Philip Beesley (CA) + Rob Gorbet (CA) + Matt Gorbet (CA) + LASG (CA)
Shadows and Whispers 2024
August 18th – August 24th 2024
Philip Beesley Canada
Philip Beesley is a practicing visual artist, architect, and Professor in Architecture at the University of Waterloo and Professor of Digital Design and Architecture & Urbanism at the European Graduate School. Beesley’s work is widely cited in contemporary art and architecture, focused in the rapidly expanding technology and culture of responsive and interactive systems.He serves as the Director for the Living Architecture Systems Group, and as Director for Riverside Architectural Press. His Toronto-based practice, Philip Beesley Studio Inc., works in numerous collaborations including longstanding exchanges with Iris van Herpen.
www.livingarchitecturesystems.com
Rob Gorbet Canada
Rob Gorbet is a key member of Gorbet Design, a design firm and consultancy specializing in public interactive artwork and experiences, and also collaborates with other designers, artists, and architects including within the LASG. Gorbet’s LASG collaborations have been exhibited across the world and have won several awards, including the international FEIDAD and VIDA 11.0 first prize, and being selected to represent Canada at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale. His work has been featured in major print and online media, and on the Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet.
Rob’s teaching includes courses on microcontrollers, control systems, museum exhibit design, and technology art. Formally trained as an electrical engineer, Rob is an interdisciplinarian, a mechatronics specialist, an award-winning teacher and a technology artist.
Visit his Website
Matt Gorbet Canada
Matt Gorbet is an interdisciplinary technologist, researcher and artist who specializes in physically interactive technology experiences.
Before founding Gorbet Design, Inc., Matt was a researcher at PARC, the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where his team designed and studied new document genres enabled by emerging technologies. Matt earned a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from MIT and a Master of Science from the MIT Media Lab. He has several patents on novel interaction technologies.
Matt’s Doctorate of Design at FIU CARTA is focused on control strategies for interactive objects and environments. He works closely with the Living Architecture Systems Group and has exhibited technology artwork worldwide.
The Workshop
The workshop is about natural and human-made light, shadows, sound, and whispers. Nature and technology can seem like different worlds. However, could these worlds cross over and combine into new forms? Could the subtle boundaries between artificial and natural worlds hold keys to new kinds of harmony in our expanded, turbulent world? What can we learn from the patterns of nature? In reverse, what can we offer nature?
In an installation that seeks new conversations with the world of nature we’ll experiment and create a hybrid light and soundscape. A series of talks and explorations will reflect on some of the deep connections and transitions that can be found in the natural and technical world. This will be about listening and watching carefully, understanding and answering. We hope to create a deeply interwoven new world, supported by technical devices and installed within Boisbuchet’s unique architecture and nature.
To equip students for the workshop, Philip Beesley, Matt Gorbet and Rob Gorbet's Toronto-based sculpture studio is working with the international researchers of the Living Architecture Systems Group and preparing kits of geometric connection parts, very simple sound recorders, and lights for creating shadows. Each participant will be given a kit of parts which shall be used to explore the boundaries between sound, light, and hand-operated motion. Individual exploration will follow an introductory day where we follow kit patterns that introduce some specialised ways of working; parts of these kits can be extended by using materials you'll find within the grounds of the Domaine.
In the last days of the workshop, we will draw our explorations together into a collective installation and performance. We will create fields of new space by using artificially created shadows and projections and by making sounds and tones. Within glimmering shadows, dream-like worlds might be seen; within whispering sounds, new voices might be heard.
Featured Partners
Led by Philip Beesley and Rob Gorbet from the University of Waterloo, the Living Architecture Systems Group brings together researchers and industry partners in a multidisciplinary research cluster dedicated to developing built environments with qualities that come close to life— environments that can move, respond, and learn, with metabolisms that can exchange and renew their environments, and which are adaptive and empathic towards their inhabitants. Supported by Waterloo, Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and contributions from numerous partners, LAS is focused on developing innovative technologies, new critical aesthetics, and integrative design working methods, helping equip a new generation of designers with critical next-generation skills and critical perspectives for working with complex environments.
https://livingarchitecturesystems.com/Housing
Accommodation & food are included
We can accommodate for special catering
All participants sleep in dormitories
To book a private room or bring additional guests, get in touch: workshops@boisbuchet.org
Education
Our staff are available to help you conceptualize & produce your designs
Tools & materials are provided by Boisbuchet
All workshops are taught in English
The number of participants is limited to 22
Activities
Weekly campfire, exhibition & guided tour of the Domaine
Conferences from designers throughout the week
The famous Wednesday Porky’s party