urban occupation : berlin

This week we will read two essays with a focus on the work of Bruno Latour, French sociologist associated with ANT (Actor Network Theory). ANT is a methodology used by scholars and researchers predominantly involved in what is called ’science and technology studies’ to understand the relations between human and non-human actors, and how knowledge (especially technological and scientific knowledge) is both produced and how ideas discovered through these relations. In the essay included here, Latour continues the debate concerning the problems surrounding the critical project or ‘criticality’. Then, the article by Fallan gives a brief introduction to ANT as well as Latour’s work, and addresses why this material might be of relevance to architecture.

1. Bruno Latour, Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?, in Critical Inquiry (Winter 2004).
Bruno Latour, Why has critique run out of steam

2. Kjetil Fallan, Architecture in Action: Traveling with Actor-Network Theory in the Land of Architectural Research, in Architecture Theory Review, 13:1 (2008).
Kjetil Fallan, Architecture in Action

Here are the new readings for this week friday, as always password protected:

1. Michael Speaks, Which Way Avant-garde?  2. Sarah Whiting and Robert Somol, Notes Around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism 3. Reinhold Martin, Critical of What? Toward a Utopian Realism

The reading group will meet at 1.30pm to continue the discussion, everyone is welcome.  

Reinhold Martin, Critical of What? Toward a Utopian Realism / Sarah Whiting and Robert Somol, Notes Around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism / Michael Speaks, Which Way Avant-garde? 

AAAARG is a conversation platform - at different times it performs as a school, or a reading group, or a journal. AAAARG was created with the intention of developing critical discourse outside of an institutional framework. But rather than thinking of it like a new building, imagine scaffolding that attaches onto existing buildings and creates new architectures between them. Weblink

(both are password protected)
guattari_new_aesthetic_paradigm-secured
bourriaud_the_aesthetic_paradigm_felix_guattari_and_art
rochus