The IARC Show
An exhibition by the Independent Architecture Research Colloquia of the University of Innsbruck
Junge Talstation, Innsbruck
March 2020
Curated by Davide Tommaso Ferrando, Cenk Güzelis & Bettina Siegele
with works by:
Lida Badafareh & Mehrshad Atashi, Simeon Brugger, Uwe Brunner, Zeynep Çynar, Tiziano Derme, Anirudhan Iyengar, Daniel Köhler, Andreas Körner, Alexandra Moisi, Rasa Navasaityte, Nicole Lilly Nikonenko, Giacomo Pala & Jörg Stanzel, Theresa Uitz und Gonzalo Vaillo
The IARC SHOW is an initiative of the IARC (Independent Architecture Research Colloquia) of the University of Innsbruck, which is meant to stimulate a public confrontation around the work of current and former PhD students of the Architecture Faculty.
With the intention of pro-viding an overview as wide as possible of the topics that are being researched within the different institutes, the curators have decided not to define a main theme for the exhibition, nor a specific format for its contributions. As a consequence, the works exhibited are as diverse as the research fields of their authors.
As different as these researches may be, nevertheless, it seems possible to identify some shared interests and concerns, among the PhD students who took part in the show. On the one hand, the awareness of an ongoing and radical change, in the way in which reality is perceived, stands behind many of the exhibited works. This change, which is of course produced by technological innovation, invites architects to revisit some of the fundamentals of their discipline: expanding the notion of space to the digital field; activating all the possible combinations of physical, augmented, virtual and fake realities; adopting non-human points of view in the construction of the contemporary cityscape; visualizing the constantly changing, invisible forces that produce the everyday environment; exploring new natural dimensions by means of digital tools. On the other hand, the fundamental value of representation, as an instrument capable of enriching the discipline from within, often emerges in this exhibition, as many of the works suggest that copy, collage, repetition, remix and montage are still useful tools for thinking architecture - with or without the digital revolution.
It is probably worth noting that the vast majority of the shown works differ substantially, in terms of technique of presentation, from what is traditionally expected by an architectural exhibition. The quasi-absence of maquettes, and the small number of drawings, is in fact counterbalanced by a profusion of videos and immersive experiences, which not only remind us how architecture definitely exists in an expanded field, but also stresses the experimental core of the researches that are being currently developed in the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Innsbruck.
The themes of the works shown are as diverse as their techniques.
Several projects make use of new tools such as augmented reality and virtual reality to explore, among other things, the plurality of different realities or a perception altered by technology.
In addition, new tendencies in philosophy such as Flat Ontology and Object- Oriented Ontology and their influence on contemporary architecture will be examined and questioned by means of various video works.
And last but not least, more „classical“ presentation con-cepts of architecture can be found in the exhibition as well. Models, drawings and plans, as well as poster designs and a cabinet of curiosities convey various thematic complexes of the young researchers. These are among others: Architecture as a mediator between human beings, architecture and nature; the automobile as a symbol of the tension between socialist and capitalist ideology; or the phenomenon of twin buildings in an extremely individualized society.
