Mario Carpo: The Alphabet and the Algorithm (2011)
Filed under book | Tags: · algorithm, architecture, copy, history of architecture, postmodern, technology
“Digital technologies have already changed architecture—architectural form as well as the way architecture is designed and built. But if the digital is a revolution, which tradition is being revolutionized? If it is a “paradigm shift,” which architectural paradigm is shifting? In The Alphabet and the Algorithm, Mario Carpo points to one key practice of modernity: the making of identical copies. Carpo highlights two instances of identicality crucial to the shaping of modern architecture: in the fifteenth century, Leon Battista Alberti’s invention of architectural design—the humanistic idea of building as the identical replication of an author’s intentions; and, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the mass production of identical copies from mechanical master models, matrixes, imprints, or molds.
The modern power of the identical, Carpo argues, has come to an end with the rise of digital technologies. All that is digital is variable. In architecture, this means the end of notational limitations, of mechanical standardization, and possibly of the Albertian, authorial way of building by design. Charting the rise and fall of the paradigm of identicality, Carpo compares new forms of postindustrial, digital craftsmanship to traditional hand-making, and to the cultures and technologies of variations that existed before the coming of machine-made, identical copies. Carpo reviews the unfolding of digitally based design and construction from the early 1990s to the present, and suggests a new agenda for architecture in an age of variable media, generic objects, and participatory authorship.”
Publisher MIT Press, 2011
Writing Architecture series
ISBN 0262515806, 9780262515801
190 pages
Reviews: Aureli (Architectural Review, 2011), Djalali (2011), Abrahamson (2011), Diamanti (2012), Allen (Reviews in Cultural Theory, 2014).
PDF (updated on 2020-4-23)
Comments (2)Roy Ascott (ed.): Art, Technologies, Consciousness: mind@large (2000)
Filed under book | Tags: · architecture, art, artificial life, computer music, consciousness, interactivity, metaphysics, music, perception, performance, quantum mechanics, robotics, semiotics, synaesthesia, technoetics, technology, telematics
Within a technological context, this volume addresses contemporary theories of consciousness, subjective experience, the creation of meaning and emotion, and relationships between cognition and location. Its focus is both on and beyond the digital culture, seeking to assimilate new ideas emanating from the physical sciences as well as embracing spiritual and artistic aspects of human experience.
Developing on the studies published in Roy Ascott’s successful Reframing Consciousness, the book documents the very latest work from those connected with the internationally acclaimed CAiiA-STAR centre and its conferences. Their artistic and theoretical research in new media and art includes aspects of:
• artificial life
• robotics
• technoetics
• performance
• computer music
• intelligent architecture
• telematic art
With profound insights for those in fields of Art, Media and Design – both academics and professionals — this book will also provide new ideas for software designers working on material to be used by the arts community.
Publisher Intellect Books, 2000
ISBN 1841500410, 9781841500416
204 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-7-24)
Comment (1)Gerda Ridler (ed.): Trans_Mission: Vadim Kosmatchof: Organic Solar Sculptures (2007) [English/German]
Filed under book | Tags: · architecture, art, kinetic art, sculpture, solar energy, technology
Der aus Moskau stammende Bildhauer Vadim Kosmatschof lebt und arbeitet seit 1980 in Deutschland und Österreich. Das Museum Ritter präsentiert hier eine Auswahl seiner aktuellen Projekte für den öffentlichen Raum in Bildern und Texten. In Fortsetzung der konstruktivistischen Tradition entwickelt Vadim Kosmatschof das Konzept der biomechanischen Skulptur. Dabei bezieht er neueste Entdeckungen der Biologie, Biomimetik und physikalischen Chemie mit ein.
“Trans_Mission” vermittelt natürliche Energieströme und integriert sie in den städtebaulichen Kontext. Kosmatschof zeigt in seinem großmaßstäblichen Projektzyklus, zu welch innovativen Formen und Typen die Anwendung natürlicher Prozesse und Phänomene auch in der Kunst führen kann. Seine subtilen Konstruktionen treibt eine Energie an, die der Photosynthese ähnlich ist. Sie reagieren mit Gestaltveränderung, Bewegung und Lichteffekten auf ihre aktuelle Umgebung. Fachbeiträge renommierter internationaler Experten beleuchten die kunsttheoretischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Aspekte dieser innovativen Arbeit.
Editor Museum Ritter – Gerda Ridler
Publisher Springer, 2007
ISBN 321170972X, 9783211709726
Length 134 pages