Building (Un)Intelligence

This research seminar investigates how architecture intersects 20th and 21st century technologies through spatial infrastructures and display cultures. Through creative research, I had to build collective knowledge that critically re-examines concepts of intelligence and its social, environmental, and labor costs. Course readings and study objects engage with people, sites, and perspectives that have contributed to and been obfuscated by histories of technology. Potential subjects included Eames's collaboration with IBM, Sottsass's Olivetti design research, Denver native Robert Propst and his engagement at Herman Miller Research Corporation, and the “Mother of All Demos” that became a model for most tech launches today. Drawing on positions within and beyond architecture, I produced individual design research projects that examine the entangled relationship between architecture and technology to reveal the hidden bodies, materials, and sociotechnical landscapes behind contemporary technological myths.