The Los Angeles based experimental architectural studio, to exhibit at the Eleventh International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, Italy.  Ball Nogues was selected by Aaron Betsky, director of the biennial’s principal exhibition, Out There: Architecture Beyond Building, and will debut a new site-specific installation on September 14, 2008 that will remain on view though November 23, 2008.

This exhibition represents the first invitation for Ball-Nogues to exhibit at the Biennale and the studio's first international exhibition of their innovative work.  Presenting a project entitled Echoes Converge, the project modulates and changes the circulation flow though a passage in the historic Arsenale complex by using the minimum of materials.
 
Deploying an ordered array of thousands of string catenaries hanging under their own weight, the project creates a visual sensation reminiscent of the audio phenomenon of an echo while it kinetically registers the gentle currents of air as visitors experience its cloud like volume. Created using proprietary software and a specialized mechanical hardware system entitled The Insta-Lator, the site specific installation builds on the central theme of this year’s Biennale; that architecture is not about buildings but is a way of representing, shaping and perhaps even offering critical alternatives to the human-made environment.

In their continuing effort to resist the limiting presuppositions and economic flimflam embedded in commercial software and existing architectural fabrication techniques, Ball Nogues has developed two new tools for Echoes Converge: a custom software design system and an automatic cutting apparatus. Using the software, they can explore the form of the installation then send construction data to a digitally controlled mechanical apparatus, the previously cited Insta-Lator, which automates the mind-numbing process of cutting those thousands of unique lengths of string catenaries. As a combined design and production system, these tools enable the installation to not only function as architecture, but also as a made-to-order product that can be rapidly deployed by the designer or owner.  
 
Gaston Nogues and Benjamin Ball are both graduates from the Southern California Institute of Architecture and have received critical recognition for their distinctive architecturally scaled temporary installations. In 2007, the firm won the Museum of Modern Art / P.S.1's Young Architect's Program competition and Ball-Nogues became one of three design teams awarded a United States Artists Target Fellowship. Their work has appeared in publications worldwide including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Architectural Record, Architectural Digest, Interior Design, Icon, Log 10, Sculpture, and Surface.
 
Ball Nogues’ most recent project, Unseen Current was exhibited at Extension Gallery in Chicago. On the occasion of their first exhibition at the Venice Biennial, Edward Cella Art+Architecture proudly announces its representation of the progressive firm in a continuing effort to present projects by emerging and established West Coast architects and designers.

 

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