The theme for the 15th annual conference of the All-Ireland Architecture Research Group (AIARG) invites discussion on how architecture, and the practices that surround it, engage with the challenge of reconceiving the terrestrial. Our title derives from the French philosopher Bruno Latour (1944 – 2022) and the German curator Peter Wiebel’s explorations in their 2020 exhibition Critical Zones– The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth at the ZKM centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. The exhibition took place during the Covid-19 pandemic, and many people experienced it remotely [https://zkm.de/en/exhibition/2020/05/critical-zones].
Latour and Wiebel captured the disorientation of life in a world facing climate change. They traced this disorientation to the disconnection between two different definitions of the land where modern humans live; the sovereign nation from which they derive their rights, and another hidden one from which they derive their wealth – the land they live on and the land they live from. Charting the land that they will live from they find not a globe, not the iconic “blue marble”, but a series of critical zones – patchy, heterogeneous and discontinuous. Within the context of rapidly shifting geopolitical conflict, we must address this trouble.
The term "Critical Zone" is taken from the geo-sciences and describes the biochemical, fragile layer of the earth, its surface on which life is created. By Bruno Latour, the term is extended to a critical, participatory relationship to our living world, whose threatened state has reached an unprecedented scale in the Earth's now man-made history. Latour has described this worldwide situation, which affects all living beings on the planet, as a "new climate regime". It is not limited to ecological crises, but touches on questions of politics and cultural history as well as ethical and epistemological changes of perspective.
The conference chairs invite proposals addressing different aspects of the Critical Zones and the politics of landing on earth through the topics presented by Latour and Weibel:
Disorientation
Disconnected
Critical Zones
Gaia
Terrestrial
Divided
Depiction
Suspended
Our submissions range from diverse disciplines including architects, activists, artists, cartographers, cultural producers, curators, ecologists, engineers, geographers, historians, landscape architects, philosophers, politicians, scientists, sociologists and theorists to reconceptualise and care about architectural practice in the face of the terrestrial crisis. The conference will support established research methods but also welcomes emerging fields such as research by design and artistic/creative practice. Conference contributions may consist of traditional papers, drawings, films, designed artefacts or hybrids.
Keynotes Speakers: Alexandra Arenes, Sébastien Marot and Amin Taha.
Conference Chairs: John McLaughlin (john.mclaughlin@ucc.ie) and Tara Kennedy (tara.kennedy@ucc.ie)
General Info