Soul City Mart

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: Curators of the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley invited designers, architects and artists from around the world to submit 2-minute videos to the Biennale's video competition addressing the theme "Are we human?". 'Soul City Mart' is the submission by OUTR (Office of Urban Transformation Research) - the research studio of Rosalea Monacella, Craig Douglas and Greg Afflick. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: Soul City Mart explores the ambition of design to redesign the human; it questions the design of the landscape through vast territories and ecologies which in turn affects the human condition. Processes of production and consumption are dependent on the matrix of infrastructure that supports them. The infrastructure in turn dictates the forms and the ways in which humans use the urban environment. Fluctuations in supply chains are instantly responsive to shifts in immaterial global market demand. However, built environments are slower to respond, embodying a material 'lagging' effect, revealing 'Junkspaces' of neglect and inefficiency. At the intersection of production and consumption, Soul City Mart provides evidence of a dialectical landscape of who we are and where we are going. This work demonstrates OUTR's larger research trajectory to apply design practice as an agent of cultural change within an increasingly complex world. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: The significance of this work is evidenced by its inclusion in the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennale, where it was presented in an exhibition and also featured online. The competition included a prestigious jury: curators, Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley; Director of Istanbul Film Festival, Kerem Ayan; Director of the Storefront for Art and Architecture, Eva Franch i Gilbert; artist and film producer, Amie Siegel; and curator, Iván López Munuera. The Biennale attracted 120,000 visitors and generated extensive international media reviews.