Jan Kokol visits the forum

The life and work of Jan Kokol

This week Jan Kokol will be at the forum sharing his work. Jan is a visiting student from Technical University in Graz, Austria, and is currently doing research on Mass Customization here at MIT under Prof. Nader Tehrani’s supervision.

See below for more details. Please note that the Forum’s new room is 9-250. The forum meets from 6-8 PM on Friday.

Short Bio

Jan Kokol, born 1978 in Ljubljana, Slovenia is currently researching at the MIT under the supervision of Professor Nader Tehrani in relation to his PhD about Mass Customization. His supervisor at the Technical University in Graz, Austria is Professor Roger Riewe. Architectural education at the Technical University in Graz, Austria, the Faculdade de Arquitectura in Lisbon, Portugal and the Chiba-Dai University in Chiba/ Tokyo, Japan. 2005 finishing his Masters thesis designing the concept of the Austrian Pavilion for the Expo 2005 in Nagoya, Japan based on Nanotechnology and Artificial Intelligence. 2000-2002, 2004-2005 working for Günther Domenig, focusing on the T-Mobile Center in Vienna, Austria. 2005-2007 in function as the leading 3-D designer at the Miralles Tagliabue architectural office in Barcelona, Spain. 2007-2008 collaboration with Opersis/ Zaha Hadid on the Bridge Pavilion for the EXPO 2008 in Zaragoza, Spain. 2009 thesis tutor at the Facultad de Arquitectura de la UNAM in Mexico City, Mexico. 2006, exposition at CIVA Brussels, Belgium for the Miralles Tagliabue architectural office. Works in relation to Conceptual Art and New Media Art since 2005. 2007 founding of the design and visualization company PIKALELE.

Presentation Abstract

the architecture as a part of art and the architect as the joining link in between. in the fast moving world of today as the related complexity it is of great importance to have clear ideas. ideas are the origin of further processing and can be seen as the computation of thoughts. by definition, computation is any kind of information processing, from human thinking to computer calculations. but there is a great difference in between intelligence and artificial intelligence. the rules and code are still defined by a human brain, which is dynamically searching for problem solutions. following this explanation we return to the starting point describing the idea. the idea can be seen as the main concept.

the goal of this presentation it to visualize the importance of the concept in art, as architecture and design. following modern production processes as mass customization a great question arises…the valour of a product created by machines, with unlimited repetitions, in comparison to a handcrafted object, unique as based on the involved human error.

the work presented has a wide range from painting, photography, home-page design, visualization, animation, architectural concepts. it is a conglomerate in terms of personality, instead of work only. this is the reason for calling it life and work.

the main projects presented will be collaborations with the artist and cousin of enric miralles, jordi pallares, collaborations with the architectural office of günther domenig, collaborations with the miralles tagliabue architectural office and collaborations with opersis/ zaha hadid. A deeper insight will be granted at the main presentation as discussion.