Readings

SES # TOPICS READINGS
Introduction
1 Presentation of the theme, syllabus structure and assignments No assigned readings
Production of Objects
2 Discussion: We will discuss different definitions of modeling and relations between models, diagrams and objects. We will examine connections of obedience and modeling within the current realms of captitalist production.

Buy at Amazon Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. Harper & Row, 1974, pp. 1–13, 153–165.

Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley. Sabotage: The Conscious Withdrawal of the Workers' Industrial Efficiency. I.W.W. Publishing Bureau, 1916.

Buy at Amazon Stallybrass, Peter. "Marx's Coat." In Border Fetishims: Material Objects in Unstable Spaces. Edited by Patricia Spyer. Routledge, 1997. ISBN: 9780415918572.

Model (reading):

Kwinter, Sanford and Umberto Boccioni. "Landscapes of Change: Boccioni's "Stati D'animo" as a General Theory of Models." Assemblage, no. 19 (1992): 50-65.

Media juxtapositions:

Stiles, Jackson. "Apple Accused of 'Sabotaging' Old iPhones." The New Daily, December 31, 2015.

Optional:

Buy at Amazon Miller, Daniel. "Materiality: An Introduction." In Materiality. Duke University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780822335429. [Preview with Google Books]

3 Studio: Introduction in assignments and discussion on the practice of modeling No assigned readings
Production of Space
4 Discussion: We will interrogate production of space as defined by H. Lefebvre. We will explore planning and mapping as two different and sometimes even opposed mechanisms of spatial production?

Buy at Amazon Corner, James. "The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention." In Mappings. Edited by Dennis Cosgrove. Reaktion Books, 1999. ISBN: 9781861890214.

Buy at Amazon Knabb, Ken, ed. Situationalist International Anthology. Revised & Expanded edition. Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006, pp. 1–14, 43–46. ISBN: 9780939682041.

Buy at Amazon Upton, Dell. "The Grid and the Republican Spatial Imagination." In Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic. Yale University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780300124880.

Elden, Stuart. "There is a Politics of Space because Space is Political: Henri Lefebvre and the Production of Space." (PDF) Radical Philosophy Review volume 10, number 2 (2007) 101–116.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon O'Rourke, Karen. "When Walking Becomes Mapping: Labyrinths, Songlines." In Walking and Mapping: Artists as Cartographers. Reprint edition. MIT Press, 2016. [Preview with Google Books]

Media juxtapositions:

Lamorisse, Albert. Le Ballon Rouge (1956). Parts 1–4. YouTube.

Hitler in Paris. (June 22, 1940). YouTube.

Model (reading):

Rycroft, Chris H. and Martin Z. Bazant. "Lecture 1: Introduction to Random Walks and Diffusion." (PDF) Department of Mathematics, MIT. February 1, 2005.

5 Studio: Modelling studio, presenting the list of people to be contacted. Developing the first assignment. No assigned readings
The Agencies of Production
6 Discussion: We will explore the agency of growth and efficiency in the era of uncertainty.

Buy at Amazon Daston, Lorraine J. and Peter Gallison. Objectivity. Zone Books, 2010, pp. 11–16. ISBN: 9781890951795.

Buy at Amazon Levi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. The University of Chicago Press, 1966, pp. 1–33. ISBN: 9780226474847.

Buy at Amazon Latour, Bruno. "A Collective of Humans and Nonhumans." In Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Harvard University Press, 1999, pp. 174–215. ISBN: 9780674653368.

Buy at Amazon Daipha, Phaedra. "Decision-making under Uncertainty." In Masters of Uncertainty: Weather Forecasters and the Quest for Ground Truth. University of Chicago Press, 2015, pp. 1–24. ISBN: 9780226298689. [Preview with Google Books]

Modeling (overview):

Buy at Amazon Burke, Christopher, Erik Kindel, and Sue Walker, eds. Isotype: Design and Contexts 1925–1971. Hyphen Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780907259473.

7 Studio No assigned readings
Production of Democracy
8 Dicussion: We will discuss concepts of multitude, agonistic pluralism and autogestion as possible models for radical production of democracy.

Buy at Amazon Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. "The Multitude against Empire." In Empire. Harvard University Press, 2001, pp. 393–415. ISBN: 9780674006713.

Buy at Amazon Mouffe, Chantal. "What is Agnostic Politics?" In Agnotstics: Thinking The World Politically. Verso, 2013, pp. 1–19. ISBN: 9781781681039.

Buy at Amazon ———. "For an Agnotstic Model of Democracy." In The Democratic Paradox. Verso, 2009, pp. 80–105. ISBN: 9781844673551.

Buy at Amazon Lefebvre, Henri. "Theoretical Problems of Autogestion." In State, Space, World: Selected Essays. Edited by Stuart Elden and Neil Brenner. Translated by Gerald Moore. University of Minnesota Press, 2009, pp. 138–152. ISBN: 9780816653171. [Preview with Google Books]

Model (reading):

Buy at Amazon Hobbes, Thomas. "Of Common Wealth." In Leviathan. Penguin Classics, 1982. ISBN: 9780140431957.

9 Studio: Studio time. (See 2nd modeling experiment description.) No assigned readings
10 Studio: Discussion and preparation for the second assignment. No assigned readings
Production of Nature
11 Discussion: We will discuss meanings and relations of sublime and uncanny in the current context of ecological production.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Morley, Simon. The Sublime. MIT Press, 2010, pp. 12–21. ISBN: 9780262513913.

Buy at Amazon Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. Penguin Classics, 2003, pp. 123–162. ISBN: 9780142437476.

Buy at Amazon Smith, Neil. "Production of Nature." In Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space. 3rd edition. University of Georgie Press, 2008, pp. 53–59. ISBN: 9780820330990. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Picon, Antoine. "A Productive Countryside." In French Architects and Engineers in the Age of Enlightenment. Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780521123693.

Asafu-Adjaye, John, L. Blomquist, et al. "An Ecomodernist Manifesto." (PDF) (2015).

Model (reading):

Buy at Amazon Guattari, Felix. The Three Ecologies. Athione Press, 2000, pp. 23–70. ISBN: 9780485006087.

12 Studio No assigned readings
Production of Flows
13 Discussion: We will discuss socio-political agendas behind distributional and communicational processes across different scales and media. We will interrogate the notion of emptiness and disconnection as models of resistance within the dense realms of networked society.

Buy at Amazon Easterling, Keller. "Disposition." In Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space. Reprint edition. Verso, 2016. ISBN: 9781784783648.

Latour, Bruno. "Spheres and Networks. Two Ways to Reinterpret Globalization." Harvard Design Magazine 30 (2009): 138-144.

Buy at Amazon Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Polity, 2000, pp. 98–110. ISBN: 9780745624105.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Bratton, Benjamin H. "Introduction." In The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty. MIT Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780262029575. [Preview with Google Books]

Media juxtapositions:

US demographics visualised

Facebook - 2010 (JPG)

Zuckerman, Ethan. "How to Listen to Global Voices." TED Talks. July, 19, 2010. YouTube.

Modeling (overview):

Buy at Amazon Tinkler, Keith J. Introduction to Graphy Theoretical Methods in Geography (Concepts and Technqiues in Modern Geography; no. 14). Geo Abstracts, 1977. ISBN: 9780902246683.

14 Studio: Preparation for the midterm review No assigned readings
Production of Algorithms
15 Discussion: We will unfold the notion of network value and discuss how it is being generated through the current dynamics of cognitive capitalism.

Buy at Amazon Benkler, Yochai. "Introduction: A Moment of Opportunity and Challenge." In The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. Yale University Press, 2007, pp. 1–28. ISBN: 9780300125771.

Buy at Amazon Wolfe, Chartles T. "From Spinoza to the Socialist Cortex: Steps Toward the Social Brain." In Cognitive Architecture. From Bio-politics to Noo-politics. 010 Publishers, 2011, pp. 184–206. ISBN: 9789064507250. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Wark, McKenzie. A Hacker Manifesto. Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780674015432. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Critical Art Ensemble. "Electronic Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere." (PDF) In Digital Resistance: Explorations in Tactical Media. Autonomedia, 2001. ISBN: 9781570271199.

Model (read):

Buy at Amazon Pasquinelli, Matteo. "Google's PageRank Algorithm: A Diagram of the Cognitive Capitalism and the Rentier of Common Intellect." In Deep Search: the Politics of Search beyond Google. Edited by Konrad Becker and Felix Stalder. Studien Verlag, 2009. ISBN: 9783706547956.

16 Midterm Presentation - speculate, intersect, fail No assigned readings
Production of Everydayness
17 Discussion: We will discuss the concept of habitus and everydayness as a set of personal behavioral patterns and collective rituals. We will analyze production of everydayness through interactions with familiar objects.

Buy at Amazon Bourdieu, Pierre. "Structures, Habitus, Practices." In The Logic of Practice. Stanford University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780804720113. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Lefebvre, Henri. "The Theory of Moments." In Critique of Everyday Life. Verso, 2014. ISBN: 9781781683170.

Buy at Amazon de Certeau, Michel. "Making Do: Uses and Tactics." In The Practice of Everday Life. 3rd edition. University of California Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780520271456.

Buy at Amazon Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. "Why We Need Things." In History From Things: Essays on Material Culture. Edited by Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery. Smithsonian Books, 1995. ISBN: 9781560986133.

Mackenzie, Adrian. "The Affect of Efficiency: Personal Productivity Equipment Encounters the Multiple." (PDF) Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization 8, no. 2 (2008): 137-156.

18 Studio: MIT Museum visit No assigned readings
Productive Bodies
19 Discussion: We will discuss processes and systems through which bodies are normalized, controlled and manipulated.

Buy at Amazon Foucault, Michel. "Docile Bodies." In Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. Vantage Books, 1995. ISBN: 9780679752554.

Buy at Amazon Mauss, Marcel. "Techniques of the Body." In Incorporations. Edited by Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter. Zone Books, 1992. ISBN: 9780942299298.

Buy at Amazon Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. 13th edition. Edited by Steve Giles, Marc Silberman and Tom Kuhn. Translated by John Willett. Hill and Wang, 1977, pp. 69–76, 136–147.

Caillois, Roger. "Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia." (PDF) Translated by John Shepley. October 31 (1984): 17-32.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Leach, Neil. "Conclusion: A Theory of Camouflage." In Camouflage. MIT Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780262622004.

Media juxtapositions:

Original Films of Frank B. Gilbreth. 1945. Society for the Advancement of Management. YouTube.

Sense and the City: Dynamic Public Spaces Workshop

Modeling (overview):

Buy at Amazon Taylor, Frederick Winslow. The Principles of Scientific Management. Harper & Brothers, 1919.

20 Studio No assigned readings
Production of Time
21 Discussion: We will discuss different constructs of time and interrogate ways how they shape phenomena of (self) productiveness and efficacy. We will examine what models of time we rely upon and how we can subvert them.

Buy at Amazon Rifkin, Jeremy. Time Wars: The Primary Conflict in Human History. Reprint edition. Touchstone Books, 1989, pp. 88–120.

Buy at Amazon Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilization. Harbinger Books, 1963, pp. 9–59. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Kubler, George. The Shape of Time: Remarks on the HIstory of Things. Yale University Press, 1962, pp. 31–61.

Groys, Boris. "Comrades of Time." e-flux. Journal #11, December 2009.

Modeling (overview):

Buy at Amazon Rosenberg, Daniel and Anthony Grafton. Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline. Princeton Architectural Press, 2012. ISBN: 9781616890582. [Preview with Google Books]

22 Penultimate—devlop & build. Student presentations. No assigned readings
Production of Memory
23 Discussion: We will discuss construction and deconstruction of memory and potential models of overcoming trauma.

Lucero-Montaño, Alfredo. "On Walter Benjamin's Historical Materialism." Astrolabio, Revista Internacional de Filosofía, Vol. 10, pp. 125-131, 2010.

Buy at Amazon Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Translated by Eric Prenowitz. University of Chicago Press, 1998, pp. 1–23. ISBN: 9780226143675. [Preview with Google Books]

Marot, Sebastien. Sub-Urbanism and the Art of Memory. AA Publications, 2003, pp.8–32. ISBN: 9781902902234.

Buy at Amazon Bergson, Henri. Matter and Memory. Revised edition. Translated by N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer. Zone Books, 1990, pp. 133–177. ISBN: 9780942299052.

Buy at Amazon Winnicott, D. W. "Playing: A Theoretical Statement." In Playing and Reality. Tavistock Publications, 1971, pp. 38–52. [Preview with Google Books]

Modeling (reading):

Winnicott, Donald W. "The Use of an Object." (PDF) The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 50 (1969): 711.

24 Studio No assigned readings
25 Studio: Studio time instead of the lecture and consultations before the final review. No assigned readings
26 Final Review No assigned readings
27 Presentations of the final projects. Documentation of student work and overall curation of the models collection. No assigned readings
28 Final discussion and planning of the publication No assigned readings