DISJUNCTIVE SYNTHESES OF (POST) DIGITAL ARCHITECTURE AND LIFE

In her recent book, Architecture, Animal, Human: The Asymmetrical Condition, Catherine Ingraham maintains a stalwart asymmetry between, on the one hand, human, animal and other life, and on the other hand, the material constraints or framed enclosures of architecture. When we turn to the recent, speculative work of the Emergence and Design Group (Michael Hensel, Michael Weinstock, and Achim Menges) we find a practice that deploys the software of computer technologies as a medium that has become increasingly life-like in its operational capacities and engagements. Rather than an asymmetrical condition, digital architects, such as the Emergence and Design Group, appear to be dismantling the distinction between architectural form and human, animal and other life forms. What we are asked to imagine is a continuum that unfolds in both directions, one infecting the other, organic interpenetrating inorganic, technology intertwined with biological life. What’s more, the resulting hybrid of architecture-cum-life in (de)formation, should be apprehended as animated and ever-responsive to the field from which it emerges. The formal complexity that supposedly results erupts unexpectedly from a plane of continuous variation where the emphasis lies in the surface effect. This paper will trace the legacy of the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari with respect to key conceptual moves, implicit and explicit, being made by so-called digital architects. Following what can be identified as Deleuze and Guattari’s ethics of immanence, this paper will also consider whether an appropriate ethico-aesthetic practice can be engaged to address what appears to be a new architectural paradigm with its attendant desire for an intimate proximity with life

Bullfighting, Sex and Sensation

The investigation that follows will flex in four directions, backwards and forwards, along the elastic threadthat ties the event of the bullfight to sex and thence a warm spill of sensation. In order to enter the fraythat is the bullfight, I will appropriate a term from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari by way of which eachof the four thrusts I advance, or fights I present, can be read as asignifying ruptures [1] . With thisconcept we are encouraged to question the integrity of signification. By breaching the threshold ofsignification there results a momentary loss of the senses, at which point we might take the opportunityto search out or invent other modes of making sense. The activity of writing, for instance, as one meansof experimenting with sense, "has nothing to do with signifying. It has to do with surveying, mapping,even realms that are yet to come" [2]. Though the bullfight is organised by way of its own particularcodes ofoperation and signification, much is also left to chance and the unexpected [3] . With thisemphasis on unexpected novelty in mind, I ask you to consider this paper as an arena in which fourbullfights will be conducted. The twists and turns of the trope of the bullfight will be surveyed across fourdifferent textual terrains in order to explore the effects that result in bringing these terrains into thevicinity of each other. As such, I will touch upon the work of Georges Bataille, Friedrich Nietzsche,Francis Bacon and Michel Leiris. As Nietzsche has suggested, using the tauromachic trope, to enter intoa "frightful and dangerous" enterprise does not necessarily enable the capture of an enraged bull [4]; atthe outset we cannot necessarily be assured of what will eventuate with the outcome. Furthermore, thatthe bull is always vanquished merely holds to the dictates of good and common sense, conventions that,in this arena, are only tenuously maintained. It is instead the event that surfaces as an incorporeal blocof sensation, exploding in the midst of the spectacle, that this paper determines to pursue

The Property Issue. Ground Control and the Commons | Power and Justice

Recent editions of the German journal ARCH+ Journal for Architecture and Urbanism (2018) and the UK based The Architectural Review (June 2018) set their sights on the complex imbroglio of architecture and property, taking up themes of power, justice and the law, and asking: Who owns the land upon which our built edifices resolutely stand? Who can lay claim to such territorial power? The cover of The Architectural Review shows us the personification of justice, her eyes blinded. Colour, race, ..

An Antipodean Imaginary for Architecture+Philosophy: Ficto-Critical Approaches to Design Practice Research

This is a collaborative essay that presents the design practice research of six postgraduate researchers (past and present), who have been working within the Architecture+Philosophy research stream at the School of Architecture, RMIT University, Melbourne. What unites the projects is an aspiration to maintain a creative relationship between architectural design project research and critical theory, with an emphasis on transdisciplinary potentialities. While the design research introduced here is diverse, the researchers all share an engagement in how to construct imaginary worlds using what can be identified as a ficto-critical approach that draws on the productive intersection of architecture and philosophy. Hélène Frichot, who will situate this research from her position as their primary doctoral advisor, argues that by pursuing a productive relay between theory and practice a novel Antipodean design imaginary can be seen to emerge across the collected projects

Flow-directed PCA for monitoring networks

Measurements recorded over monitoring networks often possess spatial and temporal correlation inducing redundancies in the information provided. For river water quality monitoring in particular, flow-connected sites may likely provide similar information. This paper proposes a novel approach to principal components analysis to investigate reducing dimensionality for spatiotemporal flow-connected network data in order to identify common spatiotemporal patterns. The method is illustrated using monthly observations of total oxidized nitrogen for the Trent catchment area in England. Common patterns are revealed that are hidden when the river network structure and temporal correlation are not accounted for. Such patterns provide valuable information for the design of future sampling strategies

Population genomics of the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus. Insights into the recent worldwide invasion

Aedes albopictus, the “Asian tiger mosquito,” is an aggressive biting mosquito native to Asia that has colonized all continents except Antarctica during the last ~30–40 years. The species is of great public health concern as it can transmit at least 26 arboviruses, including dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses. In this study, using double- digest Restriction site-Associated DNA (ddRAD) sequencing, we developed a panel of ~58,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) based on 20 worldwide Ae. albopic-tus populations representing both the invasive and the native range. We used this genomic- based approach to study the genetic structure and the differentiation of Ae. albopictus populations and to understand origin(s) and dynamics of the recent inva-sions. Our analyses indicated the existence of two major genetically differentiated population clusters, each one including both native and invasive populations. The de-tection of additional genetic structure within each major cluster supports that these SNPs can detect differentiation at a global and local scale, while the similar levels of genomic diversity between native and invasive range populations support the scenario of multiple invasions or colonization by a large number of propagules. Finally, our re-sults revealed the possible source(s) of the recent invasion in Americas, Europe, and Africa, a finding with important implications for vector- control strategies