LAb[au] ( = laboratory for architecture and urbanism) is an artist-trio constituted of Manuel Abendroth, Jérôme Decock and Els Vermang. It was found in 1997 and based in Brussels, Belgium. The name of the trio merges a phonetic and a written meaning; that of the French / Dutch pronunciation ‘labo’ and that of the German word ‘bau’ referring to its projects’ experimental approach (labo) and construct (bau). LAb[au] mainly creates interactive artworks, audiovisual performances and scenographies, for which it develops its own software and interfaces.

The technological developments of the past fourty years have given rise to a major shift from the industrial to the post-industrial information society, where the unit of information, its processes and systems, increasingly define the notions of body, matter, space and time. 

According to this technological progress, LAb[au] examines the transformation of architecture, art and design within a practice entitled ‘MetaDeSIGN’. Metadesign (meta = information about information + design) displays the theme of space- and time constructs relative to information processes. It concerns the transposition of inFORMational processes in n-dimensional (visual, sonic, spatial,…) form. 

MetaDeSIGN is characterised by the setting of systems, among which LAb[au] is today mainly active within reactive and generative realm while displaying the themes of colour, light, form and motion. LAb[au]’s experimental and innovative art practice focuses on fundamental research on contemporality in art while questioning nowadays materials, tools and methods. 

LAb[au]’s art is part of public and private art collections worldwide and has been exhibited in some of ‘s worlds most prestigious art venues, among which the the Musee d’Art Contemporain (Montreal, 2014), MOMA (New York, 2014), the Venice Biennal (2013), Kunst-Station Sankt Peter (Koln, 2010), Fondation Vasarely (Aix-en-Provence, 2010), Singapore Art Museum (Singapore, 2010), BOZAR (Brussels, 2009 + 2010), TENT. / Witte de With (Rotterdam, 2006), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, 2004 + 2005), New Museum (New York, 2003), Louvre (Paris, 2000),… and happenings worldwide among which Todaysart (The Hague, 2008) Club|Transmediale (Berlin, 2007), Sonar (Barcelona, 2004),… and many more.