PIXEL CLOUD

source: thecreatorsprojectvice

Icelandic based architect Marcos Zotes and his studio UNSTABLE is fond of colonizing urban environments and challenging the conventions of public space. By staging inner-city interventions, Zotes likes to explore the social and political features of architecture in relation to the urban context.

Growing up as a young skateboarder and graffiti artist in the early 90s, Zotes witnessed what it felt like to be excluded from public space. The urban experiences that he encountered from an early age have transcended into his work as an architect, with which he reclaims his right to use the city.

He’s projected a giant eyeball on the bottom of an abandoned Brooklyn water tower, illuminated a spotlight on people as they walk past CCTV surveillance, and displayed anonymous text messages onto the façade of a Detroit building.

For his latest architectural installation PIXEL CLOUD, Zotes took over an ordinary scaffold in the heart of Reykjavik’s Austuvöllur Square in Iceland and transformed it into a fully immersive environment. “The scaffold, once liberated from its functions as an element in the construction industry, is treated as an object of art in itself,” the artist notes. PIXEL CLOUD takes advantage of the obsolete scaffolding structures that help construct a city’s permanent landscape, which have now become urban scars left behind from the current financial situation.
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source: unstablespace

Marcos Zotes is a licensed architect and designer who received his Professional Diploma in Architecture from London Metropolitan University in 2008. In 2011, he completed a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University in New York as a fellow and Fulbright Scholar of La Caixa Foundation, where he was awarded the Honor Award for Excellence in Design for best academic performance in his program. In 2012 he completed the Advanced Architectural Research program at Columbia University.
Marcos is the founder and Director of UNSTABLE, a multidisciplinary design and research laboratory that explores the social and political aspects of architecture in relation to the urban context. Through the use of technology, multi-disciplinary collaboration, and citizen participation his interventions challenge the limitations of urban public space and provide opportunities for debate, autonomy, and interaction with the urban environment.
Prior to founding UNSTABLE, Marcos worked as an architect at OMA / Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, CHORA in London, and Basalt Arkitektar in Reykjavik. In addition, he has taught architecture design studios at the Iceland Academy of Arts in Reykjavik, and Barnard and Columbia Colleges in New York.

EDUCATION
2012 : Post-Graduate Certificate in Advanced Architectural Research. GSAPP, Columbia University. New York, USA
2011 : Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design. GSAPP, Columbia University. New York, USA
2008 : Professional Diploma in Architecture (RIBA II). London Metropolitan University. London, UK
2006 : Bachelor of Arts in Architecture (RIBA I). London South Bank University. London, UK
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source: unstablespace

UNSTABLE is a multidisciplinary design and research laboratory that explores the social and political aspects of architecture in relation to the urban context. Founded in New York by architect Marcos Zotes, UNSTABLE´s work has been presented at TEDx in New York and has appeared in numerous festivals, museums, and galleries across the US and Europe, most notably at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy.
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source: unstablespace

Marcos Zotes. Reykjavik, 2013

The current financial situation has left a permanent landscape of scaffolding structures scattered across the city; urban scars that remind us of the fragility of our current society. PIXEL CLOUD is an architectural installation that takes advantage of this condition, transforming an ordinary scaffolding structure into a fully immersive environment of light and sound in the heart of Reykjavík.
PIXEL CLOUD is the winning competition entry for the Reykjavik Winter Lights Festival 2013, organized by Höfuðborgarstofa, Orkusalan and the Iceland Design Centre.