halfway - On Spatializing Urban Conditions

Heidi Pretterhofer

HALFWAY is a place for the spatialization of acute urban phenomena; a space in which methods of artistic research realize a practice of urban curating; a laboratory in which social relationships are translated into design. Space production understood as a dialogical form of showing and exhibiting is a crucial aspect of research and knowledge production here.

In a multi-part series of projects, HALFWAY examines the spatial effects of cognitive capitalism characterized by immaterial work, de-regulation and precarious identity concepts. The corresponding urban form is that of the project-based polis, in which the constant call for self-optimization and performance mixes with the algorithmic figures of (in)dividualization.

For this purpose, urbanistic case studies, architectural typologies and cultural symptoms were investigated in cooperation with the research partners Jorge Almazán (Tokyo) and Urban Subjects (Vancouver)

Dividuality of Spaces / Spaces of Dividuality
Migration of Forms / Forms of Migration
Economy of Architecture / Architecture of Economy

The research discourse is translated into cumulative, successive spatializations. The spatializations function not only as displays, but as platforms of negotiations, which are repeatedly reconfigured in the course of the discursive work. This curatorial method is based on a participatory form of knowledge production based on a hybrid of spatial arguments from various actors from the fields of urbanism, art, architecture as well as intermittent interventions by actors from heterogeneous fields of knowledge.

HALFWAY was located in a multifunctional building complex in Vienna’s 7th district. We developed a spatial setting and display, which served as a research tool and formed a key zone of interaction, communication, and performance. All of the elements in the space were adopted and transformed from the pre-existing architectural parameters.

www.halfway.at

Project Gallery

halfway (C) Wolfgang Thaler (1).jpg

halfway (C) Wolfgang Thaler (2).jpg

halfway (C) Wolfgang Thaler (3a).jpg

halfway (C) Wolfgang Thaler (4).jpg

halfway (C) Wolfgang Thaler (6).jpg

halfway Axo 2019 (C) prearq.jpg

Heidi Pretterhofer AT

http://www.prearq.at
Schottenfeldgasse 72/2/8 | 1070 Vienna