on co-presence - bundling umwelten together
Christopher Gruber
Ae:g is interested in the complex relationships between living beings, objects, and processes around us in space. By taking the resulting practices, habits, and rituals as the starting point of an exploration in space.
We are searching for refined ecological, metropolitan, and usable distinctions – enriching the spatial identities of sites. We enjoy places of authenticity. We celebrate the expressive abilities of constructions and the slight nuances of doing things differently. By nurturing social interaction, our endeavours seek to react to both a collective, a human, and a non-human scale. Imagining the perspectives of others to redefine spaces of the domestic and the wild. We understand architecture as a result of moulded grounds, waterflooded surfaces, condensed atmospheric volumes and illuminated shades. To us, advocating for experimentation and exploration, liberty in construction primarily entails consistently challenging one’s own beliefs. As a gleeful act of poetic imagination, we aspire to craft spaces and venues of tranquillity, modesty, and wonder, contributing to a good life.
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Christina Ehrmann
MArch, studied art and architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL)/London. University assistant in studio díazmoreno garcíagrinda at the IoA Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts (die Angewandte) Vienna/Austria.
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Christopher Gruber
MArch, trained as a carpenter, studied art and architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL)/London. University assistant in studio díazmoreno garcíagrinda at the IoA Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts (die Angewandte) Vienna/Austria.
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2024 - Europan 17 Winner / Lochau Austria (ongoing)
2023 - Film Fellow at the Pixel, Bytes and Film - Film program of ORF III and the Federal Ministry Republic of Austria Arts, Culture Civil Service and Sport.
The documentary film project on co-presence – bundling umwelten together investigates in the unexplored mechanism of existing shared environments and their contained species.
The topic of co-presence simply understands the simultaneous presence of individuals (biotic or abiotic) in the same physical location, not necessarily engaged with each other nor in a direct interaction. We believe that the framework of co-presence is a fascinating lens through which questions of cohabitation, coexistence, urban, ethical, and climatic catastrophes could be understood and addressed more meaningfully.
The initiation for this project comes out of 2 observations:
1. Every architecture school, every academic institution, every competition call, every newspaper, every art exhibition, and many more public or private institutions thematize parts of sustainability and possible directions to move forward.
2. A wide part of the building industry and various other practising parts around it are doing the complete opposite. In short - it has never been poured more concrete than now.
To overcome this dilemma co-presence could be a mediating ground to exactly document the space between academia and practice. Between concrete and unsealed earth. Between ruderal plants and fake greenery.
The project's outcome is an architectural short film investigating different spatial situations of co-presence. Cities are not solely inhabited by humans but are rather agglomerations of various species. Buildings are a cluster of various species directly living together. Construction sites are Petri dishes for a new family of animals, plants, stones and humans. The work addresses the inner cores of what defines living in the 21. century and how it could be understood and maybe actively co-designed. By using the medium of film, other perspectives can be included in the various actors of co-present cities.