Frames of Architecture was designed to explore architecture―an exhibition agenda of 2024―from the new perspective of the video medium. Typically, architecture is categorized as a spatial art form and film (the origin of the video medium) as a time-based art form. But they are also two realms that have evolved in relationships of mutual influence, sharing temporal and spatial elements as important aspects. In architecture, temporality is expressed through the designing of users’ movements and experiences in space. Video, in contrast, is a medium where sensory space can be constructed not only within the visible spaces on the screen but also from what is remembered through the connections within sequences. When spaces are experienced through a camera lens that is liberated from physical constraints, they convey architecture to the viewer with a distinctive dynamism. Frames of Architecture seeks to use this time-based video medium to provide an experience that is distinct from other architecture exhibitions. By restricting the video creators to architects and fine artists, it attempts to show the intersections of perspectives formed from different points of departure.
As it presents works by eight artists (or teams) applying different perspectives to different themes relating to architecture, Frames of Architecture gives the viewers an opportunity to expand their own architectural imagination. We live our lives surrounded by architectural things that are constantly “framing” our lives: the homes we live in, the spaces where we work, the bridges we cross for transportation purposes, and the distantly visible urban landscapes. To display an “architectural imagination” means to view our architecture-mediated relationships through new eyes and think about them in different ways. But our reality today is one where we have sacrificed control over what we see, washed over by waves of spatial objects that algorithm-based digital devices thrust at us rather than viewing actual spaces that we choose to look at. If we consider a given movement experienced by the body and eye as we move through space to be akin to a “frame” of film, we may imagine our overall experience of time and space as one of connecting these frames into a single “video.” The exhibition Frames of Architecture has the potential to offer a unique experience for viewers as it poses questions about the relationships we form in everyday space and encourages them to become “directors” capturing frames of their own.
