Dr. Malte Wagenfeld, RMIT UNiversity, Melbourne,
KISDtalk speaker Dr. Malte Wagenfeld says: “My design practice explores air and atmosphere and how designing with atmospheric phenomena can constitute a new design practice; one which I refer to as the Aesthetics of Air.
With our deepening awareness of human impact on global climate and the implications this holds, there has been a collective shift in the way we conceptualize air and atmosphere. We no longer think of it as part of the vast empty expanse of outer space; it is an indivisible part of our globe and our lived life.
In 2018, Jane Burry and I curated the exhibition ‘Dynamics of Air’ (RMIT Gallery Melbourne) which tapped into a growing international body of creative and scientific investigation into our relationship with, and experience of, air, atmosphere and climate. Dynamics of Air was a survey of twenty-eighth projects and investigations by leading designers, architects, artists and researchers.
In this lecture, held online as KISD-Online-talk via zoom, I will ‘walk through’ and discuss the ideas behind this exhibition with a focus on four installations which actively shaped the air, atmosphere and ambiance around them. Experiential environments in which visitors could explore the poetics of breath and dwell in nuanced shifts in microclimates, felt through the skin and inhaled through the lungs.
The exhibition was conceived of as a form of research lab, which brought together a broad community of practice to explore shared concerns: how we relate to, live with and understand air, climate and atmosphere and most of all how we can design with and for it.”
Malte Wagenfeld is an Industrial Designer, curator, researcher, installation artist, and academic whose explorative experiential installations, designs and texts have been internationally exhibited, distributed and published. As well as designing physical ‘things’ his research practice investigates how to design the ‘immaterial’, in particular the design of interior climates and immersive experiential environments, by exploring our sensory experiences of dynamic atmospheric encounters with air; breezes, humidity, temperature, sound, light and smell. Dr. Malte Wagenfeld is Senior Lecturer of Industrial Design at RMIT University, Melbourne.
You can join the KISDtalk online via zoom. The talk will start at 5:30 pm (CEST), the session is open from 5 pm on.
https://th-koeln.zoom.us/j/95554103781
Meeting-ID: 955 5410 3781
Passwort: 089031