raumlaborberlin designed the festival architecture for transmediale 2k+12 in/compatible at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. The installation consisted of fragments, which seen as an ensemble evoke memories of habitations. The objects appeared as a new species, a fusion of furniture and construction elements.

Good Manners Bad Habits

The architectural installation comprised elements which, as an ensemble, were reminiscent of domestic living situations. Together, the objects seemed to fuse a new spatial species, a hybrid between furniture and structural elements. Even though these fragments enclosed several interior spaces, structuring and dividing the foyers of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, they did not clearly define what is interior and what is exterior.Their own distinctive syntax was too open or too intricate to be deciphered and, as built paradoxes, they created an atmosphere of uncertainty.

Exhibition Architecture

The exhibition design for the show “dark drives” integrated the presentation of very different media into one spacial frame. The media presented were mainly projections, works shown on screens but also sculptural works, sound works and prints / drawings in frames. The general atmosphere of the exhibition space was quite dark, darker than represented on the photographs. The architecture followed loosely the lines of opening up the frames and elements of exhibition design. The notions of inside and outside, of front and back of proper and casual (re)presentations were opened up for individual interpretation. The diagram of the spacial layout was therefore broken down into a nearly continuous sequence of related and connected elements. While allowing every artistic position a good amount of space to be precede in, the audience experience was a extremely slowed down concentrated drift.
 

Festival architecture by raumlaborberlin: Andrea Hofmann, Markus Bader with Florian Stirnemann