Depending on how you look at it, critical theory has been with us for some time. Its contents range from antiquity to the present, from the writings of Parmenides to Zizek, while it is largely a product of postmodernism and the critical turn in the humanities over the last thirty-five years. The new millennium brings with it exhaustion and renewal, global economic collapse coupled with the rapid-fire invention of disruptive technologies, all of which calls for the reevaluation of critical theory in terms of modernity reconceived. Altermodern, paramodern, modernity in the longue durée, or complexism: it is the contemporary time of not simply postmodernity’s past, but more importantly a union of art, architecture, and biology. Of these terms, we choose Philip Galanter’s “complexism” for two reasons. First, as a synthesis of modernism and postmodernism, it takes the best of all worlds. Second, it prioritizes the ecological paradigm of the complex biological system as means to rethink art, architecture, and the humanities broadly conceived.
We propose two panels – both titled COMPLEXISM: Art + Architecture + Biology, A New Axis in Critical Theory? – interrogating the concomitant disruption within critical theory that is the field of art, architecture, and biology. Building on past paradigms, from the Frankfurt School, Post-structuralism, and Deconstruction to embodiment, affectivity, and emergence, these two consecutive workshops unite artists, architects, and theorists to discuss the critical underpinnings of art, architecture, and biology now. Superseding any cultural divisions, each panel will be a mix of artists, architects and theorists. These two panels promise to open a discussion catalyzed by the following questions and more.
Ø How do bio-architecture and bio-art together transform contemporary critical theory?
Ø How does bio-architecture inform bio-art, and vice versa?
Ø What is the role of synthetic biology in helping us to understand “life” as
it crosses the divide between living and non-living?
Ø How might the naturphilosophie of Goethe carry forth a politics of labor
justice into the present?
Ø How does Max Bense’s information aesthetics provide a renewed means
of understanding semiotics in terms of biological complexity?
Ø How does morphogenesis and computation transform the contents and
definition of “form” within bio-art and bio-architectural practices?
Ø How does Moholy-Nagy’s Bauhaus bio-functionalism inform
contemporary bio-art, bio-architecture, and critical theory?
Ø Might the biological concept of “autopoesis” approximate “performance”
and performativity” in the arts?
Ø How does the generative aesthetics of computation resonate with
generative biology and evolutionary development?
Ø Do bio-art and bio-architecture in the present carry forth the political
purview of German Romanticism?
Ø What is the role of an aesthetics of complex systems thinking in
contemporary critical theory?
Invited panel participants:
Philip Beesley, Founder of Philip Beesley Architect Inc. (PBAI) in Toronto,
Canada and professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo
David Benjamin, Principal Architect, The Living and Assistant Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, New York
Juan Manuel Castro, Hideo Iwasaki Lab, Laboratory of Molecular Cell Network & Biomedia Art, Waseda University, Tokyo
Dennis Dollens, Visiting Professor, BioDigital Architectures Master, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona. His most recent book is: Autopoietic Architecture: Can Buildings Think?
Anna Dumitriu, BioArtist, Author of Trust Me, I’m an Artist: Towards an Ethics of Art
Philip Galanter, Artist working in the fields of generative art, physical computing, sound art and music, complexity science, and art theory and Assistant Professor, Department of Visualization, Texas A&M
Mitchell Joachim, Co-Founder of Terreform ONE and Associate Professor at NYU and EGS in Switzerland
Morgan Meyer, Center for the Sociology of Innovation at Mines ParisTech, Paris, France
Patricia Olynyk, Director, Graduate School of Art, Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Charissa Terranova, Associate Professor of Aesthetic Studies, University of Texas at Dallas
Yvan Tina, PhD Candidate, Arts & Technology, University of Texas at Dallas/Aix Marseille University, France
Zenovia Toloudi, Architect, Artist, Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth and Elected Member for Boston Society of Architects (BSA)
