Architecture and Philosophy: Reflections on Arakawa and Gins

Authors

  • Jondi Keane
  • Evan Selinger

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/footprint.2.2.691

Abstract

This essay is a critical review of a recent Arakawa and Gins conference – an event that brought phenomenology and architecture into productive dialog through the advancement of interdisciplinary inquiry into the subtle and complex ways that embodied activity structures cognition and perception. To provide the reader with sufficient context to appreciate the ensuing discussion of Arakawa and Gins’s concepts and hypotheses, we open with an overview of their previous collaborations. We then transition to analysis of a unique installation called 'Reading Room', and, immediately afterwards, provide exegetical commentary on select conference presentations. This commentary emphasizes phenomenological perspectives, especially ideas that Don Ihde and Shaun Gallagher conveyed. We conclude by outlining some of the most promising horizons of thought that the conference brought to our consideration.

Author Biographies

Jondi Keane

Jondi Keane is an arts practitioner and critical thinker and Senior Lecturer at Griffith University in Australia. Over the last 25 years, Dr. Keane has exhibited, performed and published in the USA, UK, Europe and AUS. His multidisciplinary research on embodiment has taken the form of the publication of essay in Janus Head Issue 9.2, 2007, the current issue of Ecological Psychology Journal, forthcoming volumes Deleuze: Image and Text and Arakawa and Gins: Philosophy and Architecture and a collection on applying practice-led research - as well as producing creative outcomes such as the READING ROOM installation at the Slought Foundation/ UPenn, April 2008 and Tuning Fork performances at Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Art, Nov. 2008. Dr. Keane is currently working on a book on the artists-turned-architects Arakawa and Gins.

Evan Selinger

Evan Selinger is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology, USA. His research focuses on phenomenology and the philosophies of technology and science. Recent publications include several edited and co-edited books: Chasing Technosciences: Matrix for Materiality; Postphenomenology: A Critical Companion to Ihde; The Philosophy of Expertise; Five Questions: Philosophy of Technology; New Waves in Philosophy of Technology; and Rethinking Theories and Practices of Imaging.

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Published

2008-06-01