Life-affirming architectures of display

Theory of Architecture 2:1 (5AR201), programme UMA 2 (6 hp), Fall-Winter Term, 2023 - 2024
02-06.oct lecture seminar with discussion on 12.dec and presentation submissions due 05.jan (2024)

Photo of 'Sin Título / Untitled (Mariposario pedestal / Butterfly House Pedestal, 2021-22), by Freia, Maria & Luis Berríos Negrón while in residence at Las Lunas, Caguas, Puerto Rico. Made in collaboration with artist Javier Suárez, and biologists Carlos Andrés Rodríguez and María Cristina López from Para La Naturaleza. Caterpillars of the Sphingiade family and plants of their choice, bust in exposed clay (which decayed in weeks, disintegrating during the passing of hurricane Fiona), pedestal of recovered Reina de las Flores wood downed by hurricanes Irma and María, treated with mud, coconut oil, lemon, shells, copper, aluminium, gouache and pastel. Photo by Gadiel Pérez.

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'Le hablé á la roca y la roca me contestó.'
['I spoke to the rock, and the rock responded.']
- Luisa Capetillo from Igualdad Humana / Human Equality (Puerto Rico, 1913)

'Muchas palabras se caminan en el mundo. El mundo que queremos es uno donde quepan muchos mundos.'
['Many words are walked on the world... The world we want, many worlds fit.']
- III passage of the Fourth Zapatista Declaration on behalf of the Lacandona Jungle (México, 1996)

'La poésie doit être faite par tous, non par un.'
['Poetry must be created by all, not by one alone.']
— Comte de Lautréamont (aka. Isidore Ducasse) from Les Chants de Maldoror (Uruguay, 1870)

During the course we will talk about theories related to 'display'.

We will start by reviewing the life and work of Italian-born, Brazilian-naturalised curator, scenographer, and architect Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992). Her 'propædeutic' theories for 'total space' evolved by exploring 'display' as a research medium between art and architecture. What resulted was a unique shaping of space that was less about human shelter, and more about diverse social support structures for perceiving and affirming life.

We'll further delve into how Bo Bardi's display works began to acknowledge and respect Indigenous and Black perspectives that went beyond the human, already beginning to manifest in her theories as early as the 1950s; a response to the challenges posed by Western modernity and industrial nation-building through architecture. From there, I will share how she broadly influences how I develop theories of environmental art and experimental architecture. Along with some examples of installations — including in her own Museum of Modern Art of Bahia — we will address concerns over climate injustice, colonial memory, and environmental form. With that in mind, and by getting to know some aspects of new materialism, in-human geography, and multi-perspectival studies, we will look to play with display, ie. with observation and engagement as a 'show & tell'. The 'showing' will be about recognising and pointing-to ignored racial, gender, plant, and animal perspectives... the 'telling' will be about exploring the collective generating of theories.

By bringing these together, we aim to address aspects of globalised architectural practice that fuel toxic, social-environmental problems today. But instead of working individually, we will collaborate to build collective AI prompts as a group to 'generate' a series of texts and/or actions to be presented at the end of the week-long session, followed by a related, final assignment at the end of the semester.

The objective will be to emphasise on architecture's crucial role in going beyond traditional forms of experiencing the environments that sustain us. By challenging observation itself, as a reflex, colonial act, and by engaging in the collective use of AI, we will not look back at theories, but instead we will scrape them so to share and shape your own present; to encourage more diverse forms of spatial production for living realities.

Schedule Summary
Part 0 Vertical Workshop (29.aug - 08.sept.)

Part 1 Lectures (02-03.oct)
Reviewing Lina Bo Bardi, samples of work by her influence, and general post-human studies.

Part 2 Workshop (03.oct)
Co-working to learn to train an architecture theory AI prompt.

Part 3 Production + Tutorials + Presentations 'show & tell' (04-06.oct)
Groups produce, train, and present a working AI prompt for generating theories of architecture in various assigned text formats (see below), with guest respondents Tarsh Bates, Sara Thor, Robin Durant, Alejandro Haiek, and Maria Luna Nobile.

Part 3.5 Re-take Presentation 'show & tell' and API Workshop (20.nov)
Group produce, train, and present a working AI prompt, with guest respondent Maria Luna Nobile (9:30-10:00), followed by API Workshop (10:00-12:30).

Part 4 Examination (given 12.dec, due 05.jan.2024)
500-750 word written assignment reflecting on display and the development of contemporary theories of architecture, how you and your group made the AI prompt, and how it is helping you shape the beginnings of your own theory(s) of architecture.

Week 40 Schedule

Informed by the Vertical Workshop of weeks 35&36, the course content is delivered over four days of lectures and seminars in week 40. Engagement and participation in the lectures and seminars is assessed.

	Monday 2 October	Tuesday 3 October	Wednesday 4 October	Thursday 5 October	Friday 6 October
	Course introduction			09:00-9:30 Introduction to supplementary readings
09:00-12:00	Lecture 1 (Auditorium)	Lecture 2 (Auditorium)	(Independent study)	Group tutorials (Auditorium)	Presentations (Auditorium)


13:00-16:00	(Independent study)	Workshop (Theatre)	(Independent study)	Group tutorials (Auditorium)	Presentations (Auditorium)

Required Online Readings (Main Course Week 40)

Grossman, Vanessa. Lina Bo Bardi’s Theory of an Immediate-Life-Architecture (1957), in ArchDaily's Radical Pedagogies series, 2015.
https://www.archdaily.com/775163/radical-pedagogies-lina-bo-bardi-almost-at-fau-usp-1957

'Critical of the “functionalism” already present in Vitruvius, and of what she calls the “Scientificism” of the Modern Movement, she revisited concepts associated with Romanticism. For Bo Bardi, “The Moderns oppose a certain resistance to this concept, perhaps influenced by the old habit of dividing and specializing parts of the world, of things and thoughts. Romantics, on the contrary, understand architecture in a cosmic sense.” Advocating nature “as the primary source for the study of architecture,” she openly criticized Bruno Zevi’s notion of “interior space” to which she opposed Gillo Dorfles’s definition of architecture as typically 'spaziale'. Bo Bardi tended toward what she defined as “total-space”: one that participates in human life. People, in turn, are considered as “actors” in the space of the world.'

Wainwright, Oliver. ‘It’s already way beyond what humans can do’: will AI wipe out architects? The Guardian online, Mon 7 Aug 2023.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/aug/07/ai-architects-revolutionising-corbusier-architecture

'The ultimate effects are impossible to predict but, whether we like it or not, AI is here to stay. “Architects are like ostriches with their heads in the sand,” says Leach. “What they need to design right now is not another building – but the future of their profession.”'

Baer, Hannah. PROJECTIVE REALITY: on mythologies of intelligence. Artforum, Online/Print Summer 2023.
https://www.artforum.com/print/202306/hannah-baer-on-mythologies-of-intelligence-90637

'If what we have on our hands is the possibility of an entity with more intelligence than we possess, it’s possible that it might invite us into new ways of conceptualizing intelligence, new ways of inhabiting our ecologies, new ways of not desperately annihilating ourselves on this abundant planet. If we understand that the way we see AI tells us more about ourselves and our histories and values than it does about the machine, perhaps we can also invite it to help us transcend.'

For more on the use of AI in academic writing, do read and check the references in:

Berezin, Jared. Using Generative AI for Your Scientific Writing? Be Aware of Journal Policies. 23 Aug. 2023, https://mitcommlab.mit.edu/cee/2023/08/27/using-generative-ai-for-your-scientific-writing-be-aware-of-journal-policies/.

MIT Comparative Media Studies | Writing Group. Advice and Responses from Faculty on ChatGPT and A.I.-Assisted Writing. 13 Jan. 2023, https://cmsw.mit.edu/advice-and-responses-from-faculty-on-chatgpt-and-a-i-assisted-writing/.

Format of the Presentation - 'show & tell' (06.oct):
Based on the workshop on Tuesday 03.oct, an AI prompt/application is to be collectively generated by each group to be placed on a dedicated webpage or dedicated ChatGPT account (TBD), with guest respondents Tarsh Bates, Sara Thor, Robin Durant, Alejandro Haiek, and Maria Luna Nobile.

Formats of prompt output* (other formats accepted with prior notice)
- a play / dialogue with at least three characters
- sci-fi
- essay
- epic poem
- short story
- fairy tale
- short film script
- political speech
- a song
*The output text must be accompanied by the making of at least one relevant 'prop'.

Oral Presentations may be accompanied with any media, sculptural, performance, video, audio, Keynote, Power Point and/or PDF or text.
15 mins./group (10 mins presentation + 5 mins review).

Archiving: The presentation, AI prompt, and accompanying text must be placed on the course Canvas page.

Supplementary Readings for the Examination (due 05.jan.2024, more details on their use to follow)

Bardi, Lina Bo. Three Essays on Design and the Folk Arts of Brazil. Introduction by Hilary Macartney, translated by Zanna Gilbert. West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring-Summer 2013), pp. 110-1.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/670978

Berrios-Negron, Luis, Suza Husse, et al. UNDISCIPLINARY LEARNING. REMAPPING THE AESTHETICS OF RESISTANCE. DISTRICT Berlin, 22.09 - 19.11.2016.
http://undisciplinarylearning.com/en/space/undisciplinary-learning-remapping-the-aesthetics-of-resistance-exhibition/

Berrios-Negron, Luis. Neganthropic Anarchive. PhD installation video and documentation. Gammelgaard, DK 2019.
https://medium.com/intransitive-journal/outcomes-from-the-anarchive-memory-05-2611594b96d8

---. Tear do Terreiro. Installation catalogue and documentation, 3rd Biennial of Art of Bahia, Salvador, BRA 2014.
http://www.luisberriosnegron.org/14_LBN+BB3_NSXIII-TearDoTerreiro.pdf

Bonnevier, Katerina. Behind Straight Curtains: Towards a Queer Feminist Theory of Architecture. PhD dissertation, KTH. 2007. Pp. 105-127
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:11685/FULLTEXT01.pdf&sa=U&ei=7CxOU7CPOYagyATIpoGgDw&ved=0CBsQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNFvfsAwC4OE1xWcqk2NTwHqLueSeg

Demos, TJ. Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology. Sternberg Press, 2016. Pp. 7-29.
https://www.sternberg-press.com/product/decolonizing-nature-contemporary-art-and-the-politics-of-ecology/

Dombois, Florian. ‘Surf''‘, Research Catalogue, 2013
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/41240/41241/0/0

Hameed, Ayesha. Black Atlantis: The Plantationocene. Video, MAP Office eds. My Ocean Guide. Venice: Lightbox Publishing, 2017. (L'Internationale Talks)
https://www.internationaleonline.org/dialogues/23_black_atlantis_the_plantationocene/

Krauss, Rosalind. ‘Sculpture in the Expanded Field’. October, vol. 8, 1979.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/778224.pdf

MADEYOULOOK. Gardens of Others. Podcasts, 2020-21.
http://www.made-you-look.net/writing/2022/10/13/gardens-of-others

Massey, Doreen B. For Space. SAGE, 2005. Pp.1-8
https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/for-space/book227109

Neimanis, Astrida. Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology. Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017. Pp.09-15.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/bodies-of-water-9781474275392/

Petti, Alessandro, Marie-Louise Richards (eds.). What Does It Mean "To Decolonize"? Decolonizing Architecture Advanced Studies, Royal Institute of Art June 2021. Pp. 6-13.
https://www.daas.academy/events/#decolonizing-5

Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg. ‘Epistemic Objects/Technical Objects’. Case 2: Eccentric, edited by Anxious Prop (collective), 1st ed., vol. 1, Europrint Medien, 2010, pp. 21–28.
http://www.theanxiousprop.org/pdf/AXP_Case2_07-2010.pdf

Skovmøller, Amalie and Mathias Danbolt. Ripple Effects: Many questions have emerged after an artistic action against a plaster cast of Frederik V at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts made a big splash on the Danish art scene. Kunstkritikk - Nordic Art Review, 04.12.20.
https://kunstkritikk.com/ripple-effects/

Weisman, Leslie. Discrimination by Design: A Feminist Critique of the Man-Made Environment. University of Illinois Press, 1992. Pp.9-27.
https://experts.umn.edu/en/publications/discrimination-by-design-a-feminist-critique-of-the-man-made-envi

Yusoff, Kathryn. A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. University of Minnesota Press, 2018. Pp.22-27.
https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/a-billion-black-anthropocenes-or-none

Zollinger, Carla. Lina Bo Bardi and the Bahian Modern Art Museum: museum-school, museum in progress. Translated by Nadia Kerecuk – Embassy of Brazil in London 2012.
https://linabobarditogether.com/2012/09/02/lina-bo-bardi-and-the-bahian-modern-art-museum-museum-school-museum-in-progress/

Format of the Examination (given 12.dec, due 05.jan.2024)

Your final examination assignment will be a text where you discuss the basis of your own theory of architecture. You should review the general AI prompting (and/or the API) you developed with your group. The criteria for the text is:

As PDF file;
- One-page minimum, two-page maximum of text, at least 500, to a maximum of 1000 words;
- If images created / included, up to two more pages;
- You must include a separate page just with the prompts;
- Use at least three of the references that are on the Canvas page (Author last name, YEAR);
- Concept or paraphrasing should be referenced to at least three sources that are on the Canvas page (Author last name, YEAR, ie. Bo Bardi, 1958);
- At least one specific quote footnoted AMA citation format, z.b.:

For footnote quotes, use Modern Language Association (MLA) ie.:
Capetillo, Luisa, and Lara Walker. Absolute Equality: An Early Feminist Perspective = Influencias de Las Ideas Modernas. Arte Público Press, 2009.

To sum up, 2 to 5 pages, PDF format to be submitted in Canvas by 05.Januar.2024

Group tutorials - Thursday 5th October 2023

Groups will be seen as follows:

09.40-10.00
10.00-10.20
10.20-10.40
10.40-11.00
11.20-11.40
11.40-12.00
LUNCH
13.00-13.20
13.20-13.40
13.40-14.00
14.00-14.20
BREAK
14.40-15.00
15.00-15.20
15.20-15.40
(Not present)

Group presentations - Friday 6th October 2023

10.00 Luis introduction to jury members, preparations

10.15 Group 1

10.30 Group 2

10.45 Group 13

11.00 BREAK

11.15 Group 3

11.30 Group 12

11.45 Group 4

LUNCH

13.00 Group 11

13.15 Group 5

13.30 Group 10

13.45 Group 6

14.00 BREAK

14.15 Group 9

14.30 Group 7

14.45 Group 8

15.00 Discussion

Bookable tutorials

You can book a one-to-one tutorial with Luis and Mikael to discuss your individual assignment in weeks 45, 47, and 49 (TBD). Tutorials take place on Monday and Thursday afternoons on Zoom / Teams or in a Room TBD. Refer to your Studio schedule first to find a time you are free, and book a time using the Calendar on the left hand side of this page (soon to be posted).

If you cannot see tutorials in the calendar, click Meetings and then Find Meetings.

Assessment

This course consists of three modules:

Spatial communication 1.5 hp (the grade for this module comes from the Vertical Workshop)
Theoretical composition methods 1.5 hp (assessed by the written assignment to be submitted online Friday 05.jan.2024)
Research and dissemination methods 3.0 hp (assessed by engagement and participation in week 40 seminars and presentations)

Learning outcomes (in addition to those specified on the Syllabus)

Knowledge and understanding

Describe the environmental interaction between theories and practices of architecture
Process why architects ought become experts at the junctures and polemics between perception, space, and environment

Competence and skills

Discuss the concepts of space, location, perspective (human and more-than-human), form, figure, and body
Apply basic methods of sculptural and spatial analysis and communication

Academic Resources

UmU Library: academic writing resources

Course responsible

Luis Berríos Negrón, Associate Professor & Research Fellow [luis.berrios-negron@umu.se]

with Mikael Parkman, Guest Teacher [mikael.parkman@umu.se]