Elementary School Sport Hall

Building extension of the sport hall next to the Italian elementary school.
Buje, Croatia, December, 2015.
In collaboration with Arch. Eligio Legovic.


Material coming soon

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Moj Konto d.o.o.

Moj Konto d.o.o. provides a full range of accounting services for small businesses ranging from bookkeeping, payroll services and filing taxes.
The new logo is designed to be easier to use across all offline and online marketing collateral. As a dominant element of the acronym a Greek letter sigma is used as a symbol of the summation operator as well as rotated letter M. Since the company deals with numbers we introduced a new monospace typeface called PT Mono in order to bring more visual style.
The bright colors bring the brand to life and have a modern outlook while retaining some traditional elements as well.
Petar Kufner
Petar Kufner

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Visual identity and web design for Vera Kufner prof. of psychology and pedagogy

Vera Kufner is a coaching psychologist and certified child and family psychotherapist based in Porec, CRO.
Based on the research of the work of psychologist Vera Kufner, we created a clear, consistent, and cohesive as possible communication and brand identity. This brand identity takes inspiration from the Greek letter Psi, universally recognized as a symbol for the discipline of psychology, combined with the concept of the Vitruvian man, joining nature and science together and prof. Kufner’s initials VK. The identity is based around a logo featuring the acronym in stencil/sheriff lettering.
Petar Kufner

Petar Kufner
logo construction lines

Petar Kufner
logo shapes and variations

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Semi-detached House

Ideal architectural project of a semi-detached house.
Porec, Croatia,July, 2014.
Petar Kufner
ground floor plan

Petar Kufner
roof plan
Petar Kufner Petar Kufner
sections

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The Spectacle and Chaos

A series of random acts and suggestions sourrounding the scene between the observer and the audience.

Petar Kufner
Venezia, Carnevale 2009

Petar Kufner
Bruxelles, Riots in Matongué 2011

Petar Kufner
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Petar Kufner
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Think Different

30 years after Apple's Think Different commercial, with which Apple introduced their first personal computer.

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The Void Between Visual and Aural Perception

The starting point of this research is the fact that the representation of reality through an image is flattened and presented on a two-dimensional surface, while sound tends to move through space and therefore no dimensional loss occurs. The aim is to add an additional layer of depth to reality through sound, generated on the basis of visual elements (i.e. light and color). By doing so, the research investigates whether or not it is possible to enhance the experience of depth by translating light into sound? This study analyses the internal structure of light and sound as a wave, to find a valid model of translation. Furthermore, in order to see how our brain responds to stimuli, the phenomena of multisensory experience known as synaesthesia are examined. With the help of examples throughout history such as color organs, abstract cinema and (live) immersive installations, the connection from sound to color will be shown. We will see how neuroscience and technology have helped visually impaired persons to overcome their physical handicaps. The dossier concludes that hearing has a wider range than sight does, which is the reason why an experience of space on the basis of sound will be more intense. This conclusion introduces an experimental project dealing with transmission from one medium (visual) to another (aural), showing a kind of synthetic art. By rendering the audible from the visible (i.e. translating light input into audio output) via Pure Data software, the project's main concepts such as void, perspective and time, are exposed.

The Void Between Visual and Aural Perception
photo credit Petar Kufner


extract from The Void Between Visual and Aural Perception
(Time, perspective, void)

Light and sound are elements used, but while discussing them this project refers to image (photography) as a recorded representation of light in the case of light,[1] and depth in the case of sound. When dealing with vision, not only the image (representation of the visual) but also the human view is "framed". By "framing" it returns to Heidegger's statement mentioned in the introduction of reducing everything to an image. This framing (of reality) refers to the visual as the image to its representation. We can state that view equals representation. Additionally, by framing reality we place ourselves in a dominant position. Painters and later photographers did the same thing while trying to communicate and reflect on reality. Therefore, another element that this project deals with is the observer's point of view - “ego centered principles of single point perspective,”[2] (process similar to qualia). The idea that sound is more neutral than perspective, by being omnipresent and by giving a complete vision, is no longer satisfactory. Artists in general, but also those dealing with sound (selecting and finding the right spot, deciding on when to start, end and make a cut) could be correlated to a single point of view. Thus, working with sound includes subjectivity. Sound characteristics that reach us personally, regardless to which stimuli we are reacting, remain equally personal as a person who tries to communicate communicates subjectively (personal subjective experience, qualia). Still, we can use the characteristics of sound moving through space to add depth and to position ourselves within space. By tracing the space with the ear, as observed by Pallasmaa, we can measure it and make its scale comprehensible. "Hearing structures articulates the experience and understanding of space. We are not normally aware of the significance of hearing in spatial experience, although sound often provides the temporal continuum in which visual impressions are embedded. When the sound track is removed from a film, for instance, the scene loses its plasticity and sense of continuity and life. Silent film had to compensate for the lack of sound by a demonstrative manner of over-acting."[3] Furthermore, space, in case of an image, is flattened - presented on a two-dimensional surface, while sound tends to move through space and therefore no dimensional loss occurs. This has been observed by Michel Chion in the medium of film, “[...] if sounds are easily projected by the spectator onto the film image, it is because the image is circumscribed by a frame that can be located in space, whereas sound lacks a frame.”[4] The unity between these two domains, present in both objects and nature, could be compared to the medium of cinema, as Robert Breton observes in a poetical way: “Images and sounds, like strangers who make acquaintance on a journey and afterwards cannot separate.”[5] Cinema works with light and sound simultaneously, cinema is time. It is defined as fps (frames per second) displaying frames in quick succession, which create the illusion of motion. Each frame is a still image. If we want to record light using the medium of photography, it is possible by working in couple[6] light time. The same thing happens with sound; in order to be perceived or registered it needs a time space (medium for propagation) connection. Light, visually represented using colors and perspective, and sound, manifested through object and space, have time in common as an important parameter in the connection light to sound. Time also means movement. Movement is expressed in the change and the duration in space. "Art has become a question of movement, of what we get to rather than the abolition of this "getting to" (...). Art is only the trace of its own action".[7] According to Juahani Pallasmaa "I regard an object, but sound approaches me; the eye reaches, but the ear receives."[8] Therefore, if we treat vision - reaching, as directional and sound - receiving, as omni-directional, is it possible to perceive something merely visual as something aural by inversing reaching with receiving? The project's focus lies on the space that stands outside the frame (i.e. physical frame recalling our vision). The space that stands outside the “frame”, thus between the viewer and the observed object, is defined as void. In this case void is considered an empty space (i.e. the space between infinity and the subject) where the possible translation occurs, or rather the space where this translation takes place before it reaches us. According to Marcel Duchamp "Art is not what we see; it is in the spaces between."[9] Or as observes Anish Kapoor: "The void is not silent. I have always thought of it more and more as a transitional space, an in-between space. It's very much to do with time. I have always been interested as an artist in how one can somehow look again for that very first moment of creativity where everything is possible and nothing has actually happened. It's a space of becoming… 'something' that dwells in the presence of the work… that allows it or forces it not to be what it states it is in the first instance."[10] The void will be exposed through its presence and aura,[11] by experiencing the “authentic” with our senses. "Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see"[12] observes René Magritte; this will occur through time to reveal an auditory presence of the visual. Sound itself is contained within the object perceived. At the same time a light is being cast, the shadow gives depth and materiality to the object. Nonetheless, it is also a presence of something missing, not visually recognized: “it rather points toward a gap in the field of visible, toward a dimension of what eludes our gaze.”[13]

[1] "Photography has never actually been anything more than the first of these 'arts of light' that have little by little contaminated the perceptible through a 'photosensitivity' [...]." In Paul Virilio, Art as Far as the Eye Can See, (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2007), 117.
[2] Christian Metz, cit., in Paula Carabell, "Photography, Phonography, and the Lost Object," Perspectives of New Music, 40, no. 1 (2002): 179, http://www.jstor.org/stable/833552 (accessed March 19, 2012).
[3] Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, Architecture and the Senses, (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2005), 49.
[4] Michel Chion. In Patricia Kruth and Henry Stobar, Sound, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 204.
[5] Michel Chion, Audio-Vision, Sound on Screen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), xvii.
[6] tr. it.,"coppia tempo diaframma" The term used to express the connection t-f (time-blend aperture). Even though it means exposure, for this purpose the Italian term suits better on discussed topic.
[7] Alain Badiou, "THE SYMPTOM 9," Some Remarks on Marcel Duchamp, June 10, 2008. http://www.lacan.com/symptom/?p=39 (accessed April 06, 2013).
[8] Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, Architecture and the Senses, (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2005), 49.
[9] Marcel Duchamp quoted in Hugo Heyrman, "Art and Synesthesia: in search of the synesthetic experience," First International Conference on Art and Synesthesia, July25-28, 2005. http://www.doctorhugo.org/synaesthesia/art/ (accessed April 06, 2013).
[10] Anish Kapoor, quoted in Homi K. Bhabha and Pier Luigi Tazzi, "Anish Kapoor: Making Emptiness," Anish Kapoor (London: Hayward Gallery, 1998), 17.
[11] Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, (Prisme Key Pres, 2010), 14.
[12] Harry Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1977), 172.
[13] Slavoj Zizek, "I Hear you with My Eyes, or, The Invisible Master," Gaze and Voiceas Love Objects, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), 93.

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Excercise in Transformation

Galerie de la Reine 28 Koninginnegalerij 1000 Brussels
14/06 - 23/06 2013
Transmedia graduation exhibition


We are a multi-disciplinary international group of artists who have met at Transmedia, LUCA School of Arts in Brussels. From backgrounds as diverse as biology, design, engineering, fine arts, architecture and finance, and from several countries across Europe, the Middle East and the Americas, we share a common curiosity for broad spectrums of activity and an ability to work across borders, disciplines and mediums. Be it breeding fruit flies and rats, drawing or sewing, making films or dancing, the group focuses on developing innovative forms of creative expression and communication.
The title of the exhibtion 'Excercise in Transformation' is an homage to some of our teachers/mentors. We stole it from Julien Maire's workshop, but with a spelling mistake, an extra c. C for copyleft? C for creativity? C for communication, cooperation and collaboration? [...]

visual identity
Petar Kufner
Vida Mehri

text
Amanda Andersen
Spela Petric

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Trg Sv. Petra u Sumi

The project for the main square.
Sv. Petar u Šumi, Croatia, June, 2012.
In collaboration with Arch. Eligio Legovic.



plan


view 1


view 2


line draw


view


detail

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The Bridge between Visual and Aural

Festival van Vlaanderen Kortrijk 21/04 - 05/05 2013
Ville Sonore 2013 / art sonor international map

“[...] the bridge gathers to itself in its own way earth and sky, divinities and mortals.”[1]

Concept
The project situates itself at the crossroads between architecture - involving visual and haptic qualities - and sound. It gathers the Heideggerian concept of the fourfold (Earth, Sky, Mortals, Divinities), which I would like to call gaze (visual), embracing Earth and Mortals as something that mortifies, and voice (aural) uniting Sky and Divinities into something that vivifies.[2] While standing on a bridge, a new landmark of the city of Kortrijk, the idea is to mix sonic narratives with a visual journey; to build bridge between aural and visual. This is realized through vibrations within the structure of the bridge and its surrounding environment. The produced sound invites the spectator to stop and focus his/her attention to the view. The narratives are not directly connected to the seen image; they rather serve as a meditative element. The sound walk will guide the audience across the river Leie, while discovering the city view from new infrastructural elements (i.e. bridge) through real-time sounds from the surroundings. The river that flows below, the terrain surrounding the bridge and other suitable elements that provide sound through vibrations, such as hollow metal structures and wires connecting different parts of the bridge, will be used as a source. Using hydrophones and contact microphones, movements and vibrations producing sound will show the viewer a vibrant life that goes beyond the visual.[3]

Realisation
The bridge will be mapped with hydrophones/contact microphones (27mm piezo element) connected to an amplifier in order to translate the vibration-based input to an audible output. The microphone placement will be decided on the spot. A small box, produced in a recognizable shape, positioned on the bridge, will provide a spot where the spectator can connect his/her headphones and hear the hidden sound.

[1] Martin Heidegger, "Building Dwelling Thinking", Basic Writings, (New York: Routledge, 1993), 355.
[2] Slavoj Zizek, "I Hear you with My Eyes, or, The Invisible Master," Gaze and Voiceas Love Objects, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), 93.
[3] Ibid.,

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Brussels Story

A different view of Brussels' city life











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Point of View

L'ambiente come luogo della trasformazione petar kufner

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Communication Within Architectural Projects – Questions of Utopia

This study analyses the communication processes of architectural projects – that is, image as a key element and direct expression of thought as form. Buildings are the synthesis and product of thought represented through symbolic forms, which in most cases recall images, thus they materialize what lives in the imagination. This research questions the aesthetic concepts that often treat the communication aspect of the project as merely a kind of beautification, decoration or packaging of the final constructed product.
The first part will study the rules of representation and its crisis. Here, the planning process will be analyzed, where the artifact - intended as image and produced form - is conditioned by technology. The research will focus on the significant role of tecnoscienza and how this influences invention and creation, often neglecting aspects of the mental process of the planning stage.
The second part of the paper deals with the discourse of reality, which nowadays could be considered digital, simplifying virtual reality, or as Deleuze states – an extension of everything that is real. Even though it is hard to imagine a virtual architecture in terms of construction, architects use virtual technology as a tool for the creation of projects, and hence virtuality becomes a sort of extension through which architects view atrophic reality.
The final part of the research attempts to illustrate an experimental scene, where the image of architecture and architecture of image are confronted through a process of analysis and elaboration using different tools of representation - digital, traditional and hybrid – in order to demonstrate that whoever deals with the communication aspect of an architectural project is the“director” of a complex process. The project will show examples of architecture, in particular Yona Friedman’s project for the Ville spatiale, which only exist in the virtual realm of imagination.


project description

The idea of realizing a utopia, in other terms, of trying to locate utopia and give it life, from Friedman’s book Utopies réalisables, 1974, according to which utopia is a place where it is possible to fully offer the distance between the project of one desired reality and its production, between desire and satisfaction. Yona Friedman, courtesy the artist

The elaboration of Ville spatiale applied onto the city of Venice, which Friedman have been working on for over fifty years, and which proposed as the theme of a workshop held in Venice in 2009, form the basis of this research project developed from Friedman’s sketches, images and models.





The research aim is to rebuild and animate the virtual model using 3D software. At this moment, the initial sketch will be compared with the virtual model in an attempt to represent the passage from idea to realization, via animation.



In 1958 Friedman stated that the Spatial City (Ville spatiale) is not a frozen form, but rather, in his drawings and models, is an instant image, which extends from a long and indeterminate process. Impressed by his discovery of the enormous potentiality of presenting the idea of Spatial City through video, the final part of the project will be presented in the form of a video. A montage of the virtual model and the video representing reality will create what Deleuze calls crystal-image, that is, the indivisible unity of the virtual image and the actual image.

The video explaining the project is divided in two parts. The first section shows the evolution of an idea toward an in situ project (footage along Ponte della Libertà), where the video is slowed down, thus images are captured in slow motion.

framing study

If imagination is something unperceived by the human eye, something that exists solely in our minds, a reproduction in slow motion shows us things that are hidden. The same thing occurs while looking at the visual spectrum in which our eyes are limited between infrared and ultraviolet. According to Ammar Eloueini, who considers this space as a sort of virtual space - a kind of prosthesis - which once applied may permit us to see what was previously unperceived. By seeing images again in slow motion, where one second can be extended over ten or fifteen minutes, the missing frames (skipped by the human eye) may also be considered as virtual spaces. In the second part of video, two different types of framing - one panoramic and another static – show the object inserted into the real situation, accompanied with the actual background sound and surroundings. Thus, hypothetically, utopia may take form and come to life.

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