Location

Media Lab Lecture Hall, E14-525

Description

Luminous tweets and retweets
During the day, facade structures with their windows and material combinations grant a specific building image to the public. However, after sunset, electrical light is the medium for an architectural image. The light appearance sends atmospheric signals to the citizens: the un-illuminated buildings look as if they are sleeping, static illuminated facades appear inviting, and luminous stories shared by vivid media facades entertain the urban audience. In the last decade, media facades have become a widespread element for luminous tweets worldwide. They establish a network between the building owner and the citizens, sometimes driven by aesthetic debates, other times by commercial intentions to avoid traditional light advertisement.
The pursuit of persuasion by way of big screens gives the impression that size has more relevance than content, comparable with the large amount of trivial tweets in Twitter. Various media facades appear as monumental monologues repeating a fixed animation daily. A few facades use signals from the environment and transform them into a play of light and shadow. Others emerge as urban dialogues where buildings show combined moving pictures. Some even allow people to send messages to the building to receive luminous retweets. These turn the city into a community following the dialogue and with the respective apps may possibly even gain a following community worldwide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uaum8vg60Y

Biographies

Thomas Schielke studied architecture at the University of Technology in Darmstadt, Germany. He has been in charge of the didactic and communication division at the lighting manufacturer ERCO since 2001, for whom he designed an extensive online guide for architectural lighting, leads lighting workshops, and publishes internationally articles on lighting design and technology. He is author of the book Light Perspectives—between culture and technology. Additionally, he lectures at different universities. His dissertation at the University of Technology in Darmstadt analyzed architectural lighting.

Host/Chair: Susanne Seitinger