[-empyre-] Welcome Adam "AJ" Nocek, September 2014: "Design That Matters"

Tue Sep 9 10:17:36 EST 2014

Thanks for the kind introduction, Renate. I'm very happy to be back
moderating another month at -empyre!

We invite our network of –empyre subscribers to post with our invited
guests,  Ross Exo Adams (US), Adrian Parr (US/AU), Luciana Parisi (UK),
Oron Catts (AU), Etienne Turpin (ID), Davide Panagia (US), and others on
the topic, Design that Matters. Let’s make this an exciting and open
discussion!

This month at –empyre our invited guests will consider how extant and
future design practices (operating at an indeterminate number of scales)
deserve more attention in the theoretical humanities, and media studies in
particular. Surely a case could be made that media studies already has a
close relation to design practice/theory, and this is particularly evident
in the last couple decades with the ubiquity of digital and parametric
design, as well as open-source and DIY design practices, etc. Our guests
will consider how this convergence is but one expression of a much larger
problematic that occupies many designers/theorists today: namely, how to
guide, redirect, or re-channel the many forces (chemical, atmospheric,
digital, migratory, and urban) that mediate human experience in the age of
global-scale capitalism.

I’m partly inspired this month by Bruno Latour’s suggestion in a keynote
address that he gave in 2008, in which he argues that design today implies
(or in any case, should imply) a kind of modesty in the face of much wider
environmental forces. Design is not a Promethean effort, that is, creation
_ex nihilo_, but a subtle process of retooling what already exists. Design
never begins from scratch, he contends; there is always something
“_remedial_ in design.” This proposition will be explored in various
registers this month at –empyre, with particular attention paid to the way
in which design practices/theories are attentive to the “modest
remediation” of experience in today’s political economy.

In particular, we endeavor to find or invent conceptual tools to think
design at the intersections of planetary urbanization and deep time,
bio/nano-technology and neoliberal investment, architecture and
computational capital, and design and media studies. We invite you to join
in on the conversation!

Here is the schedule:

Neo-eco-liberalism: Ross Exo Adams (US) and Adrian Parr (US/AU)

Mediated Matters: Oron Catts (AU), Luciana Parisi (UK), and A.J. Nocek (US)

Urban Data Politics: Etienne Turpin (ID) and Davide Panagia

Here are the Bios:

Ross Exo Adams (US) is an architect, urbanist and educator whose work looks
at the political and historical intersection between circulation and
urbanization. He is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Iowa State
University. His writing has been published in Log, Environment and Planning
D: Society and Space, Radical Philosophy, Thresholds, Architectural Review
among others. Previously he has taught at The Bartlett School of
Architecture, UCL, The Architectural Association, the Berlage Institute in
Rotterdam, NL and at Brighton University in the UK. His work has been
exhibited in the Venice Biennale, the Storefront for Art and Architecture
in New York City, the Centre of Contemporary Architecture in Moscow and the
Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam. As an architect and urban
designer he has worked in offices such as MVRDV, Foster & Partners, Arup
Urban Design and Productora-DF. He holds a Master of Architecture from the
Berlage Institute and a Ph.D. from the London Consortium for which he was
awarded the 2011 LKE Ozolins Studentship by the RIBA.

Adrian Parr (US/AU) specialist on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, and has
published widely on the sustainability movement, climate change politics,
activist culture, and creative practice. She is currently an Associate
Professor in the Department of Sociology and School of Architecture and
Interior Design at the University of Cincinnati. Some of her recent books
include the _Deleuze Dictionary_ (ed.) (2005), _Hijacking Sustainability_
(2009), _New Directions in Sustainable Design_ (ed. with Michael Zaretsky)
(2010), and _The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change
Politics_ (2013).

Luciana Parisi (UK) is Reader and Convenor of the PhD programme in Cultural
Studies, Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London. Her
research focuses on philosophy and science to investigate potential
conditions for ontological and epistemological change in culture,
aesthetics and politics.  Specifically engaging with cybernetics,
information theories, computation and evolutionary theories, her work
analyses the radical transformations of the body, nature, matter and
thought in the context of technocapitalist developments in biotechnologies
and computation. In 2004, she published _Abstract Sex: Philosophy,
Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire_ (Continuum Press). She has also
written within the field of Media Philosophy and analysed the bionic
transformation of the perceptive sensorium triggered by digital media, the
advancement of new techno-ecologies of control, and the nanoengineering of
matter.  She has published articles on the cybernetic re-wiring of memory
and perception in the context of a non-phenomenological critique of
computational media vis a vis strategies of branding and marketing. Her
interest in interactive media has also led her research to engage more
closely with computation, cognition, and algorithmic aesthetic in the
context of digital design and architecture. In 2013, she published
_Contagious Architecture. Computation, Aesthetics and Space_ (MIT Press).

Oron Catts (AU) is an artist, researcher and curator whose pioneering work
with the Tissue Culture and Art Project which he established in 1996 is
considered a leading biological art project. In 2000 he co-founded
SymbioticA, an artistic research centre housed within the School of
Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia.
Under Catts’ leadership SymbioticA has gone on to win the Prix Ars
Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Art (2007) the WA Premier Science Award
(2008) and became a Centre for Excellence in 2008. In 2009 Catts was
recognised by Thames & Hudson’s “60 Innovators Shaping our Creative Future”
book in the category “Beyond Design”, and by Icon Magazine (UK) as one of
the top 20 Designers, “making the future and transforming the way we work”.

Catts interest is Life; more specifically the shifting relations and
perceptions of life in the light of new knowledge and it applications.
Often working in collaboration with other artists (mainly Dr. Ionat Zurr)
and scientists, Catts have developed a body of work that speak volumes
about the need for new cultural articulation of evolving concepts of life.
Catts was a Research Fellow in Harvard Medical School, a visiting Scholar
at the Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University, and a
Visiting Professor of Design Interaction, Royal College of Arts, London.
Catts’ ideas and projects reach beyond the confines of art; his work is
often cited as inspiration to diverse areas such as new materials,
textiles, design, architecture, ethics, fiction, and food.

Etienne Turpin (ID) is a philosopher researching, curating, and writing
about complex urban systems, community resilience, and colonial-scientific
history. He completed his Ph.D. (Philosophy) in the Department of Theory
and Policy Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)
of the University of Toronto. He is supported by a Vice-Chancellor's
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the SMART Infrastructure Facility,
Faculty of Engineering and Information Science, and an Associate Research
Fellowship with the Australian Center for Cultural Environmental Research,
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong, Australia. With the
support of these appointments, Etienne lives and works in Jakarta, where
his research is coordinated through anexact office and supported by SMART's
_GeoSocial Intelligence for Urban Livability & Resilience_ Research Group.
Prior to his work in Jakarta, Etienne was a Research Fellow at the Center
for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, where he also taught
advanced design research and architecture history and theory, and
coordinated research-based travel studios for the Taubman College of
Architecture and Urban Planning. He has also taught in the architecture and
landscape architecture graduate programs for the Daniels Faculty of
Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto, and in the art
history and visual culture undergraduate programs for the Department of
Visual Studies, University of Toronto-Mississauga.

Davide Panagia (US) is an Associate Professor of Political Science at UCLA
and co-editor of the quarterly journal Theory & Event (Johns Hopkins
University Press). He received his Ph.D. in 2002 from Johns Hopkins and was
previously Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Cultural
Studies Department at Canada’s Trent University. Panagia’s teaching and
research interests include contemporary political theory, the history of
political thought, aesthetics of cultural theory, visual culture, and
citizenship studies. His recent books include _The Poetics of Political
Thinking _(2006),_The Political Life of Sensation_(2009), and _Impressions
of Hume: Cinematic Thinking and the Politics of Discontinuity_ (2013).

Thanks so much. Looking forward to the conversation!

On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 4:34 PM, Renate Ferro <rtf9 at cornell.edu> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> We welcome Adam "A.J." Nocek once again as our guest moderator for
> September.
>
> A.J. Nocek is a PhD candidate in the Comparative Literature Department
> and instructor in the Comparative History of Ideas Program at the
> University of Washington. His research lies at the intersections of
> media and aesthetics, design and biotechnology, and algorithmic
> culture and global-scale neoliberalism. Nocek has published essays on
> the philosophy of A.N. Whitehead, media theory, artificial life, and
> architecture. He is the co-editor of the collection, The Lure of
> Whitehead (Minnesota 2014), and a special issue of the journal,
> Inflexions, titled Animating Biophilosophy (2014).
>
> Tim Murray and I  first met Adam at Syracuse University just north of
> Cornell during a conference..  He was our guest moderator last
> September hosting a rigorous month on "BioArt: Materials, Practices,
> Politics."  He joins us again this September  hosting a topic: "Design
> That Matters."
>
> Welcome Adam and thanks so much.
> Renate Ferro
> -empyre soft-skinned space
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
>
> --
>
> Renate Ferro
> Visiting Assistant Professor of Art,
> Cornell University
> Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office:  306
> Ithaca, NY  14853
> Email:   <rferro at cornell.edu>
> URL:  http://www.renateferro.net
>       http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net
> Lab:  http://www.tinkerfactory.net
>
> Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20140908/419960fc/attachment.htm>