[Sci-tech-public] *research-in-progress 2008
Melissa Lo
mmlo at MIT.EDU
Sat Mar 29 15:30:31 EDT 2008
*research in progress, 2008
We are pleased to announce the fourth annual *research-in-progress,
presented by the History, Theory and Criticism section of the
Department of Architecture at MIT. The 2008 workshop, focusing around
the theme “What Object” aims to offer graduate students an
opportunity to work together in cross-disciplinary and cross-
institutional dialogues, and, specifically, with objects in mind.
Please see attached poster for schedule and presentation topics. **
Keynote addresses by Edward Eigen (Princeton School of Architecture,
History and Theory) and Peter Galison (Harvard, History of Science
and Physics).
Made possible by by a Graduate Student Life Grant (c/o the MIT
Graduate Students Office) and the Office of the Dean of the School
of Architecture and Planning.
--------------------
Objects are at once physical bodies, grammatical constructions, and
philosophical abstractions. We obsess over objects of desire, objects
of affection, and objects of scorn; we encounter found objects,
objets d'art, object lessons, and the occasional objection. In short,
we are awash in objects, objectives, and objectification; the
discourse of objects can be both concrete and endlessly expansive.
To introduce Things That Talk, Lorraine Daston writes: "Imagine a
world without things. It would be not so much an empty world as a
blurry, frictionless one: no sharp outlines would separate one part
of the uniform plenum from another; there would be no resistance
against which to stub a toe or test a theory or struggle stalwartly.
Nor would there be anything to describe, or to explain, remark on,
interpret, or complain about – just a kind of porridgy oneness.
Without things, we would stop talking."[1]
Our object-riddled and thing-populated world, then, urges us to
continue to keep talking. This is precisely what we hope this
meeting of Research-in-Progress will foster: continuing dialogues
about how objects work in our world, how they don't work in our
world, what they do, and, fundamentally, how they keep us in
conversation with one another. How are our practices – artistic,
architectural, scientific, academic, everyday and otherwise –
continually informed by objects? And how do the objects of our
practices necessitate overlap with other kinds of practices? Or,
alternatively, when do we reject objects? And to what ends?
[1] Lorraine Daston, "Speechless," Things That Talk, ed. Lorraine
Daston (New York: Zone Books: 2004): 9-24, 9.

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