The Politics of Parametricism: Digital Technologies and the Future(s) of Sociality

Port to Port, Advanced Data Visualization Project courtesy of SIDL (Spatial Information Design Lab, Columbia University), in collaboration with Thomson Reuters Research Unit. Project Team:Laura Kurgan, Project Director, Jen Lowe, Research Associate and Data Visualization

7-9pm Friday 15th & 10am-6.30pm Saturday 16th November 2013 REDCAT, 631 W 2nd St, Los Angeles, CA 90012 www.redcat.org aestheticsandpolitics.calarts.edu/conferences A Conference Curated and Organized by: Matthew Poole & Manuel Shvartzberg Hosted by: The MA Aesthetics & Politics Program at CalArts and The Gallery at REDCAT Lead Sponsor: Autodesk Media Sponsor: eVolo Magazine Guest Speakers: Phil Bernstein (Autodesk), Benjamin Bratton (UCSD), Christina Cogdell (UCD), Teddy Cruz (UCSD), Peggy Deamer (Yale), Andrés Jaque (Office for Political Innovation), Laura Kurgan (Columbia), Neil Leach (USC, Los Angeles), Reinhold Martin (Columbia) & Patrik Schumacher (Zaha Hadid Architects, London). PARAMETRICISM has been heralded as the new avant-garde in the fields of architecture and design – the next ‘grand style’ in the history of architectural movements. Parametric models enable digital designers to create complex structures and environments as well as new understandings of space, both real and virtual. Whether as tools for democratic action or tyrannical spectacle; self- and community-building capabilities; a post-humanistic subject; or, the mediatized politics of our various futurisms – all these themes are figured within the Parametricist discourse. This conference, which includes a range of high profile international speakers from architectural practice and theory, will explore urgent questions that concern the social and political ramifications at stake in the evolution of this new design paradigm.