One of the satellite events of this year's Venice Architecture Biennale was a fascinating exhibition and conference organised by London's AA school. Twenty four artists, architects and scientists working in groups of three have contributed to an enquiry that fuses science, architecture and artistic collaboration to develop new ways of thinking about energy. In the exhibition they have explored eight different types of energy: sound, mechanical, potential, mass, electric, thermal, chemical and gravitational. The exhibition uses familiar objects and materials to promote discussion and debate related to energy and entropy in every day life. Beatrice Galilee



Chemical Energy
Architects Territorial Energy, artist Nina Canell and scientist Amanda Chatten explored the responsibility and issues of chemical energy through the melting of the Polar icecaps and concept of personal and national ownership of air, its purity and source.

Architects: Territorial Energy (John Palmesino & Ann-Sofi Rönnskog)
Artist: Nina Canell
Scientist: Amanda Chatten
Photo: © Valerie Bennett

Mass
A self-balancing machine devised to achieve a state of unnatural equilibrium exploring ideas and issues linked to mass energy. Film projectors, connected by a giant pendulum continually project an image of a building being simultaneously built and destroyed as the pendulum swings energy moves from form to disorder, from potential energy to mass.

Architect: Rubens Azevedo
Artist: Ariel Schlesinger
Scientist: Vid Stojevic
Photo: © Valerie Bennett

Potential
The work on show is a pinball machine in which there can be no winner. The player charges the balls as they try to play while the balls sit in other side of the machine, stored, and ready to release their energy, unplayable until that time. Pictured are Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Serpentine Art Gallery, London, (Grey Suit) and Stefano Rabolli Pansera, Director, Beyond Entropy, AA School.





Architect: Julian Loeffler
Artist: Peter Liversidge
Scientist: Roberto Trotta
Photo: © Valerie Bennett

Electric Energy
The consequence of the transportation of energy from source to plug will be explored through a unique installation. The coalfired power plants of Marghera, Fusina, Genoa, North Torrevaliga are supplied with coal from mines in South Africa, Indonesia, Colombia and Russia. Once the power is created it flows along cables to the homes of people across Italy. The project will capture the human face of this transportation and bring together over 100 people from the various stage of the energy's creation next year. They will all have technical responsibility for managing this complex system and help make the electric supply a pulsing body. The chairs are a promise of their arrival.

Architect: Vittorio Pizzigoni
Artist: Alberto Garutti
Scientist: Giuseppe Celardo
Photo: © Valerie Bennett

Mechanical Energy
In the late 19th Century scientists and artists began to look at space and time differently. One of these was French writer, Alfred Jarry. He created a pseudo-science called Pataphysics and theorized a time machine. The core of Jarry's machine involved a cube of giant mechanical flywheels crafted, from ebony and copper, quartz and ivory. The team are exploring Jarry's concepts. On show is one element of the prototype to be complete next year. The team has updated Jarry's machine but have the same aim as Jarry: to have all components working together at such a speed as to resist all forces and eventually resisting our motion, through not just space but also time.

Architect: Shin Egashira
Artist: Initial input from Attila Csorgo
Scientist: Andrew Jaffe
Photo: © Valerie Bennett

Gravitational Energy
The exhibit explores the holographic side of matter and the energy within it. When images are scanned and 3D printed, they show the history of energy in the image – how energy has shaped the picture and the items within. The presentation shows a series of prototypes of objects and sculpture that portray the forensic history of an image – i.e. taking a holographic photograph and printing it in 4D.

Architect: Eyal Weizman
Artist: Initial input from Carlos Gariacoa
Scientist: Peter Coles
Photo: © Valerie Bennett

Sound
The project explores the sound we all "make" through being creations that generate electromagnetic fields. The brass ring is a giant antenna, picking up electric signals and turn these into sound through speakers. As people approach the antenna, so our electric fields alter the sounds being created.

Architect: Salottobuono
Artist: Massimo Bartolini
Architect: Dario Benedetti and Riccardo Rossi
Photo: © Valerie Bennett

Thermal Energy
The 3D printer has revolutionized creation of materials, ideas and manufacturing. It can serve as a prototype to explore issues linked to energy, reproduction and copying. However, every copy has a flaw that makes it, in some small way, original. The work presents copies of a part from a 3D copying machine – exploring the theme of when the reproducer becomes reproduced.

Architect: Ines Weizman
Artist: Wilfredo Prieto
Scientist: David Clements
Photo: © Valerie Bennett