EXPO Weltausstellung Dubai
2019
Dubai (VAE)
Design for the Austria Pavilion at the EXPO World Fair 2020 in Dubai (UAE). "A virtual chamber of wonders filled with sensual realities: ALIVE IN MIXED REALITIES". Design 2019. project in the final selection of the Austrian expert jury.
ALIVE IN MIXED REALITIES
In the beginning, we want to develop our potential, expand our horizons. We seize the "opportunity", grab the possibility by the scruff of the neck: MAKE EVERYTHING DIFFERENT FOR A SINGLE TIME. Build a pavilion that is not architecture. Make an exhibition that is not there. Freeing oneself from conventional thought patterns. That's where it opens up: THE OTHER HORIZON.
Tradition and innovation - these are the two pillars of the Austria Pavilion at Expo 2020 in Dubai. One goal is to position Austria as an "innovation leader" in digitization and the high-tech sector. The other goal is to showcase precisely the "soft skills" for which we are known worldwide - our culture and our nature, our creativity and our traditions - in order to emphasize the attractiveness for tourists.
Tradition and innovation. Actually a contradiction?
Contradictions are part of our contemporary media society. We live in a time of multiple realities, in a time of hybrid realities. "ALIVE IN MIXED REALITIES" is the subtitle of our concept. This refers to real cultural and social realities as well as to the simultaneous, virtual realities in the media, where we all live today, where even our young children live today . . . Where are the chances and possibilities of us humans in a highly technological age full of different simultaneous, often contradictory realities? In order to gain the highest possible potential for the future from this polarity, we have developed a new exhibition form that plays with the technology "Mixed Reality" - combined with a holistic, multi-sensory design concept.
Our guiding principle: The human being.
The whole human being with his contradictions, with his wisdom, with his perception, with his senses. The goal of the Austrian exhibition in Dubai is to be perceived as the strongest sensory experience at the Expo. We cannot achieve this with even more multimedia and super-wide panorama projections, but with reduction of means. Focus on the essence. In this way we create space again for people to feel themselves.
MIXED REALITIES: Bridge Austria-Dubai
1. sustainability, resource orientation and economical use of funds are important to us. That's why we set out to find a resource that is available in abundance, as it were, on site in Dubai. In the process, we came across sand, also seawater . . . and, of course, lots of construction sites. Yes, of course! Dubai is the city with the most construction cranes in the world. We couldn't or didn't want to do anything with them. But we saw containers, on every corner, an infinite number of containers. Where do they all come from? Is there a huge container warehouse there? Yes, and then we realized: "Jebel Ali", one of the largest container ports in the world. It provides us with the basic building blocks for our pavilion: We rent 250 used containers from the port of Dubai. Economical, statically ISO-certified, stackable, 100% resource-oriented and sustainable - because after their "second life" as exhibition objects, most of the containers go back on their world tour . . . to their ancestral domain on the high seas.
2. anyway, we use the 250 containers "from all over the world" as basic building blocks for our pavilion. In line with our claim to do things differently, however, we subject the building blocks to a creative transformation beforehand: we dye them black - deep black - with special, particularly matt "deep black colors". Finally, we refine the resulting high-quality surface with a crystal structure that is applied to the matte black. In this way, the raw containers are transformed into a high-quality, attractive material with a strong external effect. At the same time, completely different realities are revealed - in the reinterpretation of one reality into another . . .
MIXED REALITIES: A pavilion made of containers, like a giant, black sparkling crystal.
From the use of the containers we derive the formal building design: We build the archaic, reduced form, the simple cube - an empty giant container that houses our virtual exhibition/sensory experience as a "container". We focus the experience dramaturgy on three central interfaces, which are also reflected in the building design: 1. the outside experience 2. the reception experience 3. the inside experience
1. the exterior - attractive, mysterious, exquisite.
A mighty black sparkling crystal - 32m wide, 15m high. Cut out of it and brightly backlit: the lettering "THE OTHER HORIZON". This attracts attention.
2. the reception - surprising, charming, human.
The courtyard welcomes guests in a warm atmosphere, in the midst of Viennese coffeehouse culture. The courtyard is now dominated by a warm red with a noble white - the three-dimensional projection of the Austrian national flag. A "VerticalGallery" unfolds here, displaying 100 innovations that shape our country. A beautiful atmosphere is created. A cozy atmosphere for connoisseurs. That builds confidence.
3. the interior - exciting, sensual, playful.
The actual exhibition space is an architectural non-space, more mediatecture than architecture: the almost 10,000m3 large, dark and "empty" space offers an extremely intense, sensual experience, indeed a mystical, almost existential experience. Soundscapes, light clouds and body vibrations dissolve the conventional, three-dimensional perception through spatial reflections - more universe than space. This invites to unfold.
Tabula Rasa. We live in a high-performance society. Never before have we had access to so much information as we do today - never before have we been more "connected. In an age of globalization, total networking and constant communication, we are increasingly longing for deceleration and sensuality, for peace, emotion and touch. We want to make an exhibition that gives an answer to this existential need for "info-relaxation". The term "Tabula Rasa" helps us to do this: first having to make oneself empty again in order to be ready to receive, almost like a blank sheet, in order to be able to see new possibilities and chances - new "opportunities" - at all. Tabula Rasa is what we call our exhibition space.
This space carries two simultaneous dimensions, a "sense space" and an "info space":
SENSE ROOM
The mediatecture of the SinnesRaum consists of a sound installation (128-multi-channel audio system on walls, ceiling and as structure-borne sound in reclining furniture), a light installation (LED pixel matrix on walls and ceiling) and a mirror installation (in combination with fine gauze, on walls, ceiling and in the air space). Dramaturgically, the motto is: Back to the start - Tabula Rasa.
INFORAUM
The mediatecture of the InfoRaum consists only of an app - in combination with sensors. With their own smartphone, each visitor goes in search of info-clouds, info-nebulae, info-galaxies that are virtually present in the physically empty room. Only through the "digital magnifying glass" smartphone do these galaxies become visible, depending on where you stand in the room and which way you turn. You enter a "universe of opportunities"!
In fact, a virtual magic-box opens up here, an exhibition that presents the "wonders of Austria" and conveys them in a playful way. We convey the core theme of Austria with its two pillars of "tradition and innovation" in small, easily graspable sensory units that can be discovered in the virtual info galaxies. The narration of this content is largely non-verbal, via the power of exceptionally strong images, original graphics and smart animations.
© 2019 SHA.ART
