Future Present Symposium

The Future Present Symposium explores the use of computation to radicalize spatial practices as well as the boundaries between technology, design, activism, and critical thinking. We will host and moderate a discussion between Imani Jacqueline Brown and Elaine Gan, followed by a conversation between Sam Lavigne and Farzin Lotfi-Jam.

Please register online for zoom webinar details


Speakers

Imani Jacqueline Brown is an artist, activist, and researcher from New Orleans, living in London. She is currently a PhD candidate at Queen Mary, University of London, a research fellow with Forensic Architecture, and an associate lecturer in MA Architecture at the Royal College of Arts. Her work investigates the ‘continuum of extractivism,’ which spans from settler-colonial genocide and slavery to fossil fuel production.

Elaine Gan is an artist-theorist and professor who teaches at Wesleyan University, Science in Society Program. She is co-editor of an interdisciplinary anthology, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene (Minnesota, 2017) and directs Multispecies Worldbuilding Lab, an experimental podcast about climate change.

Sam Lavigne is an artist and educator whose work deals with data, surveillance, cops, natural language processing, and automation. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Design at UT Austin.

Farzin Lotfi-Jam is an assistant professor in Architecture at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning where he directs the Realtime Urbanism Lab and director of Farzin Farzin, an interdisciplinary design studio working across architecture, urbanism, computation, and media.

Organized by Professor Laura Kurgan and Adam Vosburgh, Computational Design Practices Program



This virtual event is open to the general public. Please register in advance for zoom webinar details.

GSAPP is committed to providing universal access to all of our events. Please contact events@arch.columbia.edu to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs.

Image Credit: Imani Jacqueline Brown, Old Gods, 2021. Framed and reflected chart of permits for coastal development, including oil and gas wells, flowlines, pipelines, and access canals in Quarantine Bay, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana (1920-2020), mapped against antebellum Public Land Survey System (PLSS) charts (1820s-1860s). The PLSS was the first US system to plat, or divide, territory into parcels of private property.