Fluid Assemblages of Imagined Cities and Animated Houses: Spotlight on Artist Stephen Nova

I could tell you how many steps make up the streets rising like stairways, and the degree of the arcades' curves, and what kind of zinc scales cover the roof; but I already know that this would be the same as telling you nothing. The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of space and the events of its past. Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

In his 1972 novel Le città invisibili (Invisible Cities), Italo Calvino tells the story of Venetian explorer Marco Polo describing 55 cities to Kublai Khan to show the state of the emperor's expanding and vast empire. This tale of tales depicts fabulous locations, providing alternative views of what the city might become. As Calvino once explained: "To see a city it is not enough to keep your eyes open. You must first discard everything that prevents you from seeing it – all your inherited ideas and preconceived images."

Moving from Calvino, inspired by intriguing architects and architectural principles but discarding any kind of preconceived idea, artist Stephen Nova created in his series "The Animated House" (currently on display at the Hill Smith Gallery, Adelaide, South Australia, until 14th November 2015), innovative views of several houses.

Through his imaginative accounts Calvino read contemporary architectural and urbanist theories, offering an alternative approach to the possibilities and the potentialities of the metropolis; in the same way, but using a visual medium, Nova provides an artist's view of what cities and future conurbations might become, looking at innovative ways in which houses could be structured and function.

Nova's houses diverge and differ in structural, programmatic and architectural terms, but they all share visually striking colours that capture the spectators' attention. Some houses painted by Nova hint at specific moods, urban memories and trends; at times they look like fluid Pop assemblages and montages à la Superstudio, integrating fantastic elements such as floating ladders and chairs, hedge mazes and surreal lighthouses, or incorporating stylish patterns that could easily become colourful prints in a fashion collection. Other imaginary projections of houses almost emerge in response to the failures of 20th century urban modernism and seem infused with a sense of disquieting fear and anxiety that leave the spectators wondering if these houses are inhabited or if they are conceived as empty dwellings for a dystopic future that does not contemplate the presence of human beings.

Could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
Stephen Nova: I studied Fine Art at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia. I then completed a Certificate in Museum Studies also at the same University. The Museum Studies have had an important influence on the way I interrogate and interpret culturally significant spaces and how I express this through my work. I currently reside in Melbourne, Australia. This year I was awarded a 12 month artist residency by the Bayside City Council, located at the historical Billilla Mansion in Brighton (Melbourne, Australia), where my current studio is situated.

What inspired "The Animated House" project?
Stephen Nova: The house and the suburban landscape is a resonant topic that permeates the psychology and imagination of Australian society and culture. All the houses depicted in the paintings are of real places, photographed and sketched in different locations around the city and suburbs of Melbourne. In my paintings and drawings I often place the houses in theatrical settings, treating them as a still life or a type of portrait creating a surreal or dream-like quality to the work. Informed by ‘The Architectural Imaginary’, my work plays with spaces that are normally familiar to us and challenges the way in which we perceive and relate to the urban environment to form new ideas and an intimate meaning of home. We are conditioned to identify unconsciously with our environment and we ‘animate’ our buildings (houses) unknowingly.

Some of the structures you depicted call back to mind projects that tackled the way we perceive and relate to the urban environment, such as Superstudio's work. Were there any architectural projects that prompted you to explore this relationship and reinvent it?
Stephen Nova: There were groups such as Superstudio as you mentioned, Archigram and recently the contemporary Cuban collective Los Carpinteros who are doing amazing work and many other architectural projects I could mention. As an artist that values the contribution and intimacy that drawing brings to contemporary art practice, I am drawn to the ‘Paper Architecture’ movement that emerged from a closed Soviet Union during the 1980s, in particular the graphic works by architects Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin in which they explored the themes of the human condition in relationship to the built environment. I have a strong interest in ‘Visionary Architecture’ which include artists and architects such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Etienne-Louis Boullée, Jean-Jacques Lequeu as well as Kay Sage and Lebbeus Woods. Perhaps most influential to my work in the way we perceive and relate to the urban environment is Italo Calvino’s novel Invisible Cities. The philosophical and poetic meditations of imaginative cities offers an alternative approach to the way we think about cities and the urban space. The series of meditations act as a vehicle to explore ideas dealing with time and space, movement and change, the power of memory and how the past qualifies the future.

In which ways do your paintings also explore issues of cultural nomadism?
Stephen Nova: We live in a global age of increasing uncertainty and economic instability, whole communities are being dislocated, homes and families lost. This instability has brought into focus the transient nature of our urban experience and the sometimes fragile foundations upon which our homes rest. Often in my work you will find houses perched precariously on stilts or undulating floorboards where the ground is always shifting, threatening to give way. In some of my works I create miniature worlds that suggest anti-monumental spaces that are contradictory yet intimate and float between fiction and reality and the realms of physics and metaphysics. The idea is to invoke a sense of connection as well as estrangement.

If one of the houses you painted could be created, which one would you choose to live in?
Stephen Nova: I think I would be a little nervous living in one of my own creations! If I was forced to choose I would pick the house in the painting "Pluto (The Prodigal)", more for sentimental reasons than any other. I don’t like being too specific when it comes to making interpretations of my own work, but I feel the house for me speaks of a place that unconditionally welcomes you home, no matter how long your absence.

You're an artist, but you express your favourite themes via architecture, what fascinates you about this discipline?
Stephen Nova: When I was young I did a lot of technical drawing at high school and loved it. It was the one subject that allowed me to have a greater understanding and appreciation of mathematics by applying the principles of math through geometry and drawing. I had every intention to study architecture, but instead followed the path into fine arts. Importantly, my interest lies in the birth and development of the pictorial space and the use of perspective, geometry, measurement and aesthetics which can be found in the work of Leone Battista Alberti’s ‘humanist architecture’ with the notion that the ‘building is like a body composed of its parts’. Key to my interest in architecture is the function of drawing as a cross-disciplinary tool, as an expressive and descriptive medium which has allowed artists to utilize the language of architectural models for new constructive approaches to the parameters of pictorial representation and the way real and imagined space intersect.

Do you have a favourite architect?
Stephen Nova: One of my favourite architects would have to be Glenn Murcutt who is based in Australia. His work is very organic and designed to have a symbiotic relationship to the Australian landscape. His practice is about sustainability and works closely with the natural environment. Despite being a quiet achiever his methods and philosophy of 'touch the earth lightly' are felt worldwide.

The theme for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice will be "Reporting from the Front" and the 2016 Biennale will be an inclusive event that will listen to stories, thoughts and experiences coming from different backgrounds. How would you respond to this brief that hopes to expand frontiers and improve the quality of the built environment and consequently people’s quality of life?
Stephen Nova: I can only respond to the brief as an artist and not an architect. Creating the necessary platforms and space for education in any society and culture is paramount. My response to the brief would be to approach art as a socially engaged practice that has the ability to interpret, interact and transform communities. Last year I undertook an artist residency in Empoli, Italy. My practice led research focused on the education of the architectonic and artistic heritage of the city and the issues of ‘Art, Society and Transformation’. Working closely with the MuVe – Museo Del Vetro in Empoli I documented an industrial site, now abandoned that was important to the tradition and history of glass blowing famous to that region. The resulting body of work and documentation was then presented back to the people of Empoli including the former employees that use to work on the site. The concept behind the research was to show how the urban environment or visual perception of a place is imbued with memory and past histories and how this mnemonic layering contributes to the architectural imaginary of a city, offering subjective interpretations of space and urban identity.

Will "The Animated House" event be showcased outside Australia? Are there any plans for example for European exhibitions of your work?
Stephen Nova: At this stage I am committed to a 12 month artist in residence program in Melbourne, Australia; the work I am currently focusing on will be shown at the Bayside Arts and Culture Centre in Brighton, Melbourne in 2016. Upon completion of the residency program it is my intention to explore opportunities to showcase "The Animated House" within a broader European context.