme.

take an idea – that’s the timelessness I am interested in – and then see how to trace that idea in different ways

Benjamin

despite the dominant technological discourse of a given

Or that is simply the context to be making things in and

time.

to be sort of swimming in, in a way. But then you could ask someone who is clearly interested in constructing

Benjamin

something coherent and clear, that they would be very

I think it is interesting how we are kind of just listing

adamant and will have their reasons… But I just feel that

moments maybe not including the last 3-4 years of clear

the general context doesn’t provide certainty at all.

lines of how things have been developing. And this goes back to the question: what is the emergent context of

Valle

today? That is such an irrelevant question, but we are

Or there is also the old question of “style”. Are we really a

23

Photo: Sha Chen

product of certain stylistic constraints or set of rules that

Benjamin

become the symbol for everything we do, or not?

So, concerning this question of the subjective and the

The ideal situation would be, that every response to

objective: I often think, what does it mean, if one is really

an idea or to a situation would be different. The death

rigorous and consistent within a setup of one’s own

of signature! Are these old questions or are they very

objective questions, schema and so on, so much so that it

contemporary questions? I don’t know, but I always feel

produces one’s subjective capacity? Certainly, you cannot

more inclined to reject the idea of style. Every project

be an architect and not be a sort of positivist in some

you do is just different. It has different conditions, has

sense: measuring things, controlling things...

different conversations, it is just a thinking process too.

Valle Jerome

But I think that goes with every type of creation. So, it

One item that comes back in your show is this topic of

is not that a creator is to reject every single thing that

the scientific gaze. At least in the film, where the video

has been invented or even presented to society, it is a

frame of the leaf and the coin in the rain is very loaded

question of working through it.

with meanings and then it flips to this very scientific representation of deviating pixels: the abstraction of the movement of the leaf, to which you are emotionally relating to in the image before. In philosophy there have been many different concepts of realism, but they all have in common this idea, that the reality of the world exists independently from our convictions and our beliefs. And somehow that’s something you thematize in several ways. How would you describe the notion of realism in the frame of your work?

Valle I would say, that the first work with the leaf “Lucky Deviation” is a bit like a prologue of a larger body of work, with this publication “Zenith Boil” we are going to make. And I think this is really something quite important in our work, especially lately, to be aware of the rigor in the way you are telling a thought. So, it is no longer the case to just have to show a material that could be associated with anything else. But are there other bonding elements, more scientifically even, that could ground an idea? Because at the end physics is theory as much as theory is physics.

Benjamin Of course. Through this work of the telescopic mirror, which makes the air capturable within a space, that will produce this book “Zenith Boil”, the objective is to interface an architectural rendering within this setup.

But this goes even larger, we are interested in this idea whether one can create their own objectivity, which

Matthias

is to say, that through a certain setup of different, be

But there is a tension in your exhibition between

they experiments, attempts or discoveries and so on,

the search of objectivity and the use of historically

you create a sort of reference system, almost like beliefs.

subjective practices, like for example a sort of surrealist

It is like this line between whether you take spiritual

or situationist strolling through the city of Basel and the

literature literally, or do you only take it as a kind of

reworking of found objects on that stroll, which results

bearing for your own life.

in the pieces “Kohlenberg Ballast” and “St. Johanns-Platz Ballast”.

Valle Or as entertainment.

Benjamin Maybe that is a product of inhabiting our own questions.

25

Photo: Sha Chen

Much in the way that a city can be a complete psychedelic experience or a kind of mission. Or a city can give you absolutely anything, or it can be a battleground.

Valle It is not that we have to always be producing or experimenting with the same rigor. The medium is how the response to rigour is framed. The first question for the “Zenith Boil” publication was how to frame the depth of an image or how to question an architectural render, without being completely random? There is a legacy in optics and on how light works that we are exploiting to find new geometrical and material qualities and to ultimately compose a larger space. “Zenith Boil” is not set as a finite exercise that will give us a limited set of spaces as representations. We want to expand notions of space with it.

Benjamin But it is also about how tired the architectural image is as well: the rendering. And again, the media within which it is actually disseminated. Again, this question of the doubt is the impetus to a project, as naive as it may seem in the first question, it takes shape in precision and objective-ness….

Valle It’s funny, I think, every time we are reproducing the way we were working before, it’s like: “OK, STOP!” I would tell you to STOP or you would tell me to STOP! In this sense, we avoid being the type of people that are always doing a “type” of work. Let’s have more fun now, let’s do something that could come across as naive, because why compromise?

27

M A G A Z I N .

M A G A Z I N .

Ausstellungsraum für zeitgenössische Architektur.

Ausstellungsraum für zeitgenössische Architektur.

Weyringergasse 27/i Weyringergasse 27/i A- 1040 Wien A- 1040 Wien info@architektur-im-magazin.at info@architektur-im-magazin.at architektur-im-magazin.at architektur-im-magazin.at

Das MAGAZIN ist ein Ausstellungsraum für zeitDas MAGAZIN ist ein Ausstellungsraum für zeitgenössische Architektur in Wien, der von Jerome genössische Architektur in Wien, den der Verein für Becker, Matthias Moroder, Florian Schafschetzy und Eva zeitgenössische Architektur betreibt und der 2018 von Sommeregger betrieben wird.

Jerome Becker, Matthias Moroder, Clemens Nocker, Florian Schafschetzy und Eva Sommeregger gegründet wurde.

Das MAGAZIN fördert vor allem junge Architektinnen und Architekten aus dem In- und Ausland, die dabei Das MAGAZIN fördert vor allem junge Architektinnen sind sich im zeitgenössischen Architekturdiskurs und Architekten aus dem In- und Ausland, die dabei eigenständig zu positionieren und in deren sind sich im zeitgenössischen Architekturdiskurs Architekturprojekten bereits ein eigenes Arbeitsprojekt eigenständig zu positionieren und in deren abzulesen ist.

Architekturprojekten bereits ein eigenes Arbeitsprojekt abzulesen ist.

Das MAGAZIN präsentiert die Arbeit dieser vor allem jungen Architektinnen und Architekten in eigens für Das MAGAZIN präsentiert die Arbeit dieser vor allem den Ausstellungsraum konzipierten Einzelausstellungen jungen Architektinnen und Architekten in eigens für und rundet diese mit dazugehörigen Publikationen den Ausstellungsraum konzipierten Einzelausstellungen sowie Vorträgen ab. und rundet diese mit dazugehörigen Publikationen sowie Vorträgen ab.

Schriftarten: modum, RNS Miles Alle Photos: Moritz Ellmann Breite Gasse Publishing Schriftarten: modum, RNS Miles Wien 7,. Breite Gasse 3/2 Breite Gasse Publishing ISBN 978-3-9504111-5-7 Wien 7,. Breite Gasse 3/2 ISBN 978-3-9504111-2-6

Für Ihre Unterstützung möchten wir vor allem dem 4. Wiener Gemeindebezirk, der Stadt Wien und dem Für Ihre Unterstützung möchten wir vor allem dem österreichischen Bundeskanzleramt danken.

4. Wiener Gemeindebezirk und dem österreichischen Bundeskanzleramt danken.