This seminar is the first in a two-semester sequence that introduces relevant theoretical and historical models for research in the design of Situated Technologies. It introduces students to the significant ideas that define the information environment and how they concern architecture and urbanism. Taking a broad interdisciplinary approach the course draws texts from science, engineering, information theory, aesthetics, philosophy, sociology, media, art, architecture and urbanism. It includes primary texts as well as their interpretations, providing a critical examination of the ideas and their influence on technology and society.
The information environment refers to the ideas and artifacts produced by information and computing technologies (ICT) and their influence on social and cultural production. This critical reading seminar, roughly organized in historical progression, will explore a series of themes that intersect ICT development, architecture and urbanism. We will study some of the important concepts that have influenced the technological imagination and how they continue to frame the debate on technological progress. We will also explore what it means to situate technologies and how the architectural imagination can provide us with the resources to question technological determinism.
The following topics will form the schedule of the seminar:
– The Case of Modern Technology
– The Case of Modern Media
– Information Machines and the Dilemma of Communication
– Cybernetics and the Problems of Control
– Systems and the Primacy of Relations
– Human/Computer Interaction
– Simulation
– Typological vs. Topological Space
– Networks and Interconnectivity
– Pervasive Computing
– Digital Fabrication and Mass Customization
– Responsive Architecture
– Sentient City
