The Lab
Being digital architects in Milan
Domenico Quaranta
Limiteazero: Paolo Rigamonti & Silvio Mondino. photos Jesus O’Bof (trakatan)
In actual fact, explains Paolo Rigamonti , as he welcomes me in, this is a little communications ploy. “Until we find better premises, we are sharing an office with a friend who has an architectural firm”. Limiteazero rejects labels, and that of architect is no exception, but the company did need to find some way to convey what it does, and that is why on the site they opted for “architectural and media design firm”. “We always feel a little uneasy talking about ourselves in these terms”, continues Paolo. “I trained with a rather noble idea of the architectural profession, a respect that makes it difficult for me to define myself as such. Not to mention art – we have never felt like artists. I have often fancied copying Miltos Manetas, in one of the most brilliant operations of the last ten years, and commissioning a naming company to come up with a name for what we do, to let us do away with all these labels in one fell swoop.» But references to architecture come out at every turn, as does their ongoing conflict with the art world, which just can’t accept the fact that Limiteazero works on form, in partnership with companies in the hi-tech sphere and communications, and refuses to pursue the goal of originality at all costs.
The works of Limiteazero are installations and sculptures, single machines engaged in endless processes, often interactive
On the other hand, of the two only Paolo is an architect. Silvio Mondino hails from a different background, with roots in electronic music and graphic design. And in any case their training is anything but dominated by formal schooling: “We trained on the web: I for one have never come across anything like the MIT in Italy. Actually we could even say that the MIT has played a part in our education. A case of distance learning”, explains Silvio. Paolo interrupts: “At night we read the PDF files of MIT theses. In Italy the whole second generation of electronics is self-taught, and this is probably one of its most interesting aspects. In schools there is always an attempt to standardise creativity, which is normal, and even right. Our generation got its education by looking at the web, in complete freedom, and that is why we do such completely different things.”
They met nine years ago, in a web design company. It wasn’t long before they realised they had a lot in common. Both were interested in information architecture, that world of data constructed by third rate technical draughtsmen. They felt it was time to start designing this architecture, to make it liveable and inhabitable, and to build bridges with the real world, to resolve that strange sensation of parallel universes that characterises the lives of netizens. «We have always spontaneously attempted to interpret the digital system like a spatial system, to comprehend the dynamics of data space. Our first work with interfaces addressed this, as our ‘clients’ for Carnivore show [see Cluster, issue 5]; then we began doing installations, attempting to construct a rapport between this theoretical space and physical space”.
The first company to fall in love with this ambitious project was the advertising firm BGS, the people behind the Swatch ads. With considerable farsightedness, BGS “swallowed” Limiteazero, with the idea of using it as a laboratory for experimenting with innovative solutions to apply to communications. “It was a time when much of the technology in use today was coming to the fore. The concept of Interaction Design had not yet emerged, even less so in Italy. For us it was a case of teaching ourselves, in a third world country technologically-speaking, to develop a system in total independence. What we were offering BGS was the same thing we are working on by ourselves now: work on interaction and interface design, as a tool for the new business sector. It was very difficult. BGS was enthusiastic about the project, but this was a world it knew nothing about, and was unsure how to handle. Then came the recession, and we…”
And they began working alone, at a point of intersection between various systems – art, design, architecture and communications – without permanently embracing any of them. It wasn’t always easy, but they survived. What they were doing was introducing to Italy a hybrid figure that already existed – and worked – abroad: “One example we often look to is Diller & Scofidio: a pair of architects, but in a very American sense. You make a cloud of steam with a wireless system inside it and you can sign it as an architect. Vito Acconci is an artist, but he has just opened an architectural firm. Then there is the lo-tech field, which is much more fluid, and where adopting a definition doesn’t mean walling yourself up within the confines of a single discipline”. It’s all about designing the form of technology, as artists: “But what is so dishonourable about working on form? In technology form is still waiting to be defined. Apart from Apple, which worked on the design of its technology, all the others produce these horrible machines with functional bits inside. There is a whole lot of work to be done there, and what’s so bad about doing it?” It’s a question of convincing companies that a communications project may merit being conserved and offered up as a work of art, and convincing the art world that an installation is not a second-rate work just because it came into being to publicise a product.
It is also about maintaining a certain coherence while working on occasional jobs and commissions. As Silvio explains: “We try to bring these jobs into line with our research approach. On the site there are various case histories which may look unconnected, but which are really part of a puzzle that the careful observer will be able to piece together. There are still a few pieces missing, and we are always on the lookout for the job that will bring us full circle, the one that says – here are the cogs and this is how they all turn together. At the moment this type of continuity is not evident, and this is something that distinguishes us, while artists, for example, always state their intentions and their works confirm them”.
“Our generation got its education by looking at the web, in complete freedom, and that is why we do such completely different things”
One thing which contributes to the difficulty of perceiving the linearity of their repertoire is their tendency to experiment with different technological solutions for each project: «All artists, including the majority of the most famous electronic artists, specialise in one type of technology and almost always work with that: they build a secure, reliable system and work within that system. We hardly ever work on the same thing twice – we always change technologies, which is unreal – it means building up skills from scratch for every project.”
The works of Limiteazero are installations and sculptures, single machines engaged in endless processes, often interactive. The interactivity itself is of a very elementary nature, restricted to instantaneous gestures, as this is not where meaning of the projects lies: these are machines which make a show of their formal elegance in an almost provocative way, because for the purists in the field, elegance is a sin. Their ideal settings are venues which are equally refined, but not off-puttingly so, playing host to the wood, steel, plexiglass and frosted glass of their sculptures, with the guts of the technology often displayed on the outside, as if to render them more familiar.
But they are no less interested in the external sphere. On the contrary, Limiteazero candidly admit to having a total of five urban installation concepts just waiting for funding. “Crossing the line between the limited space of architecture and working in an urban space would be the ultimate fulfilment of our desire to work on the rapport between digital space and physical space”, says Paolo. And Silvio adds: “Some of these concepts focus on the exterior of a key building, with the idea of changing its connotations and highlighting its symbolic meaning, working from the interior to the exterior or vice versa. All of them are based on a network, be it technological -the internet, mobile telephony – or physical. Our latest project is designed for cities with a canal network, like Venice or Amsterdam: a communications network which has fallen into disuse». Back to Paolo: «It is based on the idea of distributing a series of floating objects containing bluetooth message transmitters in these canals. By activating bluetooth on their mobiles, users can message each other through these objects, with entirely unpredictable results. We liked the idea of using water as a means for transmitting messages and the canal network as an analogy for the communication and relational networks between people.» They love the lit installations by Raphael Lozano-Hemmer, but rather than seeing the city as a gaming platform, they prefer to interpret it as a communications tool; they do not shy away from spectacularity, but search for a deeper rapport with the history and meaning of a place, à la Christo.
After these visionary concepts of a networked city, it feels a little banal to go back to talking about advertising. But when they talk about bb_write, their latest project for Blackberry, although they do sound like two hip ad execs – it’s all “briefings”, “professional users”, “consumer users” and so on – you get the distinct impression that no concessions have been made to traditional advertising: bb_write is most definitely a Limiteazero baby. “What is Blackberry? A physical device you use to interface constantly with the web, a live communications system, that makes a noise and lights up when you get messages. It is a tool which makes the intimacy of communication ubiquitous. These are the concepts we started off with: to localise communication, make it correspond to a physical space, and build an intimate space around that. Blackberry’s only request was to launch four key words: liberation, interaction, innovation, and communication. So we built four mini-platforms which convey the sensations you experience when you use a Blackberry: they are permanently connected to the net via wireless, and make the flow of e-mails visible. Assistants ask passers-by to use a Blackberry to write something inspired by one of the four key words. Their e-mails are sent to each of the four platforms, inside which there are four screens and four Blackberries which receive the messages: you go in and you experience the sensation of being in a setting that is receiving e-mails. Beside the screens is a sensor: when you pass your hand over it, the characters that make up the messages turn into graphic and geometrical symbols which hover on the screen. From the outside these platforms look like rough wooden packaging crates, with the circuit boards of the computers which receive the e-mails assembled on them. The idea was to do away with the distinction between interior and exterior, to make physical space virtual and lend a physical dimension to virtual space.”
What about advertising? “We don’t push products, we make them a vital part of the work. The project works and the product gets visibility. People haven’t started asking us for the Limiteazero touch in their communications yet, it is something we impose: you give me this opportunity and I’ll give it my touch.” In exchange, all they ask is for companies not to treat their projects like promotional displays, only cooler, but as something more. Works of art, for example.
