2019 UABB Urban Interactions will open to the public at the Main Venues Futian Railway Station and Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning (MOCAUP) on December 22, 2019. At the same time, nine Sub-Venues will be set up in other districts of the city to interconnect with the Main Venue, completing an organically interactive network throughout the city.
The team of Chief Curators includes Architect and Director of MIT Senseable City Lab Carlo Ratti, CAE Academician Meng Jianmin and famous curator and art critic Fabio Cavallucci. Academic Curator is the South China-Torino Lab (Politecnico di Torino and SCUT). Interaction, as an important methodology of this UABB, is profoundly embodied in the concept, composition and presentation of the exhibition. Compared with the previous editions, this UABB involves the widest scope of disciplines and the most diverse perspectives. The exhibition consists of two sections, namely "Eyes of the City" and "Ascending City", which will explore the evolving relationship between urban space and technological innovation from different perspectives.
More than 140 works will be presented by over 280 participants from 24 countries and regions in the exhibition, including MVRDV, Liam Young, Stefano Boeri, Dominique Perrault, Sou Fujimoto, Ryoji Ikeda, Wang Shu, Yung-Ho Chang, Philip F. Yuan, Liu Cixin, Academician Cui Kai, Academician Wang Jianguo, and other well-known international and domestic architects, artists and institutes. At the same time, a series of academic exchange events and public events will be held during the opening week and exhibition period to involve the visitors’ participation.
"Eyes of the City" Section: When City and Buildings Have the Ability to See
Exhibited at the venue of Futian Railway Station, the "Eyes of the City" section is jointly curated by Carlo Ratti and South China-Torino Lab. It aims to explore how digital technologies and artificial intelligence are going to impact architecture and people's daily life in the city.
“Eyes of the City” section was conceived through an “open curatorship” approach. which has brought together many disciplines and points of view. More than 60 international exhibitors shared their blueprints digitally, and the entire exhibition was fabricated locally. The section consists of eight sub-sections: The World's Urban Lab, Mobility Landscapes, Silicon Pupils, Digital Society, Design Intelligence, Artificial Ecologies, Resisting Technologies, and Curating the City. exploring the impacts of the "Eye of the City" scenes on the daily life. In parallel to this, leading architects, designers, philosophers and scientists were involved as “Foundational Contributors”, to reflect on and respond to the underlying themes of the exhibition. The section engages with its unusual venue, showcasing how railway stations are among the places where the impact of the “Eyes of the City” is going to be felt the most in the future.
"Ascending City" Section: Cross-Disciplinary Future-Oriented Fantasies
“Exhibited in MOCAUP, the "Ascending City" Section is curated by the team headed by Meng Jianmin and Fabio Cavallucci, gathering a number of prestigious architects, artists, filmmakers, writers and museum researchers as well as interdisciplinary members who discuss the methodology of this UABB in a brand new and profound way.
"Ascending City" consists of 3 sub-sections, "Empowering Citizens in Progressive Cities," "Urban Alchemists" and "Daily Sci-Fi", corresponding to the views of users, creators and thinkers of the city respectively. "Empowering Citizens in Progressive Cities" looks at the city from the perspective of citizens, examining the relationship between emerging technologies and urban residents and the dramatic changes it brings to the identity and self-identity of individual citizen. "Urban Alchemists" records and reflects transformations of city from the perspectives of architects, artists and urban planners. "Daily Sci-Fi" builds a bridge between the tangible and the intangible, reality and ideality, existence and imagination. In addition to the three sub-sections, the "Ascending City" section also includes three special projects "Nine Cities, Millions of Futures," "Art Cube" and "Virtual Biennale".
Li Qing's work "neon slogan" has transformed the public toilet of the original jewelry factory in the bonded area. The classic form of hand washing table reflects a kind of collective order. The neon characters reflected in the screens in the distribution form five slogans. They come from inspirational words left in the factory. These words have become a glimpse of the history of the bonded area and the intersection of different time and space.
Li Qing's neon video device restores the materialized Street characters into virtual and editable characters, and the carriers of all kinds of information, such as junk news, success stories, celebrity gossip, inspirational mottos, etc., capturing a spiritual atmosphere scattered over the city.
