eCommemoration Convention 2022 @ Körber Stiftung

For the German Federal Cultural Foundation we developed Co-Creating Hybrid Culture that addresses the augmenting of physical cultural sites and practices through digital spaces via transdisciplinary co-creating events.

Research & Concept  @ German Federal Cultural Foundation, Halle an der Saale, Germany, 1 April 2021

Concept Development @ German Federal Cultural Foundation, Halle an der Saale, Germany, 1 April 2021

The workshop “Conflict Space” taking place at the International Symposium on Electronic Art ISEA2022 in Barcelona deals with the re-signification of a very contentious Franco monument and is part of the ‘Deep Space’ research on the politics of memory and heritage in the digital age.

In our globalized world the accelerating speed of socio-political and cultural change collides with the longue-durée of heritage sites and territories. As social and political contexts around places with a public meaning change, controversies often arise.

Publication Re-Charting Places @ Contested Spaces – Concerted Projects: Designs for Vulnerable Memories, LetteraVentidue Edizioni, Syracuse, Italy, April 2021

Focussing on rereading the cityscape, granting visibility and recognition to voices and histories previously silenced, the program focuses on fostering memory-making and processing through the development of innovative, participatory methods that do not physically touch the spaces involved.

Human activity and its far-reaching interactions have always transformed territories by moving people, plants, goods and animals. As such, territories have become richly stratified – and interactions are always mutual and two-way. Countries and cities projecting their influence elsewhere have, in turn, been transformed by external inputs.

By unlocking the potential laying at the intersection between arts, technology, memory studies and sciences, the workshop has cracked open the interwoven, historically painful meanings of the monument, envisioning its possible futures, once Franco’s remains will be exhumed from the site.

As a consequence of the more than 65 years long near absence of human activity, the Korean DMZ  land strip has become a verdant 984 square kilometers nature reserve where endangered flora and fauna species had the chance to regain space.
The Korean DMZ has become a testimony to unintentional beauty. Thriving vegetation and undisturbed wildlife now cover the painful, conflict-born void along the military demarcation.
Over the last few years, it has gathered international attention due to its symbolic value as well as to individual and bilateral bids by North and South Korea securing UNESCO Biosphere status for areas of the DMZ.

What’s the future like? For professionals in the exhibition business this is a very relevant and difficult  problem. Because the future does not give us any objects yet.

Deep Space is a long-term investigative program initiated to deal with politics of memory,controversial space and monuments, digitalization and heritage.”Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos” was initiated and conceptualized in February 2018 by Hybrid Space Lab as an element of the long-term “Deep Space” exploration and intervention program.

Article by Sílvia Marimon Molas in the leading Catalan newspaper ARA on how Spanish authorities are relocating symbols of the dictatorship.
“It (Augmented Reality app) would make visible what Franco wanted to hide and would bring out everything that is hidden and buried in the Valley, transforming the totalitarian story into a polyphonic memory,” says Vogelaar.
This could be a tool as long as there is no physical transformation of the Valley, but archaeologist Alfredo González Rubial, who has excavated Cuelgamuros to trace the lives of prisoners who did slave work there, believes the monument cannot be left as it is.

Article by Sílvia Marimon Molas @ ARA Catalan Newspaper, Barcelona, Spain, 16 July 2022

We need a fresh, radically innovative and solutions-oriented approach to address the various forms of contested heritage sites in a way that is fit for the 21st century: Article on Hybrid Space Lab’s work on contested monuments, is published in Italy.

Re-Charting Places  @ Contested Spaces – Concerted Projects: Designs for Vulnerable Memories, LetteraVentidue Edizioni, Italy, April 2021

Hjärnstorm, the Swedish independent journal of art, literature, philosophy published an article on Deep Space.

Deep Space @ Art Journal Hjärnstorm, Stockholm, Sweden, 5 January 2021

Hybrid Space Lab analyzed “Valley of the Fallen” near Madrid – the pompous tomb for the fascist dictator Francisco Franco. They suggest leaving it unchanged but covering it with a new critical layer. Using augmented reality, they want to make hidden layers visible and write history from the victims’ perspective.

Deep Space @ Archithese, Switzerland, 25 November 2020

The Valle de los Caídos is highly controversial as a memorial of the fallen of the Spanish Civil War: for a long time, it mainly served the glorification of the dictator Franco. The “Deep Space” project wants to show visitors also the site’s dark side.

Interview @ Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Germany, 6 August 2020

Berlin’s contribution to the debate on monuments: What to do with Franco’s mausoleum?
Do not destroy it, says the Berlin office Hybrid Space Lab as it lays out ideas for a new way of dealing with the controversial Franco memorial in the “Valley of the Fallen” near Madrid.

Article @ Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin, Germany 16 July 2020

Monuments are Vehicles of Meaning. Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Frans Vogelaar research how to negotiate monuments’ narratives and how to bring criticism.

Interview @ TAZ, Berlin, Germany 14 Juli 2020

The Valley of the Fallen without Franco: the fate of the other 33,847 dead”
This is the title of the article by journalist Sílvia Marimom Molas in the Catalan Newspaper ARA on the future of the Valle de los Caídos with an interview on Deep Space.

In the article “Without Franco, what to do with the colossal Valle de los Caídos?” for HuffPost, Anthony Berthelier describes the project “Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos” with its creative approach for addressing controversial history and contested heritage.

Publication”Without Franco, what to do with the colossal Valle de los Caídos?” @ Huffington Post, France, 24 October 2019

The Valley of the Fallen is a large memorial erected near Madrid in the mountain range of the Sierra de Guadarrama on the initiative of the dictator Francisco Franco. It is dedicated to the fallen of the Spanish Civil War. Within the scope of the project “Deep Space” it is proposed to transform the monument by digital means.

Publication @ Magazine for Architecture and City Marlowes, Germany, 16 July 2019

Article “We come for the place, not for Franco “: El Valle de los Caídos, a tourist site almost like the others” by journalist Juliette Campion, France Televisions.

Publication @ France TV, Paris, 10 June 2019

Article “Creative Crossovers: Negotiating Past and Future” in the University of Southern California Public Diplomacy Magazine issue summer 2019.

Article @ Public Diplomacy Magazine, University of California, 7 June 2019

Deep Space is an international project to re-think the burial site of former dictator Franco.Deep Space, presented at the Goethe Institut in Madrid, uses augmented reality to change the totalitarian nature of the Spanish Civil War monument the Valley of the Fallen.

Publication @ El País, Madrid,  6 June 2019

Working on places of conflict can be extremely challenging. As soon as a polarised discussion is addressed with a proposal, it is bound to cause some sort of backlash by at least one of the affected parties. There is no clear way out of it. Or is there? Architecture practice Hybrid Space Lab takes a rather unique approach for the re-signification of the controversial site of Valle de los Caídos in Madrid, the burial ground of Spain’s dictator Francisco Franco and 33,000 victims of the country’s brutal civil war.

Article by Elena Rossoni @ Bnieuws TU Delft, The Netherlands, 5 February 2019

Frans Vogelaar wants to give the Valley of the Fallen in Spain, one of the most controversial places in the world, new meaning.
How does the founder of the Berlin design lab and think tank Hybrid Space Lab think to do that with use of digital technology?

The Valley of the Fallen, the shrine of Franco’s dictatorship, is still dividing Spain. A workshop wants to crossfade it with new projections.

Article by Paul Ingendaay @ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany, 1 November 2018

Catalan journalist Sílvia Marimon Molas describes in her article “The Gaze of European Experts” in the Catalan newspaper ARA on 31st October 2018 the workshop “Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos” participants’ visit to the site and the necessity of a change of the monument’s narrative.

Article by Sílvia Marimon @ ARA, Spain, 31 October 2018

Lecture at the UNA University PhD Workshop Heritage Hybridizations: Concepts, Scales and Spaces.

Hybrid Space Lab is invited to develop ideas for artistic intervention possibilities at the Bismarck Monument in the Alter Elbpark in Hamburg and to suggest ways in which the monument could be set in a new context.

Panel Discussion @ Ministry of Culture and Media, Hamburg, Germany, 16 September 2021

Hybrid Space Lab contributes to the international conference »Practices of Inheritance – Metaphors, Materializations, Power Constellations« of the »IDENTITY AND HERITAGE« research cluster of the Bauhaus University Weimar and Technical University Berlin.

Hybrid Identity @ Bauhaus University, 19 November 2020

The Paris exhibition “Negotiating Borders – Real DMZ Project” features Hybrid Space Lab’s DMZpace, a project deploying the potential of the border area as a site of both historical wounds and flourishing nature.

Exhibition @ Korean Cultural Center Paris, 10 September – 6 November 2020

Hybrid Space Lab contributes to the International Master Class Artistic Research, pioneering developments of immersive 360° concepts and narratives.

Masterclass @ Film University Babelsberg, Potsdam, Germany, 7-18 September 2020

As in the 21^st Century the world develops a deeper understanding of heritage, digital technology is ever more present in our reading of the past. Hybrid Space Lab’s lecture Hybrid Heritage addresses how to best unlock the unique potentialities of this interdisciplinary and technological moment.

Lecture @ AMPS, University of Kent, 29-30 June 2020

Featured in the “DMZ Landscape: Cheorwon” exhibition in Seoul, Hybrid Space Lab’s DMZpace project unfolds the potential of the no-man’s-land border area to overcome the tension between its historical wounds and the thriving nature. Opening up scenarios for reconciliation and dialogue through the mediation of a now lush natural biotope, the project unveils the contradictions hidden behind the visible landscape at the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

DMZpace @ Yeonnamjang Underground Gallery, Seoul, 2 May 2020

Instead of creating a gap in this highly symbolic place, the international think tank Hybrid Space Lab represents the impetus to explore alternative memory narratives to the previously totalitarian narrative of the Valle de los Caídos.

“What happens when an object loses its original purpose? Why does architecture find itself displaced, unwanted and repurposed? Buildings and physical infrastructure possess a longue durée that is fundamental to their spatial and political impact. But their long-term pretension can also become their undoing: politics, society, media and culture change faster than bricks and concrete. Structures can usually adjust only in very expensive ways: with renovation or destruction. History leaves behind either heritage or rubble, both a sort of an architectural ‘living dead’.

Lecture @ NONUMENTS!  Symposium, Prague, 13.10-14.30, 14 June 2019

Opening, lecture and panel discussion “Lost Memory – Recovered Memory” at the Goethe Institut in Madrid with Miquel Gonzalez, Photographer, Emilio Silva , Journalist , Prof. Elizabeth Sikiaridi & Prof. Frans Vogelaar, Hybrid Space Laband Prof. Gutmaro Gomez Bravo, Contemporary History, Universidad Complutense de Madrid on Wednesday 5 June 2019 at the Goethe Institut in Madrid.

Opening, Lecture & Panel Discussion @ Goethe Institut Madrid, 5 June 2019

Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos is presented on 25 January 2019 at the TRACES Conference in Milan, Italy.

Lecture, Discussion @ TRACES, Milan, Italy, 25 January 2019

Like Space refers to self-mediated leisure spaces that act as affective backdrops for digital self-enactment.
Hybrid Space Lab is leading a master class in Madrid in 2018 and organizing an international conference and a master class with public interventions and pop-up exhibition in Berlin in 2019.

Conference, Master Class, Lecture  @ Berlin, The Hague, Madrid, Rotterdam, 2018-2019