Search results for ""Author Vera Bühlmann""

With her inversion of McLuhan’s famous dictum that the medium be the message, the author attempts to sketch a concept of mediality that is capable of hosting and accommodating the self-referential agility of medialized instrumentality within an element of communicability. Mediality is conceived as virtual dis-positivity, and its core predication is to receive and index the totality of what can be a formally-symbolic, and hence a communicable, object. So conceived, mediality foils purely logical, as well as purely fictional notions of order and is capable of opening up the possibility of a civic architectonics, one capable of articulating its assemblages with polyvalent and discretely variable elements, and in a multitude of competing manners. In this book, the author traces the possibility of such an architectonics from a diagnostic and cultural-historical point of view.

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Treatise on digital architecture Hovestadt’s treatise strictly follows the model of the famous treatises by Vitruvius (De architectura) and Alberti (De re aedificatoria), based on the supposition that we find ourselves in a comparable situation today. Vitruvius and Alberti expressed the meaning of architecture in their eras: Roman antiquity and the Renaissance. Hovestadt has done the same for the present day, incorporating considerations of physics, mathematics, technology, literature, and philosophy. Books I to III deal with the role of the architect and the objectivity of architecture. Books IV to VI address the modalities of speaking about and encoding architecture: the secret, the public, and the private. Books VII to X are dedicated to actual digital mechanisms: artificial intelligence, natural communication, gnomonics, and cultural heritage. 　 An architectural treatise for our age in 10 books Inspired by the works of Vitruvius and Alberti Published in three volumes in the Applied Virtuality Book Series, Vol. 19, 20, and 21

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Treatise on digital architecture Hovestadt’s treatise strictly follows the model of the famous treatises by Vitruvius (De architectura) and Alberti (De re aedificatoria), based on the supposition that we find ourselves in a comparable situation today. Vitruvius and Alberti expressed the meaning of architecture in their eras: Roman antiquity and the Renaissance. Hovestadt has done the same for the present day, incorporating considerations of physics, mathematics, technology, literature, and philosophy. Books I to III deal with the role of the architect and the objectivity of architecture. Books IV to VI address the modalities of speaking about and encoding architecture: the secret, the public, and the private. Books VII to X are dedicated to actual digital mechanisms: artificial intelligence, natural communication, gnomonics, and cultural heritage. An architectural treatise for our age in 10 books Inspired by the works of Vitruvius and Alberti Published in three volumes in the Applied Virtuality Book Series Ludger Hovestadt, professor of architecture and CAAD, ETH Zurich

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In The Digital, a Continent?, the author argues in favor of a way of thinking about digital technology that draws on the new materialism. She uses photosynthesis and nuclear fission as examples of processes that are as artificial as they are natural to explain how digital technology can be viewed within the paradigm of a "communicative physics" in which poetics interacts with mathematical thinking. The author concludes that we can better understand ourselves and digital technology by developing notions of the multifaceted ways energy, form, and intellect interact in global architectonics. Theoretical consideration of digital technology Visual language and science New volume in the Applied Virtuality Book Series

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Free thinking, unconstrained by facts The book is based on the thesis that we live in a world of abundance, full of natural riches, and cultural artifacts, full of human intellect and powerful technologies. Our thinking, however, is dominated by the opposite, the notion of scarcity. The limits of nature act as an inevitable necessity. In his book, David Schildberger adopts a novel approach to the subject of resources, with the help of intelligent instruments that introduce new foods, such as chocolate made from cocoa cell cultures, and even a fruit-bearing vine raised far from a vineyard. With his imagined scenarios, the author invites the reader to dare stretch their intellectual imaginations and ultimately presents nature as a contingent. Conceptual models on the subject of nature and alternative ways of producing food Recommended reading for architectural IT specialists New volume in the Applied Virtuality Book Series

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The Atlas of Fantastic infrastructures deals with the characterization of architecture, media and digital infrastructure. In concrete terms, it deals with the materiality of buildings and the intangibility of data. While technical or functional studies often tend to "flatten" the multiplex phenomena, the author speculatively propose four abstract prisms: 1) AFFAIR WITH PHANTOMS – who do we want to meet in a digitally mediated space, and what kind of conversation/activity will we have?; 2) PARA-DESIRE – where do our surreal desires live, and what are their strategies?; 3) MEDIATED SPACE CATALOGUE – what kinds of data, information, things, spaces and places are available in the world, and how our activities blend them?; 4) GIFTS OF THE GARDENS – how can an idea enter physical reality, and what are the pathways of such becomings? The author examines buildings and projects by Toyo Ito, Philippe Rahm, Olafur Eliasson, Greg Lynn, MVRDV, Electroland, Troika, NOX, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and others.

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In Natural Communication, the author criticizes the current paradigm of specific goal orientation in the complexity sciences and proposes an alternative that envisions a fundamental architectonics of communication. His model of "natural communication" encapsulates modern theoretical concepts from mathematics and physics, in particular category theory and quantum theory. From these fields it abstracts precise concepts such as to constitute a terminological basis for this theory which offers the opportunity to open up novel ways of thinking about complexity. The author is convinced that it is only possible to establish a continuity and coherence with contemporary thinking, especially with respect to complexity, through looking into the past.

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Imagine a world where the power is always on, where there is not just enough energy, but an abundance of it. Such a world is no Utopia, it is a possible reality. Using indefinitely available sources of energy – especially photovoltaic solar, in combination with others – and networking this energy, much in the way that we have networked information, we can get beyond our current energy ‘crisis’ and resolve it. The world we then find ourselves in is not a world without problems – we will face new challenges on the way – but in terms of energy it is a world of plenty. Rooted in sound theory and based on technology that is available now, A Genius Planet offers an accessible but detailed and insightful perspective on how we can free ourselves from our dependency on natural resources and generate, trade, and use energy in ways that open up the genuine potential that we have at our disposal today.

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In his 1979 essay The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge philosopher Jean-François Lyotard noted that the advent of the computer opened up a stage of progress in which knowledge has become a commodity. Modernity and postmodernity appear as two stages of a process resulting from the conflict of science and narrative. As science attempts to distance itself from narrative, it must create its own legitimacy. This paper takes up this challenge with a focus on the question of imagery. The image is precisely what modern science seeks to free itself from in its quest for absolute transparency. This transparency is examined from the perspective of architecture, drawing on arguments from philosophy, quantum mechanics, theology and information theory. Natural science in the context of postmodernism Quantum mechanics and information theory New volume in the Applied Virtuality Book Series

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