ALICE
Architectural narratives in the age of the image
We live under an accelerated regime of images consumption. In our feeds, a constant scroll of architectural images circulate without us being able to deepen into them. The logic of algorithms does not allow it. Post-digital collages, urban proposals and hyper-realistic renderings are interspersed with memes, tweets and cursed images that have given rise to an architectural criticism previously relegated to the field of printed publications and academic journal. “Too much text” as the meme said. Thus, between the frenetic pace of the infinite scroll and the academic opacity of peer-reviewed knowledge production, all architectural debate is excluded from the peripheries of both media. It is necessary to explore new narratives capable of going further, useful to generate new debate and discussions about a space yet to come.
The workshop is a laboratory for architectural narratives. It will explore possible communication tools in the age of the image, outside disciplinary corsets and academic inertias. Straddling the physical and the virtual, the outcome of the workshop will be a pamphlet or zine collectively produced. It will thread and unsettle the discussions and topics of the Deep City Symposium in simultaneity with its development. It will leave behind the language of both frameworks to flirt with other possibilities: architectural propaganda, speculative narratives, cursed images and glitched speeches capable of inserting themselves into contemporary circulation flows.
Bartlebooth bio:
Bartlebooth is a publishing and research platform that examines contemporary spatial practice, founded in 2013 and led by Antonio Giráldez López (1990) and Pablo Ibáñez Ferrera (1992). The project has been awarded by the Iberoamerican Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism in 2019, the Research Exhibition of the XIV Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism in 2018, and Arquia/Próxima 2018: Prácticas Relevantes. In 2018 it was exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale and selected by the Future Architecture Platform, exhibiting its work at the MAO Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana (Slovenia). In 2020 they will curate Caring Assemblies. Positions on space-to-come at the Portuguese Pavilion at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale. Its latest publications have been selected by the FAD Awards for Thought and Criticism in 2016 and 2019 and have been part of exhibitions such as Twelve Urban Fables, curated by Ethel Baraona in Matadero (Madrid), Autoedit I and II at Centro Huarte (Huarte, 2015 and 2016) and fairs such as Libros Mutantes Madrid Art Book Fair in La Casa Encendida (Madrid,
2016-2019) or Fiebre Photobook 2015 in Centro Centro (Madrid). They have lectured at institutions such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, MediaLAB Prado and the Luis Seoane Foundation.
Antonio is a PhD architect and holds a MSc in Advanced Architectural Design (ETSAM). Pablo is an architect and holds a MSc in Advanced Architectural Design (ETSAM). They teach at SUR Escuela (CBA, Madrid) and have taught at the Master of Architectural Communication (UPM-UCM, Madrid). They are currently residents at the Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision.