SPATIAL FABULATIONSAND OTHER TALES OF REPRESENTATION IN VIRTUAL REALITY Within a relatively
short time Augmented and Virtual Reality have emerged centre stage in architecture and the
arts. While promis- ing to upend the way image-based experiences are mediated and consumed the
technological media also teases the disciplines with novel creative opportunities for creating
critical and meaningful experiences. Yet the rise of these media in various industries the
architecture and the arts present a staggering number of acute questions.These questions
include those about the nature and ownership of our personal social cultural as well as
political lives. They must also be understood in relation to the histories of the disciplines
and how they may fundamentally challenge established ways of think- ing and making. The nature
of creative work must be re-examined and the idea of reality itself becomes re-shuffled.
Corporeal exis- tences are thrown on the scale with virtual ones as the boundaries for how we
understand perceptional dynamics are shifting.With Spatial Fabulations and Other Tales of
Representation in Virtual Reality the sixth publications in the series of the Städel- schule
Architecture Class select topics central to Augmented and Virtual Reality in architecture and
the arts are addressed.The publication includes texts by amongst other Michael Young Space
Popular and Curtis Roth as well as a conversation between Sanford Kwinter and Daniel Birnbaum.
A series of visual portfolios presents works in Virtual Reality that expound on the thematic
interest of this issue of SAC THEMES.The issue has been edited by Yara Feghali and Johan Bettum
and is published in connection with Breaking Glass III - Virtual Space the last in a series of
three annual conferences on architecture art and Virtual Reality hosted by the Städelschule
Architecture Class. It also features the award winning projects of Städelschule Architecture
Class' AIV Master Thesis Prize 2019.SAC THEMES presents practical and theoretical work at the
fore- front of contemporary interests in architectural design. The con- tent in each
publication is produced by invited contributors and the Städelschule Architecture Class.
