THRLLING WONDER STORIES SPECULATIONS PETER COOK STRIPTEASE
0 Comments Sunday, May 31, 2009 | 1:59 am.
'Thrilling wonder Stories: Speculative Futures for an Alternate Present', a symposium, co-organized by Liam Young (AA Inter 7) and Geoff Manaugh (BLDGBLOG) took place at The Architectural Association, on Friday, 29 May.
Jumping between the real and the imagined, stories from fields like gaming, film, comics, animation, literature and art, not to mention architecture, were gathered in an array of presentations, pseudo interviews and short Q&A sessions with speakers such as Geoff Manaugh, Viktor Antonov, François Roche and Stéphanie Lavaux, Warren Ellis, Archigram (Peter Cook), Ian Macleod, Squint Opera and Jim Rossignol among others.
Although being only present in the morning, we can surely state that we saw a truly thrilling wonder story, whose main character, qua superhero, Peter Cook, transforming himself, undressed the architect figure and became the radical superhero of the 'weird-shit architecture', defending the pertinence and value, and innovation capacity of the underground stream of radical architecture/art research projects accross the world.
Here are some photos of the strip-tease running lecture.
Reminding all of us that architecture is about pushing edges, Peter Cook, the Archigram hero, 'has arrived' and dwels in the ordinary world as we do. When questioned about if there would be any science-fiction precedent in ancient history (a notorious fixation stated by the chair of the event, Geoff Manaugh, from the first instance) he just replied that he was not 'a very good historian'.
Neverthless, Peter Cook left us an outline for a Thrilling Wonder Story in an image of a recent painting/project, that seemed to depart from the premise that when a log is cut and thrown into the river, you can foresee the movement, but you will never be sure that it will get and how it will get to the finishing point. The wonder is in the trip!
Jumping between the real and the imagined, stories from fields like gaming, film, comics, animation, literature and art, not to mention architecture, were gathered in an array of presentations, pseudo interviews and short Q&A sessions with speakers such as Geoff Manaugh, Viktor Antonov, François Roche and Stéphanie Lavaux, Warren Ellis, Archigram (Peter Cook), Ian Macleod, Squint Opera and Jim Rossignol among others.
Although being only present in the morning, we can surely state that we saw a truly thrilling wonder story, whose main character, qua superhero, Peter Cook, transforming himself, undressed the architect figure and became the radical superhero of the 'weird-shit architecture', defending the pertinence and value, and innovation capacity of the underground stream of radical architecture/art research projects accross the world.
Here are some photos of the strip-tease running lecture.
Reminding all of us that architecture is about pushing edges, Peter Cook, the Archigram hero, 'has arrived' and dwels in the ordinary world as we do. When questioned about if there would be any science-fiction precedent in ancient history (a notorious fixation stated by the chair of the event, Geoff Manaugh, from the first instance) he just replied that he was not 'a very good historian'.
Neverthless, Peter Cook left us an outline for a Thrilling Wonder Story in an image of a recent painting/project, that seemed to depart from the premise that when a log is cut and thrown into the river, you can foresee the movement, but you will never be sure that it will get and how it will get to the finishing point. The wonder is in the trip!
Labels: archigram, architectural association, françois roche, geoff manaugh, peter cook, strip-tease, symposium, viktor Antonov, warren ellis, weird-shit architecture
‘IDEOLOGY IN TRANSPARENCY’
AA PhD DIALOGUES
2nd Annual AA PhD Research Symposium
Architectural Association
School of Architecture
36 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3ES
Friday 8 May 2009, 10.00 – 7.00
aaphdsymposium.net
AA PhD Dialogues is an annual international event organised by a select group of PhD candidates at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London.
AA PhD Dialogues is the follow-up event to the 2008 AA PhD Symposium, ‘The Critique of the New: Questioning the Legitimization of Newness Through Technology’, with Mark Wigley (Columbia University GSAPP) as keynote speaker.
Each year a theme is selected based upon a particular set of terms that address current questions within contemporary architectural discourse. This theme operates as an umbrella under which individual PhD research can be collectively discussed in an international forum.
THEME
The notion of transparency has achieved a continued, if varied, currency in architectural discourse throughout the twentieth-century. Along with a multitude of material attributes, transparency advocates a shifting, yet ever-present, ideological sensibility. Towards the latter part of the twentieth-century, however, the general notion of transparency as an ideological mechanism began to decline. Today, while a literal sense of transparency remains, seemingly its ideology does not. This symposium aims to resurface the question of ideology in (contemporary) architectural discourse by creating dialogues around the following questions:
_ As the notion of transparency appears to be superseded by the immateriality of the digital, how can contemporary architectural research address transparency’s role as a technological innovation, as a mechanism for design, and, above all, as an ideological device?
_ Do new design technologies and media produce more transparent systems of communication?
_ Despite the apparent displacement of ideology in current architectural arguments and projects, what are the subjacent ideologies that remain and how might we be able to scrutinise them?
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Roemer van Toorn, from the Berlage Institute
ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Doreen Bernath, Nerma Cridge, Eva Eylers, Kris Mun, Emanuel de Sousa, Tania Lopez Winkler and Kirk Wooller
AA PhD DIALOGUES
2nd Annual AA PhD Research Symposium
Architectural Association
School of Architecture
36 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3ES
Friday 8 May 2009, 10.00 – 7.00
aaphdsymposium.net
AA PhD Dialogues is an annual international event organised by a select group of PhD candidates at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London.
AA PhD Dialogues is the follow-up event to the 2008 AA PhD Symposium, ‘The Critique of the New: Questioning the Legitimization of Newness Through Technology’, with Mark Wigley (Columbia University GSAPP) as keynote speaker.
Each year a theme is selected based upon a particular set of terms that address current questions within contemporary architectural discourse. This theme operates as an umbrella under which individual PhD research can be collectively discussed in an international forum.
THEME
The notion of transparency has achieved a continued, if varied, currency in architectural discourse throughout the twentieth-century. Along with a multitude of material attributes, transparency advocates a shifting, yet ever-present, ideological sensibility. Towards the latter part of the twentieth-century, however, the general notion of transparency as an ideological mechanism began to decline. Today, while a literal sense of transparency remains, seemingly its ideology does not. This symposium aims to resurface the question of ideology in (contemporary) architectural discourse by creating dialogues around the following questions:
_ As the notion of transparency appears to be superseded by the immateriality of the digital, how can contemporary architectural research address transparency’s role as a technological innovation, as a mechanism for design, and, above all, as an ideological device?
_ Do new design technologies and media produce more transparent systems of communication?
_ Despite the apparent displacement of ideology in current architectural arguments and projects, what are the subjacent ideologies that remain and how might we be able to scrutinise them?
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Roemer van Toorn, from the Berlage Institute
ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Doreen Bernath, Nerma Cridge, Eva Eylers, Kris Mun, Emanuel de Sousa, Tania Lopez Winkler and Kirk Wooller
Labels: AA PhD Dialogues, ideology, roemer van toorn, symposium, transparency
