ENAC Seminar Series by L.-C. Szacka
Event details
| Date | 27.04.2021 |
| Hour | 14:00 › 14:45 |
| Speaker | Léa-Catherine Szacka |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
14:00 – 14:45 – Dr L.-C. Szacka
Senior Lecturer at University of Manchester, UK
On Screen: The Architecture of Media Environments
Since March 2020, with the outbreak of Covid-19, most of our life has moved inside the home: from the space of the square to the surface of the screen, via Zoom and other virtual platforms. Everything that was previously lived in the flesh has now transformed into a continuous flow of connectivity, ushering in, to paraphrase Habermas, another structural transformation of the public sphere. How can we theorize and historicize this changing relationship between inside and outside, private and public, local and global?
Looking at today’s reality, we can argue that we are experiencing a shift initiated in the immediate post-war period when television and later computer screens became ubiquitous. Already in 1973, British architecture critic Martin Pawley, in his book The Private Future, observing the changes that were occurring around him, foresaw a society with ever greater technical means of communication becoming paradoxically more insular and dysfunctional. More than forty years later, screens regulate our public and private life and modify our ways of interacting with space and between us.
Etymologically, a screen refers to a filter, a divider, and a shelter. Later, the word became widely associated with flat vertical surfaces for the reception of projected images. Finally, with the advent of new media, screens' function expanded beyond the optical, as surfaces that display images and data. In this lecture, through a series of examples bridging the history and theory of architecture, design, and engineering, I question how our passive and active interactions with screens have led to a series of shifts at different scales: from urban to architectural and from public to domestic spaces. What are the consequences of these shifts on the way we use and design spaces? How can screens - as an environment, a technology, and a window on the world - serve as a lens to conceptualize and understand the past and future challenges of architecture?
Short bio:
Léa–Catherine Szacka (Montreal, 1979) is an architectural historian, educator and researcher. Szacka is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Architectural Studies at the University of Manchester and visiting tutor at the Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design. She has taught at Harvard GSD, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, and the ENSA-Versailles, and has been a visiting fellow at the Centre for Architecture Theory Criticism History in Brisbane, and at Monash University Art Design & Architecture in Melbourne. Szacka is the author of the award-winning book Exhibiting the Postmodern: The 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale (Marsilio, 2016) and of Biennials/Triennials: Conversations on the Geography of Itinerant Display (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2019). She is co-author of Le Concert: Pink Floyd à Venise (B2, 2017) and co-editor of Mediated Messages: Periodicals, Exhibitions and the Shaping of Postmodern Architecture (Bloomsbury, 2018). Her writing appeared in Log, OASE, AA Files, AD, ARCH+, ATR, Volume, Art Papers, The Journal of Architectural Education, and The Journal of Architecture. She is currently councillor for the European Architectural History Network and sits on the editorial board of Footprint: Delft Architecture Theory Journal and Architectural History. In 2020, together with Véronique Patteeuw, she co-founded Pasza, a platform for Architectural Research and Pedagogy.
Senior Lecturer at University of Manchester, UK
On Screen: The Architecture of Media Environments
Since March 2020, with the outbreak of Covid-19, most of our life has moved inside the home: from the space of the square to the surface of the screen, via Zoom and other virtual platforms. Everything that was previously lived in the flesh has now transformed into a continuous flow of connectivity, ushering in, to paraphrase Habermas, another structural transformation of the public sphere. How can we theorize and historicize this changing relationship between inside and outside, private and public, local and global?
Looking at today’s reality, we can argue that we are experiencing a shift initiated in the immediate post-war period when television and later computer screens became ubiquitous. Already in 1973, British architecture critic Martin Pawley, in his book The Private Future, observing the changes that were occurring around him, foresaw a society with ever greater technical means of communication becoming paradoxically more insular and dysfunctional. More than forty years later, screens regulate our public and private life and modify our ways of interacting with space and between us.
Etymologically, a screen refers to a filter, a divider, and a shelter. Later, the word became widely associated with flat vertical surfaces for the reception of projected images. Finally, with the advent of new media, screens' function expanded beyond the optical, as surfaces that display images and data. In this lecture, through a series of examples bridging the history and theory of architecture, design, and engineering, I question how our passive and active interactions with screens have led to a series of shifts at different scales: from urban to architectural and from public to domestic spaces. What are the consequences of these shifts on the way we use and design spaces? How can screens - as an environment, a technology, and a window on the world - serve as a lens to conceptualize and understand the past and future challenges of architecture?
Short bio:
Léa–Catherine Szacka (Montreal, 1979) is an architectural historian, educator and researcher. Szacka is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Architectural Studies at the University of Manchester and visiting tutor at the Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design. She has taught at Harvard GSD, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, and the ENSA-Versailles, and has been a visiting fellow at the Centre for Architecture Theory Criticism History in Brisbane, and at Monash University Art Design & Architecture in Melbourne. Szacka is the author of the award-winning book Exhibiting the Postmodern: The 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale (Marsilio, 2016) and of Biennials/Triennials: Conversations on the Geography of Itinerant Display (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2019). She is co-author of Le Concert: Pink Floyd à Venise (B2, 2017) and co-editor of Mediated Messages: Periodicals, Exhibitions and the Shaping of Postmodern Architecture (Bloomsbury, 2018). Her writing appeared in Log, OASE, AA Files, AD, ARCH+, ATR, Volume, Art Papers, The Journal of Architectural Education, and The Journal of Architecture. She is currently councillor for the European Architectural History Network and sits on the editorial board of Footprint: Delft Architecture Theory Journal and Architectural History. In 2020, together with Véronique Patteeuw, she co-founded Pasza, a platform for Architectural Research and Pedagogy.
Practical information
- General public
- Invitation required
- This event is internal
Organizer
- ENAC
Contact
- Cristina Perez