Within the context of interdisciplinary practice the dissolution of disciplinary boundaries may be an inadvertent goal. Practice seems to be embedded with its own pragmatic purpose, borrowing and using various forms of knowledge for its focused goals. Disciplines, on the other hand, continually reify their boundaries in order to define their particular methods for acquiring and maintaining knowledge and authority. Architecture and more recently Media Arts squarely locate themselves on the epistemological boundary between the formality of discipline and the informality of practice. This unique placement opens both fields to a variety of processes, whose seemingly conflicting positions can only be addressed within a new set of boundaries. As potential sites for the confluence of varying practices, this seminar will look at how Architecture and Media Arts interpret knowledge outside their own domain, and how they maintain dialogue with other disciplines.


I) How do we ‘know’? How is knowledge formed and maintained in Architecture, in Media Arts?

What are the mechanisms and techniques for acquiring, defining and communicating knowledge in Architecture and Media Arts? How do these mechanisms frame that knowledge? Through which processes does one discipline receive agency in another? Which methods in addition to those of metaphor and analogy map one discipline to another? Which processes are at play? How do they transform knowledge systems?

W1 (Aug 31)
Intro to Seminar

W2 (Sept 7)
M. McCullough, chapters 1 and 2: ubiquity and embodiment, Digital Ground (b)

W3 (Sept 14)
Henri Lefebvre: The Production of Space, RA (c)
Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Message, 1967

W4 (Sept 21)
Edmund Husserl: Phenomenology
Martin Heidegger: Building, Dwelling, Thinking, RA (c)

W5 (Sept 28)
Umberto Eco: Function and Sign - The Semiotics of Architecture, RA (c)
Walter Benjamin: The Artwork in the Age of Reproduction



II) How is our knowing situated, how is it dynamic?

How do situations and actions outside of disciplinary boundaries alter these disciplines and their practice? What are the effects of disasters, economic prosperity, cultural shifts, and zeitgeist? How do transitions between the real and the virtual alter the idea of space? How do technical innovations shift the idea of ‘newness’ in New Media?

W6 (Oct 5)
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulations,
Jean Baudrillard -Selected writings
Paul Virilio - The Overexposed City, RA (c)

W7 (Oct 12)
Lynn Hershman: The Fantasy Beyond Control, NMR (a)
Diller and Scofidio – Insomniacs, Flesh: Architectural Probes (i)

W8 (Oct 19)
Rem Koolhaas - Life in the Metropolis or the Culture of Congestion, AT (d)
Rem Koolhaas - Biblioteque de France, Paris, AT (d)

W9 (Oct 26)
Bernard Tschumi - The Manhattan Transcripts, AT (d)
Greg Lynn, Animate Form (g)

W10 (Nov 2)
M. McCullough chapters 7 + 8: interaction and places
Digital Ground (b)

W11 (Nov 9)
Gordon Pask, The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics, Spiller- Cyber_Reader (f)
John Frazer, Evolutionary Architecture, Spiller- Cyber_Reader (f)
Cedric Price, The Generator Project 1976, Spiller- Cyber_Reader (f)

W12 (Nov 16)
Paul Miller: Rhythm Science, MIT Press (e)

W13 (Nov 23)
Walid Raad (Atlas Group)
Augusto Boal - Theatre of the Oppressed, NMR (a)

W14 (Nov 30)
David Rokeby: The Construction of Experience: Interface as Content
Scott McCloud: Time Frames, NMR (a)

W15 (Dec 7)
Presentations

Referenced Text collections: