Junya Ishigami and Jakob Kudsk Steensen in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist

Architect Junya Ishigami and artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen discussed the Serpentine Pavilion 2019 and the Serpentine Augmented Architecture commission in a conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries.

Junya Ishigami (b. 1974) worked as an architect at SANAA before founding the prize-winning Junya Ishigami + Associates in 2004. Winner of the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2010, he was the subject of a major and critically acclaimed solo exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in 2018 that is traveling to the Power Station of Art in Shanghai later this year. He is known for designs with dream-like qualities that incorporate the natural world, such as landscapes, forests and clouds, in an architectural practice that places humankind as part of nature.

Jakob Kudsk Steensen is an artist and art director concerned with how imagination, technology and ecology intertwine. His works range from immersive VR ecosystems to mixed-reality installations bridging physical and digital worlds that invite audiences to enter new ecological realities. He collaborates with scientists, artists and non-governmental organisations from different fields. Kudsk Steensen embarks on ventures or excursions where he collects organic material, which is digitised and converted into digital worlds with 3D scanners, photogrammetry, satellite data and computer-game software. Inspired by ecology-oriented science fiction and conversations with biologists and ethnographers, his projects are ultimately virtual simulations populated by mythical beings existing in radical ecological scenarios. He has exhibited internationally at the Future Generation Art Prize, Venice; Pinchuk Art Center, 5th Trondheim Biennale for Art and Technology; the Carnegie Museum of Art; GUEST, GHOST, HOST: MACHINE! Marathon, Serpentine Galleries and MAXXI Rome among others. His work has been shown at Sundance, TriBeCa and Cannes among other film festivals.