INTRA-SPACE: the reformulation of architectural space as a dialogical aesthetic

The history of architecture, so the point of departure of this project, is a history of space and its interaction with the human figure, and not only a history of buildings. From the Vitruvian man (22 B. C.) to Le Corbusiers Modulor (1948) and Marcos Novaks Liquid Architecture (1991), architects have used the human figure to conceptualize space. But just as classical science traditionally conceived space as an inert force, so architecture has depicted space as a passive entity, not affected by human activity. In the light of current scientific re- conceptualizations (Barad, 2007) and the need to comprehend our rapidly changing and digitally enabled contemporary habitat, philosophers (Massumi 2002; Sloterdijk, 2009) architect theoreticians (Teyssot, 2004; Kwinter, 2013) and artists (Graham, 1979; Gabriel, 1993; Pomassl, 2002; Atlas, 2013; Mitchell, 2014) have drawn attention to the inadequacy of representing space as an inert and passive entity. They have called for architecture and the arts to elaborate the dynamic relationship between space and human activity in the digital era as two-way interaction. At the same time, revolutionary developments in interactive and artificially intelligent technologies are fundamentally changing the way space is produced. To date, however, there has been no sustained architectural research into the question of how such theories and technologies can provide a two-way interaction and meaningful engagement with the new types of spaces enabled by digital systems. Contemporary architectural renditions of space powerfully represent this relationship as a passive entity defined by the constraints of geometric space articulated to the human body, even if digitally designed. The proposed project will show how new aesthetic and technological frameworks overcome the limitations of these existing genres and representations responding to current scientific and philosophical redefinitions of space. Specifically, it will investigate the integration of dialogical interactive aesthetics (Barker, 2012) between human and digital agents based on their behavioral interaction within immersive visualization systems (Scheer, 2011). Dialogical interactive aesthetics allow human participants to spatially interact with intelligent digital characters in a two-way relationship that actively changes space. Immersive visualization systems allow human participants to actively envelop themselves in spatial dynamics rather than being passive observers. These systems allow space to be artistically researched and aesthetically reformulated as a two-way interaction between human and digital agents within an immersive setting. Using the new dynamic interrelationship between the human participants and digital characters as a point of departure, the project investigates how the interactions between these produce an entirely new type of space, an intra-space, actively created through intra-action, dynamically changed through the process of interaction. By integrating these systems the project pioneers the experimental representation of contemporary architectural space.

INTRA-SPACE: the reformulation of architectural space as a dialogical aesthetic explores how intra-action between, across and beyond humans and nonhumans can be embodied and spatially experienced. The project examines the hypothesis and potentials of INTRA SPACE as a novel type of space drawing on the theoretical concept of intra-action as introduced by philosopher, physicist and feminist theorist Karen Barad. Referring to Barads conceptual re-measurement of the differentiation between apparatus and human as constantly updating relations and the resulting new approaches towards knowledge production, the research project INTRA SPACE experimentally investigates its possible spatialization. The designed apparatus/human figuration of INTRA SPACE allows for full body, physical and multidimensional experiences as superimpositions of entangled machinist, human and digital sensoria, (larger-than) life-size projections of digital figures, humans and a technical framework. A major characteristic of this perceptual space is the ongoing mutual measuring of the protagonists using a real-time motion tracking system. This system recognizes movements and behaviors of one person up to small groups of five people and instantly transfers these gestures on to digital figures, which become visible as projections on screens. The joint artistic-technological research looks at the human figure as a constantly updating site of construction: architectural processes collapse into bodies, become embodied and diaphanous. INTRA SPACE offers a technical and conceptual infrastructure, a transformative disposition for equal encounters between digital, machinist and human sensoria. The resulting differentiated perspective, spanning from a single point of touch to a sensory space, newly negotiates the body in motion as immediate perceptive entity in relation to its surroundings.Future applications of INTRA SPACE could include performing art and installation art works, such as choreographed scenarios. In domestic assistance, as an embodied version of existing virtual everyday characters such as Apples Siri, Amazons Alexa or other forms of human presence in virtual zones of a space, or projections and holograms as variations of human presence. For medical treatments, e.g. in physiotherapy for patients suffering proprioceptive disorders or distortion of perception, or supporting rehabilitation for patients with restricted mobility due to accidents or other congenital causes. Further the system could be applied for studying how users interact with virtual characters and environments, in interaction design involving virtual prototyping of objects. Overall, the experimental framework of INTRA SPACE could support the extension of the human sensorium.