In the previous week, Benjamin Bratton of the University of California, San Diego visited the Knowlton School as the Baumer Distinguished Visiting Professor. Through the week, he held a series of seminars for the Third Year Graduate Architecture students, gave a lecture to the school as a whole, and participated in a symposium which concluded his visit.
Benjamin's focus isn't one topic, but is instead interested in the structure that holds together all of the various systems, and when I say all, I want to stress the point that everything can potentially be included. His model, which he calls "the stack," divides our reality into a series of six layers; though he notes that this is able to be reconfigured. The theory as a whole is a bit loose and flexible, which itself is a bit of a reflection of the fluid systems which it is attempting to tame and categorize. He has intentionally made it into something that will move as we move, however identifying its exact movements become difficult with the breadth that it contains.
Bratton's work moved into the symposium that was held on Saturday which pulled together an assortment of individuals whose focuses ranged from architecture to performance art to critical engineering. If a focus could be attributed to the talks that were given as a whole, it would be the Anthropocene. Here, what is being looked at is how humans have interacted with the Earth since the first true terraforming began and then shed the narcissistic tendencies that continue to follow theoretical approaches in all fields. I won't pretend to attempt to encapsulate the talks within this pithy statement but instead would like to leave you with the comment that the week has been invigorating and has let off something of an explosion of tangency's and conversations that require several strong drinks to process within the Knowlton community.
More information about the school and a full schedule of lectures can be found at knowlton.osu.edu. Previous lectures can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/user/knowltonosu/.
This blog will be a feeder for recent news, events and student work occurring at the Knowlton School at The Ohio State University. Posts will typically center around updates from the school's lecture series, exciting projects from recent student reviews and updates from other school events.
No Comments
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.