Feel the Force: Experiments in Energy with World Leading Scientists,
Architects and Artists at the AA School

• 3 – 28 May 2011, AA School, 36 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3ES
• FREE exhibition and public events
• Works include:  A time machine, an impossible pinball game, a giant self-balancing mechanism, forensic photography that captures your movements before the picture was taken and many more fantastical creations..
• Events include: artist John Stezaker on the potential in meaning; cosmologist, Prof. Andrew Jaffe on time travel, and architect Carlos Villanueva Brandt on the city as creative energy. 
  

28 Mar 2011: ENERGY, the unseen powerful force that shapes every aspect of life from our cellular structure to our economy will be explored through a unique free exhibition and series of events that bring together world leading scientists, architects and artists at the ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, 36 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3ES from 3 – 28 May 2011.

PRESS PREVIEW:  10:00hrs, Tuesday 3 May 2010, with Project Director Stefano Rabolli Pansera and the team behind the Time Machine - Professor Andrew Jaffe, Cosmologist, Imperial College London, and architect Shin Egashira.  Architect Vittorio Pizzigoni, founder member of Italy’s famous Baukuh architectural practice will also be present.  RSVP william@kallaway.com or 020 7221 7883

The show and events are part of Beyond Entropy, an ambitious two-year project from the AA School involving 24 leading scientists, architects and artists working together to explore and broaden the ways we think about energy. Before coming to London, Beyond Entropy has been shown in Europe including at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2010 and Societe de Lecture, Geneva.

Work on display.
A giant self-balancing mechanism, a working time machine, an impossible pinball machine, thermal replication, the concept of ownership of the air and energy and forensic photography that captures your movements before the picture was taken are just some of the works on show. Each work explores a different type of energy and is created by a team consisting of an artist, architect and scientist. [Exhibition highlights and a list of participants below].

Events: 

1.  The energy of Mies van der Rohe:  13:30hrs, Tuesday 3 May
Vittorio Pizzigoni, founder member of Italy’s famous Baukuh architectural practice and Beyond Entropy participant, discusses how Mies van der Rohe, one of the most influential architect’s of the 20th century used industrialisation to simplify energy use in construction. 

2.  John Stezaker on the potential in meaning: 13:30hrs, Tuesday 10 May
Taking a break from his current show at the Whitechapel Gallery artist John Stezaker discusses his work and explores the relationships between potential in meaning and potential energy and how different ways of seeing the world produce different forms of energy.

3.  The City as Creative Energy:  18:30hrs, Friday 13 May 
Speakers including international architect Carlos Villanueva Brandt, explore the concept of a creative city.  What conditions are required for a city to expand the creative potential of the human brain?  London is a melting pot of cultures, thinking and activity - a hive of energy powering a creative centre of excellence recognised across the globe.  How do we stay on top of the creative world and help the city and its people be ever more creative? 

4. Lino Bo Bardi; Primitivism and Sustainability,  13:00hrs, Tuesday 17 May
Art historian Dr Silvia Davoli from the Warburg Institute discusses the life and work of Lino Bo Bardi, an architect famous for her organic and surreal designs that broke new ground in both the concept and practice of sustainable buildings – often proposing construction methods that reflected the buildings and methods of Brazil’s native peoples.  Her well known designs include Sao Paolo’s famous Museum of Modern Art.

5.  Time Travel - Shamanism to the Space age: 18:30hrs, Friday 20 May 
The team behind the exhibition’s Time Machine Prof. Andrew Jaffe, Cosmologist, Imperial College London and architect Shin Egashira, join photographer Goswin Schwedinger to explore the human desire to alter our past and futures.  The ability to engage with other people of other times, planets and dimensions is a dream of science but is also found in some cultural and religious practices.  The event will explore the fascination of time travel, the desire to explore other realms from Shamanism to interplanetary travel and whether science fiction is any closer to becoming science fact.

Stefano Rabolli Pansera, Director of Beyond Entropy, at the ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTUREsaid: “Cities are alive, living, breathing, energy filled beings.  The exhibition and events fuse hard science with artistic freedom and interpretation to explore new ways of thinking about energy in all its forms.

“From time machines to global issues surrounding the ownership of energy, the combination of science, architecture and art working together have created thought-provoking and sometimes startling work to explore issues of energy – from the mega city, to your own mind.  Come and be energised!”

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PRESS PREVIEW
10:00hrs, 3 May 2010, with Project Director Stefano Rabolli Pansera and the team behind the Time Machine - Professor Andrew Jaffe, Cosmologist, Imperial College London and architect Shin Egashira.   RSVP william@kallaway.com or 020 7221 7883

PUBLIC BOOKING INFORMATION
Beyond Entropy 3 - 26 May 2011
Location:  AA School, 36 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3ES
Opening times: Monday to Friday 10:00 – 19:00hrs; Saturday 10:00 – 15:00hrs
Tickets: Entrance is FREE.  Tickets are not required for exhibition, seating at events is allocated on a first come first served basis.

FURTHER INFORMATION & PICTURES
William Kallaway, email: william@kallaway.com Tel:  020 7221 7883
Pictures of the exhibits at the Venice Architecture Biennale: http://tiny.cc/b9a7n

EXAMPLE WORKS ON SHOW

Time machine:  A working exploration of mechanical energy using 19th Century French writer, Alfred Jarry’s pseudo-science Pataphysics.  Jarry theorised a time machine made of giant mechanical flywheels and gyroscopic action to transport the user through time and space.  Team: Prof. Andrew Jaffe, Cosmologist, Imperial College London and Shin Egashira, architect.

Creating and destroying mass:  A collision of physics and multi-media.  Giant self-balancing machine swings a vast pendulum of destruction and creation in which a building is created and then destroyed as the pendulum swings.  Chaos and order are brought through each swing as the machine tries to balance itself and therefore bring stillness to the creative cycle.  Team: Rubens Azevedo, architect; Ariel Schlesinger, artist; Vid Stojevic, Researcher, Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Hamburg.

Impossible pinball:  Over 1,000 balls in play, but out of reach, with the slight possibility of being able to strike one – the impossible pinball machine is a frustrating example of potential energy.  The machine is charged by the would be player, storing potential energy until the balls finally come into play.  Team:  Julian Loeffler, architect; Peter Liversidge, artist; Dr. Roberto Trotta, Lecturer in Physics in the Astrophysics Group of the Imperial College in London.

Thermal energy replicated:  Rows of identical 3D copying-machine components see the copier become copied.  Each appears identical but is slightly different from the last, made unique through an imperfection created by energy transfer during the copying process. Team:  Ines Weizman, Architect; Wilfredo Prietro, artist; Dr David Clements, Astrophysicist, Imperial College, London.

 Responsibility of energy:  Whose energy is responsible for the melting of the polar ice cap or the pollution of London’s air?  Issues over the ownership and release of energy are  explored through a montage of images, news events and stories investigating the personal and national concept of ownership of energy.  Team: Nina Canell, artist: Dr Amanda Chatten, Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Physics at Imperial College London and  John Palmesino & Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, architects.

ABOUT BEYOND ENTROPY
Beyond Entropy, sponsored by Digital Technology Solutions/Olivetti, RePower and supported by Bersi Serlini, is set in the context of the urgent requirement of global energy and how this issue impacts on politics, economics and cultures across the globe.

The programme is a world first, bringing together 24 leading artists, architects and scientists led by AA School architect Stefano Rabolli Pansera, pioneering an enquiry that fuses science, architecture and artistic collaboration to develop new ways of thinking about energy.

List of participants in Beyond Entropy and their areas of investigation

Beyond Entropy Director: Stefano Rabolli Pansera, AA School architect

Electric energy:  

• Architect: Vittorio Pizzigoni, founding member of Baukuh in Milan
• Artist: Alberto Garutti
• Scientist: Giuseppe Celardo, Post doctorate researcher, department of mathematics and physics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan

Mechanical energy,

• Architect:  Shin Egashira, AA Diploma Unit Master
• Artist:  Initial input from Attila Csorgo
• Scientist: Prof. Andrew Jaffe, Cosmologist at Imperial College London specialising in research on Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB).

 Potential energy:

• Architect:  Julian Loeffler, former AA Diploma Unit Master
• Artist:  Peter Liversidge,
• Scientist:  Dr. Roberto Trotta, Lecturer in Physics in the Astrophysics Group of the Imperial College in London.

Mass energy

• Architect:  Rubens Azevedo, former AA Diploma Unit Master.
• Artist:  Ariel Schlesinger
• Scientist: Vid Stojevic, Researcher, Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Hamburg.

Sound energy

• Architect:  Salottobuono, a collective architectural office born in Venice in 2005 as a collector of research experiences and design production
• Artist:  Massimo Bartolini,
• Scientists: Dario Bendetti, Researcher at the University of Brescia and Riccardo Rossi, Freelance engineer specialising in the field of energy and industrial processes.

Thermal energy,

• Architect: Dr Ines Weizman, Architect and Professor at the London Metropolitan University and the AA.
• Artist: Wilfredo Prieto,
• Scientist: David Clements, Lecturer in Astrophysics at Imperial College London working on extra-galactic astronomy and observational astronomy.

Chemical energy

• Architect: John Palmesino & Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, AA Diploma Unit Masters
• Artist: Nina Canell,
• Scientist: Amanda Chatten, Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Physics at Imperial College London.

Gravitational energy

• Architect: Eyal Weizman, Architect and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London.
• Artist:  Initial input from Carlos Gariacoa
• Scientist Peter Coles, Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at Cardiff University.

 The AA School (http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/)
The ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE is the world's most renowned international and influential school of architecture. Since 1847 it has pioneered a belief in architecture as profession, culture and form of human enquiry and is credited with fostering the creation of worldwide leaders of architecture. AA School alumni include architectural leaders Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Lord Rogers, Will Alsop and many others. Through its unique, year-long, unit based system of teaching, direct intervention in cities and its intensively collaborative team based approach to learning, the school brings together disconnected worlds, fresh ideas and inspiring insights. The AA School is celebrated worldwide as an imaginative setting for architectural culture.

Stefano Rabolli Pansera, Director, Beyond Entropy, AA School
Stefano Rabolli Pansera graduated with honours from the AA School in 2005 and then worked for two years at Herzog & de Meuron. He has been AA Intermediate 5 Unit Master since 2007 and has lectured in Naples, Seoul, Barcelona, Berlin, Almaty and Cagliari. He is the founder of Rabolli Pansera Ltd, an architectural practice with projects in the UK, Italy and Lebanon. 

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