Leeser Architecture Designs Two Exhibits for New Spanish Art Center

“Feedback” and “Gameworld” explore new media art and videogames, respectively.

Meaghan O'Neill -- Interior Design, 3/30/2007

For nearly two decades, Thomas Leeser, principal of Leeser Architecture, has been incorporating emerging technologies into his architectural practice. Most recently, the New York–based architect has been called upon to design two inaugural exhibitions at the new LABoral Art and Industrial Creation Center in Gijón, Spain. “Feedback” and “Gameworld,” will open today, March 30th, at the new space, an innovative center dedicated to opening up dialogue and exchange across the art, design, culture, industry, and economic progress. LABoral, housed in a repurposed 12,400-square-foot workshop building formerly used for vocational training, allows artists to explore and experiment creatively using modern information and technology.

Leeser Architecture worked closely with curators Christiane Paul, adjunct curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, and Jemima Rellie, head of Digital Programmes at the Tate Modern in London, to create the space for “Feedback” (through June 30), a retrospective of electronic and new media art that traces the evolution of contemporary art involving digital technologies, including works by Marcel Duchamp, Sol Lewitt, László Maholy-Nagy, and others. With help from Leeser, the exhibit functions like a map, via the creasing, scoring, cutting, turning, and folding a single surface, with the artworks laid onto and into the skin.

“Gameworld” (through September 30), curated by Carl Goodman, deputy director and director of Digital Media at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, explores the videogame as an art form. Cast in “digital blue,” the exhibit is a real environment modeled after the virtual realm and features a selection of historical games recognized for their design innovation, helping demonstrate gaming’s impact on modern life.

Images, from top: A rendering of "Feeback" and the "digital blue" envelope of "Gameworld."