The 17th Biennale Architettura should have regularly taken place in 2020, but was postponed to 2021 due to the Covid-19 and is now open from May 22nd to November 21st . The International Exhibition includes 112 participants in competition from 46 countries. 63 National Participations will bring to life the historic Pavilions in the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the historic city centre. Curated by the Lebanese-American architect and university professor Hashim Sarkis, organised by La Biennale di Venezia.

A total of 17 Collateral Events by national and international non-profit entities and institutions will take place in various venues in the city. One of these is Mutualities – an experimental exhibition about human / AI relationships, curated by Dr. Sonja Berthold and Dietmar Leyk of the research laboratory LAAS (Life as a Service) and the international architecture and urban design office SPACECOUNCIL. Mutualities explores the interactions between people, nature, and digital technology within our shared urban spaces. Operating within the emerging field of Neurourbanism, Mutualities asks: what do we share, who do we share it with, and where does this exchange take place or, how do we live together?

This is precisely the question that is also at the centre of the planning of the urban quarter of tomorrow, the Urbane Mitte Am Gleisdreieck in Berlin: In the future, the quarter will harmoniously combine all aspects of urban living and working. New work and mobility, sponsored art and culture, digitalisation as well as versatile sports facilities - a place with social responsibility that is already thinking about tomorrow, today. Supporting the unique exhibition Mutualities was therefore a stroke of luck, as it precisely addresses the core themes of Urbane Mitte in artistic terms.

The exhibition is composed of large-scale, immersive video and audio projections that expand the material boundaries of the gallery into virtual space. It showcases 12 future scenarios where humans and AI interact. Sonja Berthold and Dietmar Leyk: “We are in the midst of concurrent transformations, like the generation who lived through the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago (…). We will all experience profound developments in how we work and educate ourselves, when and with whom we decide to settle down and have children and who and how we meet in common spaces.”

The empathic space uses AI algorithms to learn from, and grow with, the visitor; a “smart” exhibition that gets smarter over the course of its six month existence. In this way, the viewer becomes an active participant/conspirator with the technology, transforming the exhibition into a resonant body of subtle calls and responses. The show encourages a broader understanding of human values and develops an explicit connection between the analogue and the digital, between the architect, the urbanist, the scientist and the citizen.

 

Pictures: © Federico Torra