Media Facades Festival – Berlin 2008

Stadion Center, Vienna

The Media Facades Festival takes place this week in Berlin. The event is organized by mediaarchitecture.org and brings together participants from a wide range of design backgrounds, all of which are interested in the use of public space. Through meetings and workshops the festival uses collaboration to positively affect the “approach to technology, architecture and media art in modern cities.” The Rathaus’ own s.a.johnson conducted an email interview with the festival’s Exhibition Director and Co-Curator Gernot Tscherteu to discuss, among others, the emerging field of media architecture, designing digital facades and the influence of Blade Runner on modern design.

How does the interactive, animated nature of the newest forms of media facades redefine public space?

There are some prophets that predict salvation and the dawn of a new era of communication and there are others that warn against negative effects like light pollution or excessive advertising. In a sense both sides are true but one has to develop more differentiated points of view. In other words: an emotional but also rational discourse is needed in order to tame the chances and risks of this new field. The discussion has to be as public as possible and is to involve different stakeholders. – That’s a main reason for organizing the Media Facades Festival in Berlin.

How have digital media facades on new urban infrastructure changed the ideas of branding architectural styles?

Well, I think we all must admit that we simply don’t know. Always when a new technology emerges it takes time to see the affects. It is certainly true that media facades will be used in order to brand Corporate Identities (CI) of large companies. Some Companies like Coke already use “the pixel” as part of their CI. But more and more companies will discover media facades as a means to communicate with their clients and to a certain extent they will take over functions like public information and orientation that have been so far the domain of public entities. E.g. informing about time and temperature has traditionally been a service by cities and/or churches. Nowadays it’s more and more the private sector that provides this information. But that’s only the start as media facades have the potential of displaying a lot of other services like traffic, pollution, news. That’s simply a means of getting more public attention. And finally there’s the potential of involving passers-by in games or other feedback-cycles that tie clients to a company (site).

Victory Park, Dallas

Does media architecture create a new form of architecture or simply apply a façade to previously derived styles?

It is certainly possible to see it either way. I personally believe that integrating a display in a building changes its entire character. In “good” media architecture there should be a relation between a building, its media facade and the media content. In “bad” media architecture the facade forms a separate layer from the building behind. “Good” media architecture like e.g. the projects of “realities united” or the “Galleria” project in Seoud or the “Chanel” project in Tokyo tend to have customized display solutions that match quite perfectly the specific needs of the site. In “good” media architecture the display and the building should merge and it’s up to the creativity of designers and architects HOW this merge is done. That’s a new topic within architecture and a big challenge for young architects and designers.

Chanel Tower, Tokyo

Have media facades become our modern urban monuments? There are different sorts of monuments, but some media facades are certainly among them. Media architecture is considered unnecessary ornamentation by some, does the interactive element involved justify the costly nature of installing large-scale media systems?

As pointed out above “good” media architecture doesn’t mean ornamentation, because the display should be an integral part of the building. The justification of costs is subject to individual judgment. A marketing manager has to look on it in terms of “facade impressions” and might consider it a unique means of communication, on the other hand a critic will see it as an enormous waste of energy. I like to take up different positions before I come to a conclusion. In some cases it is certainly justified to speak of a waste of money and energy.

What are the future risks of installing media facades if they become subjects of neglect and poor maintenance? Do any examples of this neglect currently exist?

Media facades generally require a high level of maintenance. LED sources lose brightness and have to be replaced after some time. They “burn” faster when they are lit at 100%. So the management of the display is crucial and helps to save costs. The human eye is very accurate at detecting mistakes in large images. A single broken pixel may cause irritations. Another risk is deriving from the fact that many media facades have a web interface for maintenance and content upload. Like websites, also media facades may be attacked by hackers that are interested in taking over the display for communicating their agenda.

Movies like Blade Runner and Brazil, now 25 years old, produced quite accurate representation of the future of large-scale, animated media. If one cares to speculate, what films currently exist that could present a feasible view of public media displays? Are we moving towards 3-D projections like those seen in Minority Report and A.I.?

I think you are right that movies and science-fiction in general are always avantgardistic, in the sense that they inspire designers and architects. The media facades in Blade Runner were certainly very influential. I also think that we will see more flying displays for certain events like Olympiads or World Championships. On the other side not all visions make sense for a large public. I very much like multi touch sensitive interfaces like shown in Minority Report – and it was very successfully applied to Apple’s iphone – but I don’t think that they make sense on large facades. They might be useful in shop windows but once the distance between the display and the user interacting with it becomes too large, other people cannot understand who is actually controlling the interface.

Blade Runner

Can you provide any further leads to published texts, conferences, websites or other information regarding these issues?

We constantly bookmark all resources connected to media architecture here.

For further reading also consult the presentation Thoughts about Media Architecture that Tscherteu gave at the Media Architecture Conference in London in September 2007.