* THE STIMULUS PROGRESSION *
> audc >
AUDC’s “the Stimulus Progression” explores
the creation of a culture of horizontality by General George Owen Squier, the
Muzak Corporation, aviation, and modern telecommunications. The location of
the Gardenlab Experiment within the former Southern California Cooperative Wind
Tunnel recalls that Squier’s invention of both multiplexy – the
ability to transmit more than one signal over a wire and the basic foundation
of modern telecommunications – and Muzak, the canned music that manipulated
our emotions while masking background sounds, took place in the context of aviation.
While serving as the Chief Signal Officer of the Army Signal Corps Squier became
interested in the experiments of the Wright brothers. After riding as the first
passenger in an airplane in 1908, Squier set up the Air Service, a forerunner
of today’s Air Force.
The Stimulus Progression is an investigation into how these forces link together
to reshape our environment. Beginning from these sources, AUDC will construct
an interactive installation composed of models, drawings, new media and sound
installations to cultivate an ecosystem of media.
AUDC was formed by Robert Sumrell [Woodbury University] and Kazys Varnelis [SCI-Arc] in 2001 as a nonprofit collective that works between, and beyond, both architectural design, historical research, and information design. AUDC's goal is to speculatively investigate the contemporary city using the tools of the architect, the historian, and the designer. AUDC blurs traditional divisions between media by working simultaneously in print, web, video, photography, drawings, models, dioramas, and installations while addressing the particularities of each medium. Likewise, AUDC breaks down the boundaries between theory and practice by uniting both scholarship and creative work.
> bios >
robert sumrell graduated with distinction from the Southern California Institute of Architecture's Master's of Architecture program. Robert Sumrell teaches in the architecture program at Woodbury University. His thesis, which forms the basis of the Superbrutalism project, received the school's award for best thesis. Robert's research focuses on how architecture can help articulate the individual in mass-produced society. Robert is a scholar of the 1960s Italian anti-design movement as well as 1980s furniture by Memphis. He is also interested in sustainable design, sprawl, and theology.
kazys varnelis has a doctorate in the History of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell University and teaches in the Southern California Institute of Architecture's history-theory faculty. Kazys's research spans the history of cities, the influence of telecommunications on urbanity, nature and ecology, and late modern architecture. His web site, varnelis.net contains more information and samples of his scholarly work.
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