Simone CHUNG

Project at the MaCI

September 2024 - June 2025

The research project centres on architectural technē and how this has evolved most significantly over the last century through the profession’s appropriation of new media and technologies for ideation and representation. From inventive architects who embraced new forms of representational media for their work in the latter half of the twentieth century, to the wealth of speculative narratives arising from unfettered explorations of digitally rendered worlds, what is striking is the cinematic tendency underpinning the visually driven depictions that allude to the intertextual development of cinema and modern architecture beginning in the 1920s.  The inextricable relationship between practice and technology with respect to screen mediation has continuously influenced the nature of design practice, from the perspective of craft and artefactual outcomes.

Considering the diverse cross-tech possibilities in this data rich era, the remit of designers has expanded to include interventions across a range of virtualities and material conditions. The project will demonstrate this by profiling trailblazers whose work are currently blurring the boundaries between media and architecture. Amid the exciting techno-cultural and social developments, ethical implications surrounding the use of generative AI for design, data and creative IP protections remain at the forefront of public concern. These entanglements need to be critically considered as we edge into a postdigital age, whereby connected intelligence achieves ubiquity.

During the fellowship, I will critically examine what constitutes technē in the present day, how, and in what form it will evolve in the foreseeable future, seeing how digital technology is rapidly dissolving the separation between media, art, architecture and technology, while reshaping disciplinary discourse. Surrounded by the sublime Alpine scenery, the time at the MaCI will be dedicated to pursuing focused research and authoring a monograph.