Tag Archives: Mimi Ziegler

Where urban and digital realms merge, the post-geographic city emerges

Everything, On Time (2015) by Tim Durfee and Ben Hooker (with Jenny Rodenhouse), "a testing ground for what the city is, and perhaps will be."

Everything, On Time (2015) by Tim Durfee and Ben Hooker is “a testing ground for what the city is, and perhaps will be.” Image courtesy Tim Dufee and Ben Hooker

This Friday is ArtNight, a twice-a-year event in which Pasadena’s most prominent arts and cultural institutions—including ArtCenter College of Design—swing open their doors for a free evening of art, music and entertainment.

In addition to attending a celebration for the opening night of the College’s street art exhibition OUTSIDEIN, visitors to ArtCenter’s South Campus will have a unique opportunity to see in the Wind Tunnel Gallery a preview of Now, There: Scenes from the Post-Geographic City, an exhibition from ArtCenter’s Media Design Practices (MDP) program which will be installed at the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture this December in Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

Curated by MDP’s Professor Tim Durfee and faculty Mimi ZeigerNow, There explores “what is now and where is there” in today’s reality in which “urban and digital realms are inextricably linked” by presenting a selection of screen-based works, objects and texts that “develop, explore and visualize a city not tied to any physical locality.”

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m-a-u-s-e-r installation explores how nature became the digital world’s aesthetic obsession

Asli Serbest (left) and Mona Mahall selecting images of artificial palm trees for the Natural Wifi installation in Media Design Practices' Wind Tunnel Gallery at ArtCenter's South Campus. Photo: m-a-u-s-e-r

Asli Serbest (left) and Mona Mahall selecting images of artificial palm trees for the Natural Wifi installation in Media Design Practices’ Wind Tunnel Gallery at ArtCenter’s South Campus. Photo: m-a-u-s-e-r

You know those artificial rocks people use to hide pipes, pumps and other domestic structural elements deemed too aesthetically displeasing for a proper residential landscape? Turns out they’re not the most comfortable objects to sit on for an extended period of time.

Nevertheless, that’s how I spent 45 minutes last week—sitting atop wheel-mounted fake rocks and talking with their creators, Asli Serbest and Mona Mahall, the Stuttgart- and Istanbul-based art, design and architecture duo who go by the nom de guerre micro architecture unit star energy ray, or m-a-u-s-e-r for short.

I met with them to discuss Natural Wi-Fi, their research project that culminated in an installation in Wind Tunnel Gallery, part of ArtCenter’s Graduate Center for Critical Practice, that explored the material byproducts of the Internet as well as how Nature has become the online world’s aesthetic obsession.

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