DISPATCHES FROM THE LATE-POSTMODERN PRESENT The present cultural epoch is one of light-speed, baud rates, and nano-seconds; of algorithms, avatars, and artificial intelligences; of hashtags, real-time simulations, and reality television presidents. This talk is about StudioMARS designing and thinking in and around the complicated assemblages of the 21st Century.

MARK STANLEY is Lecturer and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee’s College of Architecture and Design and co-founder of StudioMARS, a speculative design-research practice. His research and teaching is on the agency of architecture and design within larger systems of cultural and political exchange – including the impacts of digital culture and cyborg subjectivity on global urbanism and economy, the problematics of the Anthropocene, and how architecture participates in network and media cultures.

RESOURCES

A selection of readings related to the lecture is linked to below. Please note that you must be logged in to Google with your CMU Andrew ID to access the materials.

Writings by Mark Stanley:

• "Manhattan Project 2.0"; a brief essay examining one of Mark Stanley's design-research projects and frames it among other idea structures, project will be discussed during the lecture 

• "Geographies of Consumption"; ACSA paper on dispersed forms of exchange that make up 21st Century urbanism by Mark Stanley & Micah Rutenberg

• "The Final Review: Negaters Gonna Negate"; an article on design review culture by Mark Stanley

Essays relevant to the lecture and the work of Mark Stanley, authored by others:

• "A Rhinestone as Big as the Ritz" from Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy by Dave Hickey (1997)

• The chapter "Production" from A Hacker Manifesto by McKenzie Wark

• "Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin" by Donna Haraway; Environmental Humanities (2015)

• "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" by Jorge Luis Borges; ALAMUT: Bastion of Peace and Information (1999)