8.11.13

The Politics of Parametricism: Digital Technologies & the Future[s] of Sociality @CalArts


MA in Aesthetics and Politics presents

The Politics of Parametricism: Digital Technologies & the Future[s] of Sociality


A conference curated and organized by Matthew Poole and Manuel Shvartzberg, happening next Friday and Saturday 15—16 November @ REDCAT.

This two-day conference includes a range of international experts from architectural practice and theory, and explores urgent questions that concern the social and political ramifications at stake in the evolution of computational design. Parametricism has been heralded as the new avant-garde in the fields of architecture and design—the next “grand style” in the history of architectural movements. Parametric models enable digital designers to create complex structures and environments, as well as new understandings of space, both real and virtual. Whether as tools for democratic action or tyrannical spectacle; self- and community-building capabilities; a post-humanistic subject; or the mediatized politics of our desired futurisms—all these themes are figured and being assembled within the Parametricist discourse.

Guest speakers are Phil Bernstein, Benjamin Bratton, Christina Cogdell, Teddy Cruz, Peggy Deamer, Andrés Jaque, Laura Kurgan, Neil Leach, Reinhold Martin, Patrik Schumacher.

Program
7–9pm, Friday 15 November: Keynote event:
“Architecture and politics: Parametricism within or beyond liberal democracy?” – a discussionReinhold Martin: “On Numbers, More or Less”
Patrik Schumacher: “Thesis on the Politics of Parametricism”
Saturday 16 November: Conference panels:10am–noon – Panel 1: Introduction to Parametricism: historical and technological context
Phillip G. Bernstein: “Finding Value in Parameters: How Scripting Beyond Form Changes the Potential of Design Practice”
Christina Cogdell: “Breeding Ideology: Parametricism and Biological Architecture”
Neil Leach: “There is no such thing as a political architecture; there is no such thing as digital architecture”
2–4pm – Panel 2: Parametricism, the commons and social representation
Teddy Cruz: “The New Political: Where the Top Down and the Bottom up Meet”
Peggy Deamer: “Parametric Schizophrenic”
Laura Kurgan: “The Method is the Message”
4:45–6:30pm – Panel 3: Designing subjectivities, curating new models of sociality
Benjamin H. Bratton: “The Always Partial System: For an Inhuman Parametricism”
Andrés Jaque: “Architecture as Rendered Society”