Liam Young

Liam Young (born 13th March 1979) is an Australian born architect and director. Young's work is situated within the fields of design fiction and critical design. His work is explores the increasingly blurred boundaries among film, fiction, design and storytelling with the goal of imagining our future. Through his projects that escape traditional definitions of how an architect practices Young has caused some controversy in the architectural field and the comments section on the industry blog Archinect with his claim that "An architect's skills are completely wasted on making buildings" Young is a founder of the Urban Futures think tank Tomorrows Thoughts Today and the nomadic research studio Unknown Fields.. He is a visiting Professor of Architecture at Princeton University and currently holds a position at the Architecutral Association in London and runs the MA in Fiction and Entertainment at Sci Arc in Los Angeles.

Films

In 2016 Young released the science fiction short film Where the City Can't See. The short is the first fiction film to be shot entirely using laser scanning technology (LIDAR), the same vision system that driverless cars use to navigate. The story follows a group of young factory workers across a single night as they drift through a near future Detroit in a driverless taxi. They are part of an underground community that have developed new textiles for digital camouflage which they use to escape the surveillance systems of the city and seek out a hidden rave party in the abandoned industrial factories of Detroit. The film features an original soundtrack by DJ Stingray, former tour DJ for Detroit electronic band Drexciya.

Young directed In the Robot Skies the first fiction film produced using autonomous preprogrammed drones. In the film, government surveillance drones follow two characters through the towers of a future London public housing estate. Seen through the eyes of the flying cameras the film tells the story of a young woman who has hacked one of drones and uses it to pass love letters to her boyfriend who is trapped in the tower opposite. The film premiered as part of Channel 4's Random Acts series.

In 2016 Young co produced the documentry short Consumed which recieved a BAFTA nomination for Best British Documentry Short. The film is a cinematic journey through the landscapes, mines, factories, and shipyards of Chinese technology production. The film reveals the hidden world behind everyday objects and re-frames the complex supply chains that fuel Western consumerism.

Performances

 In 2014 Young collaborated with Welsh musician and composer John Cale, formerly of the Velvet Underground to develop the world first drone orchestra and the audiovisual performance LOOP >> 60Hz: Transmissions From The Drone Orchestra. For the performance Young designed a flock of costumed drones that would fly above the audience carrying speakers that broadcast the live music played by the band.

With British electronic producer Forest Swords Liam Young developed In the Robot Skies, a live cinema performance of his short film of the same name. Against the backdrop of Forest Swords original soundscape and a film collage directed by Young he narrates the story of a lone drone flying across time and space. Beginning in WWI the performance tells the story of how drones have evolved across time to become the dominant infrastrucutre they are today. The performance premiered at the 60th London International FIlm Festival.

Publications

Young has co authored the book Series Unknown FIelds: Tales from the Dark Side of the City. The series is currently consists of 6 books, each an illustrated story based on a field expedition through a remote landscape that is critical in the manafacture and production of contemporary technology. The series currently consists of A World Adrift: South China Sea and Inner Mongolia Expedition, The Breastmilk of the Volcano: Bolivia and the Atacama Desert Expedition, Snowing in the Supercomputer: Far North Alaska Expedition, Never Never Lands: Western Australian Outback Expedition, Treasured Island: Madagascar Expedition and High Strange: United States Black Sites Expedition.

In 2014 Young edited the ebook Brave New Now, a collection of specially commissioned short stories set in a fictional future city developed by Liam Young for the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale. The book features stories from science fiction authors such as Warren Ellis, Bruce Sterling, Rachel Armstrong, Samit Basu and photography by Edward Burtynsky, Charlie Koolhaas and Vincent Fournier.

Exhibitions

Young's first US solo show opened at the Columbia University Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery in March 2017. The show was titled New Romance and featured 3 short films, each a love story set in a future city of autonomous technologies. The exhibition uses the medium of film and fiction to explore how emerging technologies are redefining human relationships and architecture.

With his nomadic studio Unknown Fields Young exhibited Unknown FIelds: The Dark Side of the City at the Architectural Association Gallery in 2016. The exhibition took the form of a road trip through a collection of fragments; of drone footage, hidden camera investigations, speculative narratives and toxic objects that formed a reimagined city the size of the entire planet. The project looks at the way that the supply chains of technology is reforming landscapes all over the world.

Interviews

Building Better Entertainment By Holly Willis

Liam Young on Speculative Architecture and Engineering the Future By Next Nature

Arch20 Interviews Liam Young by Zack Saunders

What am I a Citizen Of? Liam Young advocates for the utter dissolution of the term 'Architect' by Shumi Bose

The Model is the Map, is the Territory by George Kafka for Transmediale

External Links

• Liam young. - Liam Young's personal website
• Unknown Fields. - Nomadic Research Studio Unknown Fields website
• Tomorrow's Thoughts Today- Urban Futures think tank Tomorrows Thoughts Today website