BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Memento EPFL//
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:ENAC Seminar Series by A. Thiermann
DTSTART:20210428T084500
DTEND:20210428T093000
DTSTAMP:20260509T115405Z
UID:011f4c6dba22a575ab083095e1ea1325d83fb08a6471afd37ce19e4d
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Alfredo Thiermann\n08:45 – 09:30 – Dr A. Thiermann\nVisiti
 ng faculty at Harvard University\, USA\n\nInhabiting Technical Media\n\nJo
 rge 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 sufficient to describe it. Today\, even such a fictional degree
  of resolution has fallen short. Large amounts of digital data\, continuou
 sly harvested and disseminated\, have penetrated deep into almost every as
 pect of our daily lives\, and we can hardly imagine ourselves outside of t
 his new media-ecology. This lecture will examine the architectural implica
 tions of this entangled technological and cultural transformation. As Borg
 es’s story pointedly reminds us\, we do not simply use technical media\
 , we inhabit them\, and therefore they should be a central preoccupation 
 for architecture. \n\nLooking for the presence of the past in the present
 \, in this talk I will visit seven episodes—from the acheulean industry\
 , passing through broadcasting houses\, and culminating in data centres—
 that illustrate how architecture has closely interacted with both analogue
  and digital technical media. Tracing the agency and relevance of building
 s within seemingly immaterial phenomena\, I will indicate how\, in a longu
 e durée\, forms of recording\, storing\, and transmitting information hav
 e modified the natural and built environment. Anything but immaterial and 
 far from being new\, such processes are inevitably grounded in matter\, pr
 oducing specific kinds of buildings\, constructing and modifying cities\, 
 and even transforming the planet at a geographical scale. With observation
 al distance\, this lecture will reconstruct this entangled condition disc
 ussing the technical\, political\, environmental—and therefore architect
 ural—challenges and opportunities inherent to the so-called digital turn
 .\n\n\nShort bio:\nAlfredo Thiermann is an architect born in Santiago de C
 hile. Through his design practice and theoretical research\, he investigat
 es the intersection between architecture and different technical media. He
  has taught and lectured at Harvard University\, Pontificia Universidad Ca
 tólica de Chile\, among other institutions. His research has been publish
 ed in Revista ARQ\, TRACE magazine\, Zeppelin\, Potlatch\, Real Review\, 
 Thresholds\, Archithese\, GTA Papers\, and BauNetz\, and has been exhib
 ited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York\, Museo Nacional de Bellas Ar
 tes in Santiago\, the Istanbul Design Biennial\, Museo MAC Quinta Normal\,
  and Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho\, among other institutions. Alfredo
  studied architecture\, receiving his professional degree from the Pontifi
 cia Universidad Católica in Chile and a master’s degree from Princeton 
 University. He received his doctoral degree from the Eidgenössische Techn
 ische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich. He has been a visiting scholar at the Ma
 x Planck Institute for the History of Science and at the Canadian Centre f
 or Architecture\, developing research on the architecture of radio. This 
 research will be published in a forthcoming book titled Radio-Activities: 
 The Architecture of Broadcasting in Berlin.\n 
LOCATION:https://epfl.zoom.us/j/89766392441
STATUS:CONFIRMED
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR