The Generative Art Museum (TGAM): Hello Stephanie and Galo! Thank you very much for joining us today. How are you?

Office CA (O): Great! Excited to chat about our practice.

TGAM: Let’s start with some introductions. Who is Office CA?

O: Office CA (sometimes written in all lowercase, office ca) is our collaborative practice. It was established in 2014 by Galo, and Stephanie joined in 2017 when we realized that we had closely aligned interests and design sensibilities.

TGAM: Can you tell us about your journey into generative art?

O: Architecture is somewhat tangential to generative art, and there’s always been designers that have straddled both fields. For us, some of those designers such as the architecture firm MOS who worked with Processing early on in their practice greatly influenced our way of working. We started dabbling first in experimental software to showcase our installations and research, and eventually got into writing generative scripts for producing variations of designs. It kind of came naturally after realizing that we wanted to make work that is interactive and varied.

TGAM: What inspired you to pursue generative art as your chosen medium? Are there any specific artists or movements that have influenced your work?

O: As mentioned above, MOS was very influential for us. Their minimal Processing simulations were quirky and different from other computational approaches to design. A few years ago we were also fortunate enough to work under the leadership of Chris Lasch (from Aranda/Lasch) at the School of Architecture which used to be at Taliesin. During this time we both taught architecture studios and seminars, some of which were dedicated to coding. We like work that is weird and hallucinatory but doesn’t necessarily look like Hollywood visual effects or your typical “parametric” architectural installation. Of course we also look at contemporary artists like John Gerrard, Hito Steyerl, Tomás Saraceno, and many others.

TGAM: How did you first encounter NFTs?

O: Like many others, in early 2021 when some artists we were following started posting about this new technology.

TGAM: Coming from architecture seems to be a path that has been made by many artists, why do you think so many architects are attracted by generative art?

O: In architecture school, you’re typically asked to think systematically as well as aesthetically. There’s a natural balance between expression and order, which makes architecture well suited for generative approaches. In the early 2000s, the field of design computation also grew, creating a kind of subcategory of architecture which relied on scripting for variation and digital fabrication for prototyping. In a sense, architecture is the perfect site for trying out ideas related to variation and generative processes (see discussions on mass customization, for example). Some schools also teach algorithmic design, which is probably where most architects encounter generative art examples and histories.

TGAM: You have also designed installations, objects and spaces, how does it feel combining such physical environments with the digital one?

O: We like to work through a “both, and” approach, meaning that we do not prioritize the physical over the virtual. Instead we regard both worlds as unique and viable sites for architectural interventions--of course, it’s trickier to work with the physical world due to gravity, safety, etc. We think that combining both kinds of environments is a rich way of engaging contemporary issues, which are increasingly concerning virtual space. Not necessarily in the “metaverse” sense, but in terms of the effects of social media, emerging technologies, and the proliferation of screens.

TGAM: Stephanie’s research focuses on how architectural scale interfaces create new fictions and realities through subtle and overt manipulations of building components, could this also be applied to generative art?

O: Definitely, the idea behind viewing the built environment as a series of interfaces allows us to stop treating and designing it as a static element. Instead, the physical world around us is shaped by its users, who form their own stories. Within generative art, we create the code itself, but there is an element of surprise that emerges with each iteration that is created from the parameters we formed but not fully controlled by us. These combinations have their own stories and digital realities.

TGAM: Galo researches the socio-technical networks of relations between design’s softwarization and the architectural imagination. A significant role in generative art is precisely the relation between the tools and how those affect artist’s practice, how does the software you use affect the final artwork?

O: The software we use affects the final artworks insofar as it sets up the world in which the work is created and also imagined. Software provides potentials but also limitations, and it’s increasingly important for users to be aware of both. Sometimes we use a particular platform because we need certain tools such as a game engine, other times we build our own tools (such as our own physics simulation) so that we can have full control over the effects.

TGAM: Your piece “Lightweight Deconstruction” is part of an ongoing project you call "Lightweight Construction", that questions the relationship between virtual and physical materials while finding new kinships between them. In a world where everything becomes more digitalised, how does construction and physicality keep its relevance?

O: Architecture is an interesting place to reflect on “digitalisation” because the way we design and construct buildings is shifting toward a mode of simulation where every building component is modeled, catalogued, and managed through software. Building materials haven’t really changed too much, but the way we control them has. We’re interested in unpacking those evolving relationships, sometimes even just by making up weird stories about imaginary materials. Physicality will always be relevant because we are material beings, but it’s also becoming apparent that physical materials will have virtual counterparts (either as models or even tokenized data). We’re speculating on what that relationship might look like.

TGAM: You mention the contradiction between the virtual/digital spaces and how the virtual world is described as a mirror world. To what extent architecture tries to explain the limits of both?

O: The most common contradiction is that virtual space is immaterial and yet most virtual spaces are just skeuomorphic analogs of physical space. A reason why the “metaverse” didn’t catch on is perhaps because there was no virtual architecture that was really pushing what it meant to inhabit an immaterial space. Good architecture in the physical world tries to accommodate many things including building functions, aesthetics, and user experience. Innovative architecture takes these to their limits in various ways. We still don’t really have that in the virtual world.

TGAM: How generative art fits into your practice as an architect? Do you see it as part of the process or a consequence of work?

O: For us it’s definitely part of the process. Right now we use generative means to sketch out ideas and produce speculative compositions and arrangements. It has become part of our toolkit for experimentation. We’re always more interested in concepts than the means to represent them, but acknowledge that the two go hand in hand. Generative art is just one of the ways we realize ideas.

Office CA is part of TGAM's Responsive Dreams Festival 2024, the first generative art exhibition in Barcelona dedicated entirely to showcasing art created by code.

"Lightweight Deconstruction" will be released for minting September 5th June at fx(hash). Holders of TGAM's brochures are elegible to mint preferentially.

The Generative Art Museum (TGAM) is a non-profit organization based in Barcelona dedicated to explore, promote, and advance the understanding and appreciation of generative art as a unique form of artistic expression.