Studio 28

Post Privacy

Johnny Long and Alexander Gibson

This studio is available to students enrolled in ABPL90142 Studio C, ABPL90143 Studio D, and ABPL90115 Studio E.

Studio Description

In the age of Surveillance Capitalism whereby companies such as Facebook, Google and Apple continue to expand to hold influence over more and more people, they take on positions within society, not of companies, but of digital geopolitical empires. It is difficult to establish where we are headed and how we should begin to understand the ongoing transformations of the city and public space; of the relationship between the local and the global; of the digital and the physical.

Probing our current urban condition within this context leads to a desire to understand the city through alternate spaces, outside of the traditional spatial-cultural constellations of contemporary urban life. Looking closely at the intersections of public and private, the physical and non-physical and analyzing the mechanisms that mediate or seek to define the two states, we can begin to interrogate the very nature of the contemporary condition we inhabit and the role that architecture has to play within it.

In our contemporary world, black and white no longer exists.

Studio Outcome

Students will use research methods to explore concepts and readings of the interface of public and private as a lens to probe our contemporary context and in particular the role of space, politics and human agency. Investigations will be guided through:

• Students will develop their own understanding of the terms public and private, creating alternative lenses with which to view space; to view the city.
• Through a series of esquisses, students will be asked to interrogate moments throughout the city - thresholds of public and private - analysing the details of the spaces and their impact on the city, allowing them to build a tool kit with which they can begin to formulate a conceptual framework for their own designs.
• Students will be asked to first design an interface between public and private that stems from their initial research.
• Students will then design a speculative proposal that reflects their critical evaluation of how these spaces engage with contemporary life.

Studio Leaders

Alexander and Johnny are both registered architects practicing in Melbourne. Between them they have practiced at a range of scales and have amassed experience in civic, educational, residential, multiple residential, hospitality and large scale master planning projects. Combined with their practice experience they have worked on a range of conceptual projects from small to large scale installations, exhibitions and competitions in Australia and overseas. They are interested in exploring the intersections of art, architecture and philosophy and in the role that architecture plays in contemporary life and the evolving influence of design on socio-cultural phenomena.

Readings & References

• Of other spaces - Michel Foucault
• The order of things: An anthology of the human sciences - Michel Foucalt
• The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction - Walter Benjamin
• Architecting after Politics - Brandlhuber+ and Christopher Roth
• You are now remotely controlled - Shoshana Zuboff
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Shoshana Zuboff
• Life a user’s manual - George Perec

Schedule Mondays 18:15-21:15 and Thursdays 18:15-21:15 in MSD Room 144

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