VR - The Real Architecture of Delight
With the postponement of the Venice Biennale of Architecture and the Milan Furniture Fair in 2020 due to Covid-19, could it be a timely moment to pause and wonder what’s so irreplaceable about them anyway (apart from the obvious attractions of great food and a glamorous mini-break). What’s the alternative? Could the digital worlds of virtual and mixed realities come to the rescue? What’s so great about the real-world shows in any case and could simulated experiences actually be better?
A version of this article was first published on archiboo.com in March 2020.
Questioning the wisdom of these gatherings from an epidemiological standpoint could prove to be a stalking horse for a re-evaluation of them from an ecological perspective, too. In the new age of environmental enlightenment, using so much energy, resources and emissions to transport delegates and artefacts across the globe, and to construct temporary installations with a mayfly-like lifespan, doesn’t seem so smart. Even if you can recycle the waste and ‘offset’ your airmiles.
Firstly though, what can’t we replicate through virtual means? For example, with an object-based show such as Milan’s Salone del Mobile, there is a certain logic that you need the opportunity to ‘kick the tyres’ - to sit on the B+B sofas and see if they’re actually as comfortable as they look in the catalogue.
But architecture shows - like the Venice Biennale - never show us the real thing anyway. Just representations - photos, films, models and CGI’s. At best you might get a ‘real’ fragment. A bit of 1:1 mockup, devoid of context. Virtual realities aren’t the ‘real thing’ either of course - in fact quite the opposite. But unlike any other medium of architectural representation, they can immerse you in the space at life-size. That can be either a millimetre-accurate scan of a completed building, or an abstract concept model.
There’s no better way than VR to communicate the spatial experience. But there’s also no-where to hide. The 360-degree nature of VR will quickly reveal the shortcomings that architectural photography and renderings conceal through clever camera angles and creative retouching. For the exhibition-goer or grand-jury judge, VR offers a ‘truer’ facsimile, a more trustworthy fake.
And, importantly, VR is not just a medium of representation but an artistic medium in its own right. A real spin off from VR’s ability to re-create reality is the opportunity it gives us to explore unreality. VR has been called the first new art form of the 21st century, and it's true surreal potential remains untapped. Imagine how much more dynamic the national pavilions of the Biennale could be, freed from physical constraints. Forget isolated Instagram-able moments, this could be the real architecture of delight.
Not that digital technologies are immune from criticism. The spotlight of shame has now fallen on the environmental toll of data-streaming, and VR is particularly guilty. Although in its defence, we can power data-centres renewably, cool them under the sea, and use a variety of techniques to optimise the amount of live data we transmit.
What virtual realities really currently lack is a credible means of consumption - at least for crowds the size of a Biennale audience. Putting on and off bulky headsets is hopeless to try and manage in big numbers. And for the visitor underneath the headset, looking like a scuba diver playing blind-mans bluff, in front of a room full of strangers, can be a major turn-off.
Limited as they are, traditional exhibitions do readily communicate a lot of information to a lot of people, with a minimum of faffing around. And for a large-scale VR show, that’s a lot of new electronic devices to produce, power and eventually dispose of. That aside, in terms of material efficiency as a medium, VR does show promise … it’s nothing but light. And scale is no limitation either. You could have virtual pavilions the size of palaces.
But if we did decide international shows are unjustifiable and could be recreated in a more efficient way with digital tools, what else do we lose? Let’s not forget that at events like these, the show is less than half the story. The official action at the Venice Biennale and the Milan Salone may be the headline shows. But the real business happens off-stage, at the VIP dinners, in the late night bars and the hazy hotel lobbies. Because, just as with any international trade show, it’s not just about ‘exhibition’ - it’s at least equally importantly about ‘congress’. Physically and mentally connecting people. The spreading of contagious ideas that rapidly incubate when people are confined together in a foreign location. Having world-fixing conversations and then forgetting them the next morning, when the hangover kicks in. All the fun of the fair...
Recreating the social dimension is the paramount challenge that any virtual exhibition must overcome, if it's to be serious competition for a real-world ‘fiera’. At first glance that seems a deal-breaker, but it's not impossible to conceive how congenial real-world spaces, designed to operate seamlessly in tandem with virtual or augmented reality elements, could go a long way to bridging that gap. Imagine instead of a studio trip to Milan or Venice, a group outing to a local venue, kitted out with the VR equivalent of karaoke booths. There, a group of colleagues could spend an afternoon taking in a virtual tour of full-size spaces from across the globe, lubricated by great table-service. A hospitality experience as much as curatorial one, and just a bus ride from home.
Ultimately, this isn’t a contest as to whether a virtual experience is better than a trip to Italy. In so many ways, it could never hope to compete. This is about what could constitute a good-enough substitute if we can’t afford or risk the real thing, either due to a passing viral outbreak or increasingly endemic concerns about the environmental impacts.
Thanks to Covid-19, maybe the genie is out of the bottle for the fairs. The quarantined employees being given digital tools that enable them to work in isolation may prefer to stay at home, even when they’re permitted to commute again. In the same way, if we are forced to stop travelling and start trialling virtual substitutes to international shows, and we come to appreciate the visual power, social potential, material efficiency and geographic convenience of VR, will we ever want to go back?