Antart Field/Works Talk #6

Softicity. The future architecture is soft. We developed a habit to inhabit the noisy reverb of sleek surface and the superimposed reflections in glass. To imagine the soft city, we need to dive into the mycelium and reach a microscopic scale. The soft city is more silent. The soft city is slower and it smells different. The soft city is interwoven with bodies, clothes and objects and it needs your attention, like all companion species do. We need courage and imagination to house the human earthlings in the post-fossil, post-concrete, fiber-based architectures.

»Softicity« is an online video performance which was streamed on March 25th, 2021. It featured soft fungi environments collected during fieldwork and is a study for possible symbiotic cohabitation with new urban materiality. A set of instructions engaged the remotely attending audience to question the sensory modalities, the materiality and the intra-climate of personal habitat. The online collages and videos served as the imaginary of a different, softer city. This exhibit was part of a larger speculative research in atmospheres of fiber architectures.

Natalija Miodragović takes art and space as vehicles for anticipating social change. The focus of her work is the perception and understanding of space, lightweight, flexible, unfoldable and textile structures.

Ivana Franke is a visual artist based in Berlin. Her investigations with light approach the interface between consciousness and environment, focusing on perceptual thresholds. Recently her on-going projects »Limits of Perception Lab« continued in Savvy Berlin 2020 and »Resonance of the Unforeseen« were part of Yokohama Triennale 2020.

The whole series Field/Works was curated by Maxime Le Calvé.