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SUMMARY:Inaugural Lecture - Prof. Alfredo Thiermann / ENAC
DTSTART:20230613T171500
DTEND:20230613T184000
DTSTAMP:20260508T120526Z
UID:0d9585459ea9fd34e9f6d145993dc8dba0ccb12cddb0535d7bf778c9
CATEGORIES:Inaugural lectures - Honorary Lecture
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Alfredo Thiermann\nDate: 13 June 2023\nTime: 17:15 – 
 18:40\nIntroductions by the Dean\, lectures by Prof. Pier Vittorio Aureli 
 and Prof. Alfredo Thiermann. Followed by an Apero.\nPlace: CO 2\nZoom lin
 k\n\n\nTitle:\nInhabiting Technical Media\n\nAbstract\nJorge Luis Borges
 ’s story “On Rigor in Science” imagines a science of cartography so 
 exact that only a map equal in size to the mapped territory itself is suff
 icient to describe it. Today\, even such a fictional degree of resolution 
 has fallen short. Large amounts of continuously harvested and disseminated
  digital data have penetrated almost every aspect of our daily lives\, and
  we can hardly imagine ourselves outside of this new media ecology. This l
 ecture will examine the spatial and architectural implications of this bro
 ader and entangled political\, technological\, and cultural transformation
 . As Borges’s story pointedly reminds us\, we do not simply use technica
 l media\, we inhabit them\, and therefore they should be a central preoccu
 pation for architecture. \n\nLooking for the presence of the past in the 
 present\, in this lecture\, I will visit seven episodes—from the Acheule
 an industry\, passing through broadcasting houses\, and culminating in ser
 ver farms—that illustrate how architecture has closely interacted with b
 oth analogue and digital technical media. Tracing the agency and relevance
  of buildings within seemingly immaterial phenomena\, I will discuss how\,
  in a longue durée\, forms of recording\, storing\, and transmitting info
 rmation have modified the natural and built environment. Anything but imma
 terial and far from being new\, such processes are inevitably grounded in 
 matter\, producing specific kinds of buildings\, constructing and modifyin
 g cities\, and even transforming the planet at a geographical scale. With 
 observational distance\, this lecture will reconstruct this entangled cond
 ition discussing the technical\, political\, environmental—and therefore
  architectural—challenges and opportunities inherent to the so-called di
 gital turn.\n\n\n\nAbout the speaker\nAlfredo Thiermann is an architect an
 d Assistant Professor for History and Theory of Architecture at the École
  polytechnique fédérale in Lausanne. Through his practice and theoretica
 l research\, he explores the intersection between architecture and differe
 nt media\, from sound installations and film scenography to single-family 
 houses\, public buildings\, and large-scale infrastructures. He has taught
  and lectured at Harvard University\, Pontificia Universidad Católica de 
 Chile\, and other institutions. Alfredo’s work has been published in A+U
 \, Revista ARQ\, TRACE magazine\, Zeppelin\, Potlatch\, Real Review\, Thre
 sholds\, Archithese\, gta Papers\, and BauNetz. It has been exhibited at t
 he Museum of Modern Art in New York\, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Sa
 ntiago\, the Istanbul Design Biennial\, gta exhibitions in Zurich\, and th
 e Venice Art Biennale\, among other institutions. He received the Rome Pri
 ze awarded by the German Academy in Rome.\n\nAlfredo studied architecture\
 , receiving his professional degree from the Pontificia Universidad Catól
 ica in Chile and a Masters's degree from Princeton University. He received
  his doctoral degree from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) 
 in Zurich. He has been a fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Histor
 y of Science\, the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal\, and the 
 Collegium Helveticum in Zurich. He is the author of the forthcoming book t
 itled Radio-Activities: Architecture and Broadcasting in Cold War Berlin. 
 He lives\, works\, and takes care of Pedro Tristán and Juan Nataniel betw
 een Lausanne and Berlin.\n\n 
LOCATION:CO 2 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==CO%202 https://epfl.zoom.us/j/68
 612096296
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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