Subtopia Lecture: Ruin Machine
Dear all. It’s been way too long for the eerie subtopian silence to not finally come to an end, I know (and appreciate your patience!) but I’m afraid you will need to appreciate the drippy echoes of our sealed bunker here a bit longer.
But, I have several updates coming in the near future as soon as I have time! There was a trip to Detroit that was more than fascinating, and I just returned from a truly excellent and inspired weeklong workshop in Graz, Austria. There have also been some publications, and of course much to say about the two classes I've been teaching here at Woodbury; not to mention some future plans already in the works for next year. But, it will have to wait, I’m sorry.
However, if you are in San Diego this Thursday night I invite you to attend a presentation I am giving here at Woodbury’s School of Architecture at 6:30 PM, as I am the inaugural speaker kicking off a month long lecture series here on the post-industrial landscape. I will be discussing ruins in the context of globalization and the “geopolitics of decay.”
This is also working in conjunction with the next installment of OTRA/Another 2009, an architectural exhibition curated by my friend and colleague Rene Peralta focusing on the theme of Infrastructure, which will open to the public at Woodbury this Fri. evening. Go here for details of the participants.
For now, lecture details are here: the show begins at 6:30PM at Woodbury University School of Architecture, 2212 Main St., San Diego, 92113.
Hope you all can make it, and come say hello after if you do. Ciao for now, but Subtopia will have lots of news in the near future and hopefully get back on the posting path soon.
posted by Bryan Finoki • Permalink
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5 Comments:
I realize the lecture is already over but, is there any chance it was recorded and you could post the audio? sounds interesting.
i suggest you spend some time i germany. bohum is amazing, whole factories converted into discos, climbing, slides, etc. old oil containers turned into an art museum, etc.
Don't know that I've EVER really considered "ruins" as a topic in and of themselves. You talk about them as though it were a verb, an activity, an organism (or perhaps, parasite would be more apt). I like the incorporation of the quote by the economist you mention, Schumpeter. With capitalism, the built-in obsolescence of our society is a destructive-constructive parasite/paradigm that deceptively poses as progress. The masses are shifted to and fro (one mechanism being slick advertising/marketing, another being punishment (i.e. the law)) - loose change falling from our pockets as though herded into a giant consumer sifter at some god-like archaeological dig (Zeus & other Greek like gods toying with us like chess pieces, mining our minds & bodies the same way we destruct our earth for natural resources). What you have described, in my opinion, is a chaotic process without any intelligent leadership. You may disagree about this part, and I'd like to know your opinion, but your "Ruin Machine" is an uncontrolled vortex of masochists, sadists, and fetishists: blind consumers slobbering over themselves for a semblance of power and control. Willing participants or not, the unconscious masses are IN this inescapable (?) vortex. In mythological terms, the Ruin Machine = Hades. In biblical terms, the Ruin Machine is Babylon. In modern terms, the Ruin Machine is Capitalism.
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THE PILOT - ISSUE 00 - tackles the theme of Industrial Renewal.
Check the stories and pictures about how this process is perceived in Athens, London, Berlin, New York, Beijing, Shenzhen, Moscow, Malmo, San Paulo, Newport, Paris and Ugrali. And find out more about why industrial renewal is the first choice of CITIES The Magazine
I know that this is not an appropiate way but I couldn t find any contact button here ...
I would like you to invite to our blog of FUSION CITIES, two border cities growing together. It was a seminar at the TU Darmstadt and some results are quite interesting. We have been researching on natural, articificial, social and political borders.
www.fusion-cities.par-darmstadt.de
on our blog you can write me an email by leaving a comment and marking EMAIL.
Thanks
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