Modul Ausstellungsgestaltung
:// Podcast: The Infrastructure of Data / Storytelling as curatorial practice
MA Level 2 SWS / 3 ECTS Seminar, Dr. Sc. ETH Damjan Kokalevski
AR30347
The widespread use of computers and CAD software from the 1980s until today radically changed the architecture profession. The computer has been “a drawing machine, a design tool, a medium for storytelling, and an interactive communication platform” (Fankhänel, 2020). Despite the tectonic disruption in how we produce architecture, a new set of interactions between architects and computers changed the discourse and culture within and around architecture. (Latour, Yaneva, 2022) This leads to experimentation with forms and agencies of architecture by reexamining the societal role of architects. Topics about the production and destruction of data and its relevance for the practice are also on the rise. How do architects deal with their data, and which sociopolitical relationships can we radically reimagine with the rise of new digital technologies? What does the future architecture look like if we consider the rise of Big Data, Machine Learning, Remote Sensing, Artificial Intelligence, and the recent creation of virtual-real environments like the Metaverse and Earth 2.0? Moreover, how can we leverage digital tools in dealing with the climate emergency, rising inequalities, and planetary exhaustion of resources by creating a new agency arising from the interaction between human and non-human entities? Can we imagine more inclusive, diverse, just, and equitable futures by queering current hegemonic and patriarchal narratives of power by developing the societal potential of the digital shift?
Architects rarely discuss the digital shifts in the profession, let alone the ways they use or misuse software or how they produce, store, use, and evaluate data. The seminar's aim is to open a discussion on these topics, their histories, and futures. How can we tell stories about architects and their computers that are relevant not just for the profession but also for a wider audience?
We will test this by creating and telling stories focusing on a broader notion of infrastructures of data as a curatorial practice. We will create a concept for a podcast as a tool already widely used in the digital humanities for storytelling, allowing for alternative ways of publishing research and reaching a wider audience. We will use various digital historical sources, including oral histories, videos, and digital archives, and conduct interviews to produce research for the podcast. The podcast will be created next year and will become a part of the upcoming exhibition Infrastructures of Data to be shown at the Architekturmuseum der TUM in 2025.
The seminar will include research in group work, site visits, and guest presentations.
Kick-Off Meeting: October 20, 2022
Time: Thurdays, 13:15 – 14:45
Location: Seminar room 0340 B
Language: English and German
Termine
20. October 2022 - Kick-Off Meeting
27. October 2022
10. November 2022
17. November 2022
24. November 2022
15. December 2022
22. December 2022
12. January 2022
19. January 2023
26. January 2023
2. February 2023
9. February 2023 - Final Presentation
Literature
Campo, Matias del. ‘Deep Mining Architecture Datasets, Neural Networks, and Architectural Design’. Gradient Journal. Accessed 25 April 2022. https://gradient-journal.net/articles/deep-mining-architecture-datasets-neural-networks-and-architectural-design.
Dommann, Monika, Hannes Rickli, and Max Stadler. Data Centers: Edges of a Wired Nation, 2020.
Fankhänel, Teresa, and Andres Lepik, eds. The Architecture Machine. The Role of Computers in Architecture. Birkhäuser, 2020.
Goldstein, Jenny, and Eric Nost. The Nature of Data: Infrastructures, Environments, Politics. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2022. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/100261.
Guiliano, Jennifer. A Primer for Teaching Digital History. Ten Design Principles. Duke University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478022299.
Johnson, Jim. ‘Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer’. Social Problems 35, no. 3 (1988): 298–310. https://doi.org/10.2307/800624.
Maak, Dr Niklas, Niklas Maak und Studierenden der Städelschule Frankfurt und der Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Francesca Bria. Server Manifesto Data Center Architecture and the Future of Democracy. Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2022. https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/PublicFullRecord.aspx?p=6992611.
Yaneva, Albena. ‘7. The Life of an Old Floppy Disk’. In 7. The Life of an Old Floppy Disk, 159–79. Cornell University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501751837-008.
Yaneva, Albena. Latour for Architects: Thinkers for Architects. London: Routledge, 2022. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429328510.