Arch-OS is presented at the Buro Happold Consulting Engineers Mult-disciplinary Engineering Workshop. The presentation, “This Conversation Can Serve No Possible Purpose”, was given in London on the 03/03/05.

Buro Happold were the consulting engineers on the development of the Portland Square complex and their support was critical to the development of the Arch-OS system.

“I enjoy working with people.” (HAL9000)

The significant other in digital work is often the subordinate member of the collaboration. It receives almost negligible credit for a works aesthetic, its functionality or its dissemination. This presentation explores a number of issues surrounding the role of the ‘computer’ and its ‘code’ as the ‘very’ significant other and co-author of digital work. The presentation discusses the Arch-OS project, an ‘Operating System’ for contemporary architecture (Arch-OS, ‘software for buildings’) has been developed to manifest the life of a building and provide artists, engineers and scientists with a unique environment for developing transdisciplinary work and new public art.

It places this work within the context of other projects produced by i-DAT such as:

‘S.T.I. Consortium’ (the Search for Terrestrial Intelligence) which engages in critical issues surrounding the shift from the hegemony of the eye to the reliance on autonomous systems to do our seeing for us – do we recognise ourselves when seen through our artificial eyes. Software art, such as Auto-Illustrator (Ade Ward – http://www.auto-illustrator.com/), and experimental collaborations between simians, computers and humans for Vivaria (STAR & Sulawesi crested macaque monkeys from Paignton Zoo) provide models that recognise the computer as more than a mere ‘tool’ or a ‘material’ in a collaboration. These are models that also, incidentally, challenge the need for the artist and even the audience…

“I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over.” (HAL9000)

http://www.burohappold.com/