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bio

LAb[au] is the laboratory for architecture and urbanism of Manuel Abendroth, Jérôme Decock, Els Vermang.

LAb[au] is a group of artists located in Brussels, Belgium. It was founded in 1997 with the aim to examine the influence of advanced technologies in the forms, methods and concerns of art. With a background in architecture their members and projects are concerned with the concept of 'space' and the way it can be planned, experienced and conceptualised in an information age.

Even if their projects can be classified as urbanism, design, art, music or dance they all are based on architectural thinking. The emphasis lies in the relation between architecture, light and advanced technologies.

As in cybernetics, the projects of LAb[au] deal with processes and systems based on the determination of rules. The setting of these rules becomes the major artistic act, the creation process, defining the content and message of the artwork, it's architecture as code.

This method is determined by the technological and artistic parameters. LAb[au] qualifies this as 'MetaDesign'. It focuses on the transcription of information and its processes to textual, graphic, visual, sonic, spatial...forms, artefacts.

LAb[au]' has a phonetic and a written meaning: the French pronunciation 'labo' refers to its experimental approach and the German word for construction 'bau' refers to its projects..

This alliance between theory and practice motivated the group to found the gallery 'MediaRuimte' in the city centre of Brussels in 2003. The gallery work stands for LAb[au]'s typically functioning of a collaborative agency as for a trans-disciplinary work.

LAb[au] showed its work at BOZAR (Brussels, 2009), Emoçao Art.ficial (Sao Paolo, 2008), Club|Transmediale (Berlin, 2007), TENT. / Witte de With (Rotterdam, 2006), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, 2004 + 2005), Sonar (Barcelona, 2004), New Museum (New York, 2003), Nabi Art Center (Seoul, 2003), ICA (London, 2002), Bauhaus (Dessau, 2001 + 2003), Louvre (Paris, 2000), Ars Elektronica (Linz, 1999), .... among many others.