Christophe Guignard
Architect
Organization: fabric | ch
Christophe Guignard is one of the founding members of fabric | ch, an architecture studio based in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Since 1997, fabric | ch has been working on projects that combine physical space with digital space in the cross-overs of architecture, art and information technologies. Works like Perpetual (Tropical) Sunshine, Electroscape, RealRoom(s), MIX-m or La_Fabrique have been exhibited internationally.
Christophe Guignard studied architecture at the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL), as well as in Montreal and New York. He completed his education with a series of philosophy seminars before obtaining a master's degree in computer graphics in the electronic media research laboratories at EPFL. Christophe Guignard has also been a lecturer at University of Art and Design in Lausanne (ECAL) since 2000.
Contemporary space(s)
[original text in French below]
Over the past 25 years we have not only witnessed but have been actors of intense alterations in our environment. The Computer Revolution first, but also economy and politics, scientific and medical research, transport and communication capacities, have changed our subjective and objective perceptions of the world. As Michel Serres rightly points out in his publication entitled Hominescence, we have moved on from an industrial society to an information society, from technique to technology, from the megajoules of industry to the bits of information, from “hard” space to “soft” space, from quantitative to qualitative.
We find ourselves inhabiting a qualitative space imbued with technologies. This is about a new environment, variable, distributed, global and multipliable, where the notion of dimension has become vague, where reality combines in thousands of ways with the virtual. Let simply call this new environment contemporary space.
In this space the stakes have changed and new architectural possibilities are appearing. To respond to these changes, fabric | ch over the past ten years has developed a form of architecture freed from a static perception of space and continuous movement in time. This practice questions interference produced in-between these different dimensions, not only in terms of space and time, but also in terms of climate, light or economy, in short, in terms of information.
By way of presenting a series of recent projects, Christophe Guignard will address this concept of ex-dimensional architecture in his talk.
*****
Au cours des vingt-cinq dernières années, nous avons été témoins et acteurs d’intenses transformations de notre environnement. La «révolution informatique» d’abord, mais aussi l'économie et la géopolitique, la recherche scientifique et médicale, nos capacités de transport et de communication ont changé notre perception subjective et objective du monde. Comme le signale avec justesse Michel Serres dans son livre Hominescence, nous sommes passés d'une société industrielle à une société de l'information, de la technique à la technologie, du mégajoule au bit d’information, d’un espace «dur» à un espace «doux», du quantitatif au qualitatif.
Nous nous retrouvons ainsi à habiter un espace qualitatif empreint de technologies. Il s'agit ni plus ni moins d'un nouvel environnement, désormais variable, distribué, global ou encore multipliable, où la notion de dimension devient floue, où le «réel» se combine de mille façons au «virtuel». Cet environnement, appelons-le simplement espace contemporain.
Dans cet espace, de nouveaux enjeux et de nouvelles possibilités d’architecture apparaissent. Pour y répondre, fabric | ch conçoit depuis 10 ans une architecture dégagée d’une perception statique de l’espace et d’un temps continu. Cette pratique interroge les interférences qui se produisent entre ces différentes dimensions, non seulement spatiales ou temporelles, mais également climatiques, électromagnétiques ou économiques, en un mot informationnelles. Par le biais d’une série de projets récents, Christophe Guignard présentera ce concept d’architecture ex-dimensionnelle.
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