LAb[au] - laboratory for architecture and urbanism
Manuel Abendroth, Jérôme Decock, Els Vermang
LAb[au] ( = laboratory for architecture and urbanism) is an art studio found in 1997, based in Brussels, Belgium. The name merges a phonetic and a written meaning; that of the French / Dutch pronunciation ‘labo’ and that of the German word ‘bau’ referring to its projects’ experimental approach (labo) and construct (bau).
The technological developments of the past fourty years have given rise to a major shift from the industrial to the post-industrial information society, where the unit of information, its processes and systems, increasingly define the notions of body, matter, space and time. According to this technological progress, LAb|au| examines the transformation of architecture, art and design within a practice entitled ‘MetaDeSIGN’. Metadesign [meta = information about information + design] displays the theme of space- and time constructs relative to information processes. It concerns the transposition of inFORMational processes in n-dimensional (visual, sonic, spatial,…) form.
MetaDeSIGN is characterised by the setting of systems, among which LAb[au] is today mainly active within the interactive, reactive and generative realm.
LAb[au]’s art is part of public and private art collections worldwide and has been exhibited in some of ‘s worlds most prestigious art venues, among which BOZAR (Brussels, 2009 + 2010), TENT. / Witte de With (Rotterdam, 2006), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, 2004 + 2005), New Museum (New York, 2003), Louvre (Paris, 2000),… and happenings worldwide among which Todaysart (The Hague, 2008), Club|Transmediale (Berlin, 2007), Sonar (Barcelona, 2004),… and many more.
The critically acclaimed studio was one of 2009’s nominees for the renowned contemporary art prize ‘Young Belgian Painters Award’ and one of 2010‘s nominees for the legendary computer arts concelebration ‘Ars Electronica’. Their work has numerously been featured in press worldwide and their recent monography ‘MetaDeSIGN’ is published by ‘Les Presses du Reel’.