Delighted to be in Tallinn for the 2018 Winter School of the Estonian Academy of Arts (15-19 of January), thanks to the invitation of Francisco Martínez.
In particular, in my presentation–titled Technologies of friendship? Open design objects and their figurations of relatedness–I will be speaking about some of the particular creative processes of En torno a la silla (or ETS, the Barcelona-based critical disability and open design collective I have been part of since 2012), gadgets and indoor/outdoor spatial interventions whose conception and execution have entailed a series of experiments whereby the relation between the people involved was granted particular architectural and design affordances. Indeed, and thanks to particular relations they have afforded, I will refer to them using the particular name the very collective has employed: i.e. technologies of friendship. Thinking from there I will search to unfold how En torno a la silla’s open design objects should not only be described as inscribing and supporting already existing relations but also affording a plexus of potential figurations of forms of relatedness, whereby the process of making is also a process of relating. Or, as I would call it, an exploration into a ‘how-to’ friendship: a particular mode of relating premised on the very concern of discussing and showing the how-to of relations.
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This Winter school, with the title Building Lives, invites for a reflection on the place buildings occupy in peoples’ biographies by studying the transformations of built forms and its correlation with individual subjectivities and societal changes at large. Specifically, the objective of the event is to explore the possibilities to correlate personal maturing and the life states of buildings and provide new tools, concepts and frameworks for understanding the plural life stages of the built environment.
A key proposition behind this Winter School is that comparisons can be drawn between the biographies of persons and the biographies of buildings, yet perhaps the metaphor of biography highlights a too linear process of change, instead of the eventful discontinuation and change of states they might go through.
The programme is set up to reconsider the birth, death, and reconstitution of the built environment by paying attention to the different relations that emerge between buildings and people. The event will consist of lectures, workshops and artists talks, including a keynote and four excursions. Some possible lines of thought addressed by papers may be:
- What are the recognised stages of a building’s life?
- Can we use human metaphors to study the built environment?
- In which ways do buildings store personal memories and social significance?
- What discrete activities are engendered to maintain buildings alive?
- When or what is the ultimate no-return point that marks the death of buildings and their functional discontinuation?
Organiser: Francisco Martínez
Invited scholars: Tomás Errázuriz (Andrés Bello, Chile); Andres Kurg (EKA); Patrick Laviolette (Tallinn Univ.), Michał Murawski (Queen Mary Univ. of London); Tomás Sánchez Criado (Munich Center for Technology in Society)
Artists, designers & architects: Andra Aaloe; Flo Kasearu; Paul Kuimet; Laura Kuusk; Karli Luik; Triin Ojari; Margit Säde; Ingel Vaikla and Tüüne-Kristin Vaikla.
Programme
15th, Monday (Suur Kloostri 11, Interior Design Dept.)
10:30 Introduction and lecture by F. Martínez, Architectural Taxidermy
11:45 Seminar by P. Kuimet
14:00 Seminar by L. Kuusk
15:00 Lecture by T. Errázuriz, When new is not better: the making of home through holding on to objects
16:00 Seminar by T.K. Vaikla, How long is the life of a building? Screening the film ‘The House Guard’ (I. Vaikla, 2014),
17:00 Excursion to the F. Kasearu Museum.
16th, Tuesday (Suur Kloostri 11, Interior Design Dept.)
10:30 Students’ Seminar.
14:00 Excursion to the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design.
16:00 Excursion: Sense of Domesticity by A. Aaloe & M. Säde.
17th, Wednesday Independent research by the students, preparing their own work on the biographical correlation between people and buildings / the built space.
18th, Thursday (Suur Kloostri 11, Room 103, Art History Dept.)
10:00 Keynote Lecture by M. Murawski, People make buildings (and buildings make people), but not under conditions of their own choosing. Chair, A. Kurg.
12:00 Round table about the life stages of buildings with T. K. Vaikla, K. Luik, T. Ojari, A. Kurg, and M. Murawski.
14:00 Independent research by the students
19th, Friday (Suur Kloostri 11, Interior Design Dept.)
10:30 Lecture by T. Sánchez Criado, Technologies of friendship? Open design objects and their figurations of relatedness.
12:00 Lecture by P. Laviolette, Buildings A-live
14:30 Presentations by students.