Graphic Design for /imagine: A Journey into The New Virtual at the MAK/Museum of Applied Arts
In virtual space, visionary designs and fictional scenarios for architecture and urban planning can be imagined and distributed beyond the limitations of the real world. Computational tools that are now widely accessible and the socio-technical aspects of Internet use have not only revolutionized the creative process and concept development in architecture and design, but have expanded our understanding of how we shape, experience, and navigate space.
/imagine: A Journey into The New Virtual brings together projects from a new generation of imaginative creators, from a range of backgrounds and disciplines, including architecture, landscape design, interior and product design, urban planning, visual arts, game design, and film. Together, they represent a distinct and recent manifestation of The New Virtual that deals with the challenges and potentials of virtual worlds, as well as the associated social, ecological, political, and infrastructural effects.
→ Find all texts and information on the exhibited works on the project website www.thenewvirtual.org.
While not exhaustive, the exhibition aims to present a freeze-frame in the constant evolution of the design of virtual space. Looking at the last decade (2013–2023),it features critical, interactive, participatory, playable, and hyper-realistic works from younger generations in a variety of media, such as renderings, CGI visualizations, 3D animations and prints, digital films, and virtual reality, as well as blockchain projects and video games. Several newly commissioned and recent works are being shown for the first time in a museum. Structured into four overlapping sections, the exhibition presents common threads within The New Virtual.
By envisioning new ways of building and designing in virtual space that may not yet be feasible or realistic, the projects presented in this exhibition push the boundaries of the built environment, creating new narratives, perspectives, and agency in virtual space that may continue into physical reality.
/imagine: is the command that allows users to create their own architectural utopias with the software Midjourney. Based on a text prompt, an AI algorithm generates images that can be varied infinitely.
With new and recent works by: Morehshin Allahyari, Alisa Andrasek, Matias del Campo & Sandra Manninger (SPAN), Alexis Christodoulou, Formundrausch, Genevieve Goffman, Kordae Jatafa Henry, Miriam Hillawi Abraham, iheartblob, Simone C. Niquille (/technoflesh Studio), Lee Pivnik (The Institute of Queer Ecology), Andrés Reisinger (REISINGER), Jose Sanchez (Plethora Project), Space Popular, Studio Mary Lennox, Studio Precht, Charlotte Taylor, Leah Wulfman, Liam Young, Zyva Studio, 2MVD.
