A new exhibition in the Centre de Design (Montreal) entitled Vers un imaginaire numérique will explore the intersection of design and computation. The show builds on the “Designing the Computational Image/Imagining Computational Design” which originated at the Miller ICA at CMU, curated by Daniel Cardoso Ll. Above: Installation view of the DCI-ICD exhibition at Miller ICA. Photo: Tom Little.
This information has been updated to reflect changes in the exhibition and symposium schedules resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
School of Architecture Associate Professor Daniel Cardoso Llach is the lead curator of a new exhibition examining the nexus of design and computation in the Centre de Design de l’UQAM in Montreal in the Fall of 2021, supported by a Connection Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Theodora Vardouli, an Assistant Professor at the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture at McGill University, and lead applicant in the SSHRC proposal, will co-curate the show, which expands Prof. Cardoso’s previous exhibition at Carnegie Mellon University’s Miller Institute of Contemporary Art, Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design.
The 4,000 sqft exhibition, entitled Vers un imaginaire numérique, will combine an unprecedented selection of historical and contemporary materials to examine the confluence of technical developments in graphics and software with the emergence of new theoretical and aesthetic sensibilities in design across different fields. The show will adapt to the Canadian context by showcasing newly researched materials that emphasize Canadian expressions of architectural and design computing, and new interactive software reconstructions of early CAD software systems developed by students at both Carnegie Mellon and McGill. On display at UQAM will be pieces by computational architects, artists, and designers from Canada including Jer Thorp, Elizabeth Vander Zaag, Gilles Fortin, Leslie Mezei, Philip Beesley, Dennis Peters, along with a selection of works by computational design practitioners and pioneers including Steve Coons, Lillian Schwartz, Ivan Sutherland, Janet Tomlinsen, Robin Forrest, George Stiny, Kristy Balliet and Kelly Bair, Dana Cupkova, Carl Lostritto, and more.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a symposium entitled Digital.Visual.Material, chaired by Profs. Vardouli and Cardoso Llach. The two-day event will bring together leading and emergent scholars including Mario Carpo, John May, Jacob Gaboury, Frieder Nake, among others, to converse with the histories and practices represented in the show. The symposium will take place at McGill University from May 19-21, 2021 with speakers from across architecture, media, and science and technology studies. A reasoned catalogue will document the evolving exhibition, and collect the essays from both the Pittsburgh and Montreal symposia.
Vers un imaginaire numérique
Curator
Daniel Cardoso Llach (Carnegie Mellon)
Co-curator
Theodora Vardouli (McGill)
Advisors
Louise Pelletier (Centre de Design Director)
Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda (Simon Fraser)
September 09 - October 31, 2021
Centre de design de l’UQAM, Montreal, Canada
Associated Events
“Digital.Visual.Material” Symposium
Organized by
Theodora Vardouli (McGill)
Daniel Cardoso Llach (Carnegie Mellon)
May 19-21, 2021
Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, McGill University