In what is also known as 'the Inflatable Era', inflatable architecture was manufactured as a prerequisite for a new, nomadic way of life. Space travel served as the inspiration for these capsules. However, are these high-tech hide-outs post-human or not?
This text by Bart Lootsma was originally published in the accompanying catalog of the exhibition. You can find the full catalog here. Haus-Rucker-Co works on the Mind Expanding Program from 1967 to 1971. The program aims to expand human consciousness and man-made environments on different levels.
This starts with the Flyhead, Viewatomizer and Drizzler helmets. Then they make the prototypes Mind Expander I, Mind Expander II, Ballon für Zwei and Yellow Heart. Ultimately, this resulted in the urban concept of Pneumakosmos. The Electric Skin clothing range is also part of the project.
The Mind Expanders are considered by Haus-Rucker-Co as a mind-expanding program. The idea is that the expanded minds will ultimately form the basis of a new urban order. Haus-Rucker-Co proposes a city and a society that are entirely formed by individual bodies and expanded minds in the (inflatable) structures designed by them.
Related Deep Dive articles
“A little world in which the big one holds its tryouts”, is how guest curator and professor Bart Lootsma describes the development of Austrian avant-garde movements in the 20th century. In this lecture series, Lootsma places the so-called ‘Radical Austria’ of the 1960s in the context of...
The need for radical change manifested itself in post-war Austria in a series of megalomanic urban designs. These projects share an obsession with technology and infrastructure and a drive to create completely new ways of living together.
Visiting the exhibition, you will receive the accompanying catalog. It documents both the technical information of all exhibited works, as well as substantive texts to contextualize important makers and themes. You can find the...