Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto in collaboration with mixed reality studio Tin Drum, have created an innovative new installation, Medusa, inside the The Raphael Court at the Victoria & Albert Museum, during the 19th annual, London Design Festival 2021. Medusa is an architecture installation in a Mixed Reality medium, examining the interrelation of nature and art, creating an installation that merges real life with a virtual world.

"Medusa" [Architecture + Reality (A+R)] was an immersive proposal where visitors to put on special headsets and navigate around an organic-shaped structure that morphs and evolves in response to movement.

Medusa was on view inside the V&A from september 18–26, 2021.
Tin Drum produces Mixed Reality content, a similar experience to what Augmented Reality delivers, but through an emerging class of see-through display devices, blending a uniquely dimensional form with the real world.

The audience dons a headset to view content that is presented in their space. Sou Fujimoto and Tin Drum performances connect people and stories in ways that go beyond anything that has ever been possible in traditional mediums, enabling richer, deeper experiences.

With storytelling no longer bound by traditional “flat screen” media, Tin Drum is introducing a new way to experience Fujimoto’s iconic interchange of nature and architecture by invoking a collective human experience set to take its audience on a journey of self-exploration. Inspired in part by the aurora borealis and underwater bioluminescence, Medusa’s structure changes and evolves based on the movement of its admirers, elevating audiences to become part of a mixed experience. This creates a breakthrough for individuals to follow their own emotional responses, engage in the experience, and develop a sense of agency and intimacy that was not achievable until now.

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Sou Fujimoto was born in Hokkaido, Japan, on August 4, 1971. He graduated in architecture from the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Engineering in 1994. He established his own architectural practice, Sou Fujimoto Architects, in Tokyo in 2000, and has been a professor at Kyoto University since 2007.

He came to international attention in 2005 when he won the renowned AR – International Architectural Review Awards in the Young Architect category, an award he received three consecutive years, the first in 2006.

In 2008, he won the JIA (Japan Institute of Architects) Award and the World Architecture Festival Award in the Private Houses section. In 2009, Wallpaper magazine awarded him its design award. Sou Fujimoto published "The Primitive Future" in 2008, one of the best-selling architectural books of that year. His architectural projects always seek new forms and spaces between nature and artifice.

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Published on: September 27, 2021
Cite:
metalocus, CARLOS GONZÁLEZ
"Sou Fujimoto and Tin Drum create Medusa" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/sou-fujimoto-and-tin-drum-create-medusa> ISSN 1139-6415
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