SCI-Arc is pleased to present Bryan Cantley/Form:uLA’s upcoming exhibition in the SCI-Arc Gallery, Dirty Geometries + Mechanical Imperfections. The show is an opus in three distinct parts: the articulation of fallacy and artificial chronology of the architectural drawing; the suggested operational misalignments of his visionary projects; and the symbolic deconstruction of the gallery. 

Form:uLA has always defied established contexts and criteria. The SCI-Arc installation is no exception. Challenging the normative current building practices that substantiates the gallery’s lexicon, Cantley will display a more ‘conventional’ oeuvre of drawings, models and images. Not a singular materialization, he will present a body of predominantly new work that suggests alternative spatial discourse. The space itself will be conceptually dissected into a series of graphical surfaces, with the manifestation of the ‘anti-object’ serving as both display [backdrop, organizational maneuver] and spatial delineator [object, anchor].

Cantley’s work is regularly divided into two distinct, yet transecting conditions: the experimental architectural drawing [image], and the mechanical architecture paradigm [building-object]. The exhibition looks to present both of these archetypes as conjunctive informants.

The Dirty Geometries portion will house a series of over 30 hand and hybrid drawings that attempt to enhance the audience as both voyeur and inhabitant, while simultaneously removing the framework of ‘the recognizable’ as a tool of navigation. The dirtiness of the geometries refers both to the unresolved nature of the content, as well as a condition of physical residue left over from an imperfect and sometimes organic, digitally-infused process of drawing. These graphic experimentations serve as a proactive mode of research, becoming not so much drawings of objects, as much as they predict drawings of drawings. The Mechanical Imperfections section will present 10 conceptual projects that engage a dialogue of imperfect machines struggling to construct perfect moments of architecture. These visionary projects abandon perceived mechanical precision in lieu of spatial poetics, political overlay and architectural inquiry.

About Bryan Cantley

Form:uLA is an experimental design practice led by Bryan Cantley, whose work attempts to blur the undefined zone between architecture and its representation. Cantley has lectured at a number of architecture schools internationally and locally, as well as the LA Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. He served as visiting faculty at SCI-Arc and Woodbury and conducted a graduate architectural drawing seminar at The Bartlett School of Architecture in London, where he also installed a solo exhibition in 2008. His models and drawings are part of the permanent collection of the SFMOMA and he was a recipient of a Graham Foundation Grant in 2002. Cantley has shown work in a number of institutions, including SFMOMA and UCLA, and was featured in Architectural Design’s special issues, “Drawing Strength From Machinery” in 2008 and “Drawing Architecture” in 2013. His first monograph, Mechudzu was published in 2011.