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SUMMARY:Collective Figurations of Baukultur
DTSTART:20261021T090000
DTEND:20261022T170000
DTSTAMP:20261006T045446Z
UID:06f9298d20a0010d93f05569f5ae8eea46f09e19110eb9b472e6d8d1
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Anna Kornbluh\, Marc Schoonderbeek\, Marina Otero Verzier and
  Ignacio Farías \nCollective Figurations of Baukultur\n\nArchitectural r
 epresentation has often dissociated its production from its product\, trap
 ped in loops of identification\, reproduction and mimesis which have only 
 increased under technocapitalism. Today\, our cities and environments are 
 measured to the detail and seemingly overrepresented through proliferating
  digital twins\, predictive models and simulations\, indicators and benchm
 arks. These operative visualizations which reduce the world to computable 
 data\, no longer merely describe reality: they organize\, mobilize\, and a
 ctivate matter. They function as automated\, asignifying spatial infrastru
 ctures\, while progressively dispensing with a symbolic mediation increasi
 ngly deemed unnecessary and\, just as often\, a problematic source of ambi
 guity.\nDigital twins\, predictive models and simulations\, indicators and
  benchmarks are a constitutive part of an expanding culture of immediacy (
 Kornbluh\, 2024)\, where the critique of mediation carried out by the like
 s of Theodor Adorno or Henri Lefebvre is resolved not through its impossib
 le disappearance\, but through its naturalization. Subsumed within the env
 ironmental interface of capital and technology (Hörl 2017)\, mediation is
  subsequently desocialized and depoliticized.\nHowever\, without collectiv
 e figurations\, there is no possibility of common horizons\, and our capac
 ity to bring about democratic and inclusive transformations of our cities 
 and territories falters. In the SNSF project Infrastructural Baukultur\, A
 LICE (Atelier de la Conception de l'Espace) is exploring ways to leverage 
 the constructed nature of all representations in the co-design of our citi
 es. As part of this project\, the aim of this two-day course is to focus o
 n the theoretical and historical frameworks of this question.\nDuring the 
 1980s\, as the cultural and literary critic Fredric Jameson developed a sp
 atial analysis of the historical stages of capitalism\, he arrived (not un
 critically) at the work of MIT urban theorist Kevin Lynch\, particularly T
 he Image of the City (1960). If Lynch had suggested that urban alienation 
 was directly proportional to the impossibility of creating an (individual)
  mental image of the city\, Jameson went further\, contending that our "in
 capacity to map socially (is) as crippling to political experience as the 
 analogous incapacity to map spatially is for urban experience." From there
 \, he went on to develop the idea of cognitive mapping as an aesthetic str
 ategy\, arguing that\, even when the structural coordinates of individual 
 and social life become unrepresentable\, they can still find figures and f
 igurations through which to express themselves in allegorical\, i.e. disto
 rted and symbolic\, ways.\nLater on\, feminist scholars Donna Haraway and 
 Rosi Braidotti described figurations as "materialistic mappings of situate
 d\, i.e.\, embedded and embodied\, social positions" (Braidotti 2011)\, no
 ting that even if "figures pertain to graphic representation and visual fo
 rms in general\, (they) do not have to be representational and mimetic\, (
 ...) they do have to be tropic\, performative images that can be inhabited
 \, condensed maps of contestable worlds. (…) The chip\, seed\, or gene i
 s simultaneously literal and figurative. We inhabit and are inhabited by s
 uch figures that map universes of knowledge\, practice and power" (Haraway
  1997). Departing from these premises and mirroring Jameson's journey\, th
 is time back into architecture and urban design\, this course seeks to con
 struct\, historically and theoretically\, the concept of figuration as an 
 allegorical and material practice capable of mapping contestable and indiv
 idually inaccessible realities\, a tropic and political instrument that sh
 ort circuits equivalences and unsettles certainties. From there\, it will 
 encourage a critical debate around a series of interrelated questions at t
 he core of architectural practice and academia today.\nHow does design res
 earch connect with the fields of architectural history\, theory and practi
 ce? What challenges are posed to collective figuration by an unrepresentab
 le capitalism\, fragmented habitats\, and infrastructured perceptions? Can
  a critical understanding of the abstract\, ideological nature of operativ
 e representations help us repoliticize urban production? Can we trace alte
 rnative genealogies of architectural\, urban\, and landscape representatio
 n that reveal forms of agency and collectivity capable of overcoming the t
 raps of immediacy? Can space\, both as an abstraction and as a lived\, gro
 unded experience\, become a translation device within inter-\, intra-\, an
 d transdisciplinary processes?\nTo this end\, the course will begin with a
 n introductory session that develops a common framework by articulating\, 
 both historically and conceptually\, the notion of figuration and its role
  within design methods\, in contrast to the operational visualizations of 
 environmentality. This framework will orient the subsequent lectures and d
 iscussions with our four invited speakers:\n\n• Anna Kornbluh\, Professo
 r of English at University of Illinois Chicago and author of Immediacy: Or
 \, The Style of Too Late Capitalism (2024)\, will offer us a critical refl
 ection on the political consequences of our contemporary regime of aesthet
 ic and technological immediacy.\n• Marc Schoonderbeek\, Associate Profes
 sor of Architecture and Head of the Borders and Territories research group
  at TU Delft\, will discuss the multilayered role of representation within
  design research strategies.\n• Marina Otero Verzier\, architect and re
 searcher\, leading the Data Mourning Clinic at Columbia University GSAPP\,
  will delve into the tension between digital custodianship and the unsusta
 inable practices of the data storage industry through the lens of Tuvalu's
  digital twin.\n• Ignacio Farías\, Professor of Urban Anthropology\, Di
 rector of the Georg Simmel Center for Urban Studies and Co-Director of the
  Stadtlabor for Multimodal Anthropology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
 \, will present his ongoing work on spatial figures within urban transform
 ation processes.\n\nInterested participants are invited to submit\, by Oct
 ober 9\, a short abstract (max. 300 words) outlining their approach to the
  subject\, which will be developed into a short essay during the seminar. 
 Assessment for the course will be based on the essay\, completion of the r
 eading assignments\, and active participation in the sessions. Selected es
 says will be published alongside contributions from the guest lecturers in
  an edited volume produced as part of the SNSF project Infrastructural Bau
 kultur.
LOCATION:Room BP 4321\, ALICE Common Room
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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