Interfaces of Media Architecture

Abstract

In my contribution I want to approach media architecture – specifically media façades and urban screens – as urban interfaces. In particular, I want to do justice to the social (“inter”) and dynamic (“-ing”) aspect of interfacing: in time – “historical”, temporary, and processual – and place – located, positioning, communicating. When departing from the question of “access” – the question raised by this book series – in my consideration of the specificities of media architecture, I wish to combine two perspectives. On the one hand, I consider the medium-specificity of architecture, and on the other, the architectural specificity of location-based and public forms of urban media. Hence, I take interface, or to be more precise, the verb interfacing as a concept that allows us to grasp the role of media architecture (and architectural media) in today’s information society – driven by the ambitions of shared access and of public participation: an open society of access for all. In particular, interfacing as a concept theorizes how “access” is always already an active form of exchange. Indeed, in the Age of Access, access is also a social issue, especially when taking place, literally, in urban public spaces. This literal, concrete “taking place” focuses the attention on the temporality as well as materiality of interfacing. The interface thus functions as a material object as well as a concept.