"To achieve this transformation, Villar Rojas dismantles the building's internal systems. Temporary partitions are removed, surfaces stripped back to their structural core, and even the climate controls are abandoned to expose the architecture to external forces of heat, humidity, and air. Soil and vegetation breach the interior, fire is introduced as both material and process, and exit signs glow as ambient lighting. Visitors enter through a mound of earth, stepping into a space where the categories of inside and outside, ecological and institutional,"
"At the heart of the exhibition that runs until February 1st, 2026, lies the ongoing series The End of Imagination (2022-ongoing), whose chimerical sculptures appear like artifacts excavated from a future that has already forgotten us. The works are generated through Villar Rojas's bespoke Time Engine, a digital simulation that merges video game technologies, artificial intelligence, and speculative world-building. From this tool, evolving synthetic ecologies emerge, populated by shifting life forms, architectures, and sociopolitical landscapes."
Adrián Villar Rojas occupies all four floors of Seoul's Art Sonje Center, removing temporary partitions, stripping surfaces to their structural core, and abandoning climate controls to expose the building to heat, humidity, and air. Soil, vegetation, and fire are introduced into interior spaces while exit signs function as ambient lighting, and visitors enter through a mound of earth that erodes distinctions between inside and outside as well as ecological and institutional categories. The End of Imagination (2022–ongoing) presents chimerical sculptures produced by a bespoke Time Engine that merges video game technologies, artificial intelligence, and speculative world-building, later downloaded and painstakingly reconstituted as physical composites.
Read at designboom | architecture & design magazine
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