Systems

To intervene “architecturally” is to intervene in and through assemblages of thoughts and things; i.e., to intervene into what are claimed to be systems, in terms of system. In other words, architecture necessarily involves interjections into, and reflections of, competing dynamics of control, into competing forms of authority, whether political, economic, administrative, or epistemological.

The SYSTEMS umbrella invites work that investigates architecture’s systemic elements, its claims to system, as well as its relationship to other forms of system or theories of system in both epistemological and physical terms. We welcome work that looks at the relationships between aesthetics and the philosophy of systems, from Kant and Hegel to von Bertalanffy, Luhman, and beyond. We also welcome investigations in the history of systems-thinking as applied in various planning exercises, biopolitical thought, technologies, aesthetic and architectural practices, pedagogy, and institutional functioning around the world.

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