Architecture Faculty Open Lecture. Areti Markopoulou

Combining Design and Science for a positive impact on built environment: Open Lecture by Areti Markopoulou

The next lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this spring will be Greek architect, educator and urban technologist, Areti Markopoulou. Markopoulou will be stepping on the stage of the main auditorium of the new EKA building on the 14th of February at 6 pm to talk about advanced architecture research and how to combine design and science for a positive impact on our built environment.

Areti Markopoulou is a Greek architect, researcher and urban technologist working at the intersection between architecture and digital technologies. She is the Academic Director at IAAC in Barcelona, where she also leads the Advanced Architecture Group, a multidisciplinary research group exploring how design and science can positively impact and transform the present and future of our built spaces, the way we live and interact. Her research and practice seeks to redefine architecture as a performative “body” beyond traditional notions of static materiality, approximate data, or standardized manufacturing.

Areti is the founder and principal of the multidisciplinary practice Design Dynamics Studio, and co-editor of Urban Next, a global network focused on rethinking architecture through the contemporary urban milieu. She is the project coordinator of a number of European Research funded Projects on topics including: urban regeneration through technologies, dynamic design through novel materials and multidisciplinary educational models in the digital age. 
Areti has also served as a curator of international exhibitions such as On Site Robotics (Building Barcelona Construmat 2017), Print Matter (In3dustry 2016), HyperCity (Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale, 2015) and MyVeryOwnCity (World Bank, BR Barcelona, 2011).
She holds a Bachelor of Architecture & Engineering from DUTH – the Democritus University of Thrace, a MArch from IAAC, and a Fab Academy diploma on Digital Fabrication offered by the Fab Lab Network. Her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions worldwide, such as the Venice Biennale, Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale, Centre Pompidou, MAXXI and Beijing Design Week among others.

The architecture and urban design department of the Estonian Academy of Arts has been curating the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to all interested.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Curators: Sille Pihlak, Johan Tali, for this lecture

www.avatudloengud.ee
https://www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

More info:
Pille Epner
E-post: arhitektuur@artun.ee
Tel. +372 642 0071

Carol Katkoff will open her solo exhibition “Using a Metamorphotic Photo Story as a Medium for the Analysis of the Viewer” at Vent Space project space on Wednesday,
February 6, 2019 at 6pm. 

Carol Katkoff is interested in the psychological process of perceiving
the world and how it makes everyone experience the surroundings through
their own unique distorting mirrors. The world we are experiencing is only the imagination of reality. The image
dictates the ways we perceive.

The key of the exhibition is a meta-morphotic photo story bound into an accordion book, which is accompanied by videos of the interviews with the viewers. The author created the book with an idea, that it’s story is formed depending on the viewer and one’s individual experiences and imagination. In a chaotic, but narrative photo story, the aimlessly drifting camera creates a metamorphotic plot, where the characters might or might not be linked together through only a chance. The actions of the characters might seem to have a purpose, but before we reach it, the camera might have already found a new subject of interest or brought us into an absurd situation.

The photo story is like a little replicate of the chaos we experience in real life, in which we try to find a meaning already because we have an instinctive need for it. The instinctive need is the reason why also the viewer is trying to reach an order in the chaos and find meanings in the story. The viewer is an active participant in the creative process, so that the story behind is formed by the individual experience and imagination. The complete form comes into being in a moment the viewer meets the story. The process the viewer goes through is a reflection of how the analyze should take place with the perceived information in general. The meanings the author might have actually had creating the story don’t own an importance.

The exhibition will be open daily from 12pm to 6pm until February 9, 2019.

Carol Katkoff is studying in MA Programme of Contemporary Art at Estonian Academy of Arts. The current exhibition was created as a thesis work
in Photography at Pallas University of Applied Sciences in 2018.

The next exhibition at EKA Gallery is The world’s biggest EKA Gallery-exhibited work by PRIIT, a group of artists from EKA. The exhibition is open only for a week, on February 12–17 and is accessible 24/7.

PRIIT has said about the exhibition: “Space becomes installation and installation becomes space again. A trans-medium and multidimensional work fills the entire space and is in terms of its parameters the biggest work that will ever be shown in that gallery. What do we have to sacrifice to completely subordinate space to ourselves at the exhibition? We experience defiance at the white cube, experience a loss and rediscovery of self in the abstract information field of non-objects.”

PRIIT is a group of artist including Riin Maide, Sidney Lepp, Johannes Luik, Cristo Madissoo, Nele Tiidelepp. Earlier, PRIIT has produced two slightly place-specific and quite experimental exhibitions – Placeless in a Kadriorg rental flat and The Fifth Ice Age before the Third World War in the Tartu culture club Üheteistkümnes.

For the first time, the Product Design Department of Estonian Academy of Arts will join the lineup of Stockholm Furniture & Light from 5 to 9 February, 2019. Alongside 29 design schools and 37 young, upcoming designers and design studios from altogether 21 countries, Estonian Academy of Arts will be exhibiting at the Greenhouse section of the fair, booth C18:37.

On view in Stockholm, Sweden, are 1:1 furniture prototypes designed during two studio classes of the Autumn 2018 Semester.

The Department of Product Design has been generously supported by the European Regional Development Fund, and the Architecture Endowment of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

For more information and images please contact: anna-liisa.laarits@artun.ee

From 29th of January, Misa Asanuma’s new exhibition “enkei” will be visible in photography department vitrine gallery. Misa Asanuma’s new exhibition “enkei ” throw doubt on our desire to take photography in this image-saturated era; Why we want to archive some scenery as images, and how we treat captured images after that? Why, time to time, we automatically do so, even we might not cherish them that much afterward?

The unique mismatch of materials framed in the showcase is her imagined landscape, which emerged from her personal experience.

Misa Asanuma (b.1994) is an artist from Japan. She studied literature at Meiji University, Tokyo. She is currently in the middle of her MA studies in the department of Contemporary Art of the Estonian Academy of Arts and mainly working on photography.

The exhibition will stay open until 24th of March at the address Põhja pst 35, in front of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia. The exhibition is open 24h/7 days.

From 1 February the exhibition “Ocean Botlights” by Taavi Suisalu will be open at the Tallinn City Gallery. Suisalu, who tackles the relationship between people and technology, here explores light – simultaneously a giver of life and a conveyer of information, spreading out in a web of rays the breadth of a hair at the bottom of the oceans, where no other light can reach. The exhibition is curated by Siim Preiman.

The exhibition will open on Thursday, 31 January at 6pm and will remain open until 31 March.

Taavi Suisalu (b. 1982) is an artist, who seems to be constantly flickering between different times, simultaneously looking into the ancient past and the future just out of reach. It seems that this tension between eras is an activating force in his work. At the exhibition “Ocean Botlights”, light is what brings together the ancient and the modern, simultaneously one of the prerequisites for life on Earth as well as the conveyer of information along the super-fast fibre optic cables that cover the world like a spider’s web.

“Light is not just a condition necessary for life, but the infrastructure of our information society also relies on it – the internet relies in large part on the relay of information in the form of light along fibre optic cables. Along with productivity, cheapness and user-friendliness, the internet has helped the mass growth of information and communication technology (ICT) in society. As a result, almost all important products and services in first-world countries depend on ICTs,” Oliver Laas writes in the accompanying booklet.

The installations on show at the exhibition bring together the characteristics of light both ancient and new. Suisalu seems to be trying to capture continuity in his work and is searching for something with a longer perspective. “Although how people behave and think acclimatises to new technologies quickly, the changes in sensations, physiology and mentality are more long-term,” he writes in the accompanying text. It seems that Suisalu is striving towards such a level of standardisation that would allow us to overcome the seemingly accelerating and unstoppable fervour for technological development.

Taavi Suisalu activates peripheral areas using technology, sound and performance based art as tools for an intriguing coming together. His work is inspired by the way contemporary society relates to technology and its influence on how a social being behaves, senses and thinks. In his work, he also connects cultural phenomena with contemporary cultural practices and approaches that are more traditional. His recent solo-exhibitions include “Landscapes and Portraits” (Hobusepea Gallery, 2017) and “I Am NOT Sitting in a Room” (Draakoni Gallery, 2015).

We would like to thank: Estonian Cultural Endowment, Estonian Ministry of Culture, Estonian Artists’ Association, Veinisõber, AkzoNobel, WRO Art Center, EMAP / EMARE, Creative Europe, Tartu Valgus, KOOR Wood, Kadri Toom, Indrek Tali, Mihkel Säre, Tõnu Narro, John Grzinich

Tallinn City Gallery (Harju 13) is open Wednesday till Sunday 12–7pm. Entrance is free.

Public lecture by Raine Vasquez will be held today(17.01) at 5pm in room nr A301

In an informal conversation Raine Vasquez will discuss his complicated and frustrated relationship with art, his exodus into philosophy, and his continued work at the Museum of Impossible Forms and other art-centric organizations. He will discuss some points of his forthcoming “anti-art” manifesto, contemplate arts’ role as a technology of late-capitalism, and whether it really has the power to disrupt that it is so often claimed to possess. He will wonder about the ethics of continuing to make art, and speak about disappointment, hopelessness, and self-exile.

http://www.raine–vasquez.com

Janne Lias will open her first
solo exhibition titled “Dog Show”
on Wednesday, January 16 at 6–8pm
at Vent Space project space.

“To get over some fears, you need to actively deal with them. Some others you may simply grow out of and realise at some point that you just aren’t afraid anymore. That said, terrifying past events leave their mark and leave you with unpleasant memories.

One active method for overcoming phobias is to confront them i.e. through exposure, in which you get used to the frightening situation or object through careful yet consistent contact with them. Another method is to poke fun at the fear and convince yourself you aren’t afraid anymore. But does this work?”

The exhibition will be open from January 17 to 19 at 12–6pm and
on January 20 at 12–4pm.

Janne Lias (b. 1981, Tallinn) studies
at the painting department of the Estonian Academy of Arts. Having previously acquired a master’s in computer science from Tallinn University of Technology,
Lias often uses IT knowledge in her work. Working in the field of art, she likes to experiment with different materials and techniques. Emotions and a sense of humour are important tools for her in creating her work.

The EKA Design Showcase presents the results of collaborations between the Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Design and various enterprises and will take place on 15 January at 13.00 in the EKA main auditorium (A101). Concepts, prototypes and final results for innovative products and services will be presented, featuring new developments in the space, transport and package delivery industry and other fields. All enterprises, EKA’s present and future cooperation partners, and enthusiasts of innovative design are kindly invited to attend the event! The presentations will be given in English. At the end of the design day, the winner of the Abakhan Creative Award will be announced.

Timetable and registration.

The event will be opened with a presentation by Ott Vatter, Deputy Director of the e-Residency programme, who will introduce the project that is being carried out in cooperation with EKA interaction designers and focuses on improving the user experience of the e-residency service.

The core of the day is made up of twelve presentations on cooperation projects that the EKA Faculty of Design and the EKA and TalTech Design & Technology Futures joint programme have been working on over the last two years. One of the showcased projects is in collaboration with the Swiss Space Center and it offers solutions for making living conditions during long space missions more human-friendly. How can astronauts avoid mental health problems on long missions during which their 24h rhythm has been turned upside down? What are new ways of engaging in sports in space for training in weightlessness? According to Janno Nõu, one of the project leaders and a teaching staff member at TalTech, the space centre is very satisfied with the innovative solutions the project has provided, as they give a completely different approach to the space industry. The technology for the lunar outpost will be developed based on the astronauts’ needs, which is one of the key elements during longer space missions. The high point of the project will come in Switzerland this summer when the project will present engineered technical solutions.

The EKA Design Showcase will also feature a new type of rental vehicle that leaves more space for people and makes the growth of major urban areas more sustainable. Together with Cleveron, which was named Company of the Year at the 2018 Estonian Entrepreneurship Awards, a drone-attached package delivery module was developed that allows for aerial delivery system, as well as other creative solutions for various enterprises. According to EKA Collaboration Coordinator Ingela Heinaste, approximately 200 collaboration projects with various enterprises and institutions have been carried out in the 10 years of the EKA Research and Development Office. “Using a specific problem statement as the starting point, we play out innovative solutions, many of which are later realised. We create products and services under the supervision of teaching staff members who are internationally renowned specialists in their field. We design future visions, develop never-before-seen solutions and test new technologies,” said Heinaste who highly recommends that companies contact her to discuss collaboration opportunities.

At 16.30 after the presentations, the winner of the Abakhan Creative Award will be announced followed by the exhibition of nominees.

We would like to thank EKA’s collaboration partners: Swiss Space Center, Santa Monica Networks AS, Cleveron AS, Emergency Response Centre, Good Deed Foundation, Atlas Partners OÜ, Welement AS, Taltech.

Event takes place as EU Industry Days 2019 event and under the umbrella of Cumulus.

Additional information:

Ingela Heinaste
Collaboration Coordinator
ingela.heinaste@artun.ee
Tel 521 9187

Mart Vainre
Communications Specialist
mart.vainre@artun.ee
Tel 626 7111

January 22 at 18.00-20.00
EKA room 501

We are excited to welcome Kenza Drancourt (industrial designer) and Theo Mahut (PhD, in product design, innovation and development) from GOODMOOD Laboratory for a talk and discussion on the role culture plays in perception and design of textures. Julia Valle-Norohna, design researcher and Assistant Professor in Fashion (EKA), will lead the discussion.

The event is free and open to everyone!

Please register until January 20, so we can better plan the event.

Same texture can be differently perceived depending on cultural experiences. Similarly, a texture can be differently designed depending on cultural references. What is a ‘traditional’ texture, for you? What is a ‘contemporary’ one? Is this texture differently perceived and designed depending on your Spanish, French, or Estonian approach?

GOODMOOD Laboratory will present this research study through the analysis of several workshops conducted in different Design Schools around Europe, including EKA. Both the general process and preliminary results will be shared and discussed. Additionally, this will be an opportunity to discuss how can research be useful for design; what is the future of tactile interactions; or even how to design for affective and cognitive reactions.

Théo Mahut is a Doctor in product design, innovation and development. He is specialized in human/product Interactions. Before getting his PhD from Les Arts et Métiers of Paris, he studied Industrial Design at La Martinière Diderot (Lyon, France).

Kenza Drancourt is an Industrial Designer, specialized in Meanings, Perception and Prospective of Colors & Surfaces. She graduated from Ensci – Les Ateliers (Paris, France), before approaching a Research & design way of working.

Julia Valle-Norohna is the Associate Professor in Fashion at EKA and doctoral candidate in Design at Aalto University. She holds an MA in visual arts and a professional background in fashion design. As a designer–researcher, her work explores wearer–worn relationships and alternative approaches to commercial fashion via practice-based inquiries.

The event is funded by European Union Regional Fund.

Further information:

Maria Jäärats
Research and Development Department
+37258025300
maria.jaarats@artun.ee