[spectre] Urban Drift : TRANSFORMERS

[stephen kovats]

NEWS ++++++++++++++
urban drift ­ a new space, and series of exhibitions and talks:
 
TRANSFORMERS 
>From October ­ December 2003
 
In September urban drift, the international platform for architecture and
urbanism, will open a new project an exhibition space in Berlin.
TRANSFORMERS is the first of a new series of projects by urban drift in the
"Bikinihaus" in Berlin - built in 1957, and located right at the centre of
'West' Berlin at Bahnhof Zoo. The location will engender a deliberate shift
in focus to a part of Berlin in which a host of listed buildings are under
threat of current urban planning decisions.

TRANSFORMERS will consist of three group shows and intends to create a
social space ­ a laboratory for contemporary urban strategies and
architectural practice with international participants, and a forum for
interdisciplinary collaborations. Here, artists, architects, writers,
theorists and filmmakers will present and discuss their plans for
transformational architecture, and shed new light on existing urban
realities.

The shows will reflect tendencies within current architectural practice,
together with strategies in contemporary art that focus on the urban realm.
The intention behind this juxtaposition is to reveal a poetics of praxis
which both informs, and transforms the way in which one perceives,
intervenes in, and designs for the built environment. Transformers intends
to create a zone of activation and speculation around informal strategies of
appropriation of public space.
 
The three exhibitions in the series Transformers
 
8th ­ 26th  October:  Pirated Spaces, Informal Architecture:
The artist/architect as archivist, mapping the city and transforming
perceptions of the cityscape;
The stretching and bending of the rules and materials that govern
architectural practice and the built environment.
 
6th ­ 23rd November: UFO Belgrade: Urban Fog of Belgrade ­ a city on the
quest for a new identity as a result of a brutal and bizarre transition
. 
3rd ­ 21st December: lan_language_architecture_networks:
The manifestation and manipulation of data and information streams in
architectural space reshaping the language of architecture
 
Pablo Leon de la Barra, Architect, Mexico/London; Maria Papadimitriou,
artist, TAMA - Athen; Marjetica Potrj, artist, Ljubliana; Ersatzstadt;
Stefan Lanz, urbanist & Hermann Hiller, Architect; Restmoderne, Berlin;
Deadline Architects, Berlin; Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius, Architect -
Raumlabor, Berlin; Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, Caracas;
architecture students, TU Cottbus; Nic Clear, General Lighting and Power,
London; Actar Publishers and Metapolis, Barcelona; Claudia Basrawi and
Florian Braun, Berlin; Stealth Group, Rotterdam/Belgrad; Büro International,
London/Berlin; Spector, Leipzig, Markus Miessen & Kenny Cupers, Authors -
"Spaces of Uncertainty", London/Berlin (in cooperation with Framework
Gallery); Susanne Hofmann & Baupiloten, Berlin; Speed Investor, Berlin;
Claire Price, the Facility, London; Realities United, Berlin.
 
Chief curator for Transformers: Francesca Ferguson; co-curator: Karen Wong,
guest curators (UFO Belgrade) Katherine Carl, New York; Sabine von Fischer,
Zurich; Stevan Vukoviç, Belgrade; Srdjan Jovanoviç Weiss, New York/Belgrade.
 
Transformers is supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Berlin
 
More Information: http://www.trans-formers.org
<http://www.trans-formers.org/>  or kontakt at sally-below-pr.de


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URBAN DRIFT
www.urbandrift.org
Initiator/Curator: Francesca Ferguson
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Budapester Straße 48
3. Etage
10787 Berlin
Tel. ++49-30-257 57 186
info at urbandrift.org
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