Lecture date: 2012-10-22
Landscape Urbanism Lecture Series
Out of the deep contradictions of global capitalism an interconnected series of social, political, economic and ecological crises are emerging. These are transforming cities and regions around the planet in unpredictable and uneven ways, even whilst being generated through them. At the same time, our intellectual tools for thinking about these developments are also changing. Studies of systemic complexity have demanded major revisions in how we conceive of matter, life and agency, and what is meant by mind and self. Lessons from disciplines as diverse as quantum mechanics, the cognitive sciences, anthropology and ecology, are suggesting new relational paradigms for thinking about the unfolding dynamics of material and life processes.
This lecture will situate a critical research practice within these emerging trans-disciplinary configurations, and will argue for an architecture that, as a dialectically autonomous producer of values and concepts, can stage a distinct political engagement with these socio-ecological questions. Dr Jon Goodbun completed his PhD ‘The Architecture of the Extended Mind: Towards a Critical Urban Ecology’ in Summer 2012, to be published by Ashgate in early 2013. He has written widely on architecture, urbanism and related issues (including co-guest-editing a recent issue of AD on ‘Scarcity’), teaches at University of Westminster, Royal College of Art and Bartlett UCL, and runs the design research lab rheomode
Lecture 4 of a 4-part lecture series organised by the AA Graduate School Landscape Urbanism Programme.
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