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5In the Thick of ThingsIn Joke Brouwer, Lars Spuybroek & Sjoerd van Tuinen (eds.), The War of Appearances: Transparency, Opacity, Radiance, V2_publishing. pp. 6-11. 2016.Short introduction to the V2 publication of "The War of Appearances: Transparency, Opacity, Radiance" (2016). An anthology with Matteo Pasquinelli, Luciana Parisi, Graham Harman, Tomas Saraceno, René ten Bos, Tim Morton, McKenzie Wark, Wim Delvoye, Diana Scherer, Paolo Cirio, Paul Frissen, and Willem Schinkel.
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Gothic Ontology and SympathyIn Sjoerd van Tuinen (ed.), Speculative Art Histories: Analysis at the Limits, Edinburgh University Press. 2017.
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23In the Thick of ThingsIn Joke Brouwer, Lars Spuybroek & Sjoerd van Tuinen (eds.), The War of Appearances: Transparency, Opacity, Radiance, V2_publishing. pp. 6-11. 2016.Short introduction to the V2 publication of "The War of Appearances: Transparency, Opacity, Radiance" (2016). An anthology with Matteo Pasquinelli, Luciana Parisi, Graham Harman, Tomas Saraceno, René ten Bos, Tim Morton, McKenzie Wark, Wim Delvoye, Diana Scherer, Paolo Cirio, Paul Frissen, and Willem Schinkel.
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124Shining and Automation: The Phenotechnology of OrnamentArchitectural Research Quarterly 27 (3). 2023.This essay follows the fascinating mythology of grace and gift exchange to construct an argument about appearances as transcending the boundaries of things through a form of radiance or shining. The latter is based on the primary figure of the Graces, Aglaea, whose name literally signifies shining. The question arises how the obligatory rules of gift exchange—giving, receiving, and returning—apply to appearances, which leads to a cyclical “alternating current” of shining and working. It now beco…Read more
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159Matter and Image: The Pharmacology of ArchitectureArchitectural Intelligence 2 (1). 2023.In the history of technologies and materials the transfer from soft to hard plays a central role. From a dialectic point of view it seems to be a clear-cut matter of one overpowering the other, yet conceptually things are more convoluted. What we call the chiastic model of history is driven by the exchange of empowerings where the one inhabits the other. By taking the most antithetical examples of materiality from architectural history, the plastic and the lithic, we begin to understand the psyc…Read more
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387The fourth of eight chapters from my recently published book "Grace and Gravity: Architectures of the Figure." The argumentation builds on terminology introduced in the first three chapters, the most important being the phased structure of the figure: prefiguration, figuration, and transfiguration. Also, the earlier developed interdependence of movement and standstill, which we find both in beauty and in grace, is here expanded in the relationship between the mineral, animal, and vegetable.
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280The Grace Machine: Of Turns, Wheels and LimbsFootprint 22 (Summer): 7-32. 2018.Starting with a few simple questions about living well and where movement originates from this essay turns into a vast map of intricate relations revolving around the notion of grace. By developing the argument from a historical perspective it quickly becomes clear that grace relies on the specific qualities of figuration and how the figure appears in what is termed “the gap between habit and inhabitation.” This article is a shorter version of the introductory chapter to my “Grace and Gravity: A…Read more
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301The Compass of Beauty: A Search For the MiddleIn Maria Voyatzaki (ed.), Architectural Materialisms: Nonhuman Creativity, Edinburgh University Press. 2018.This chapter is a rethinking of my earlier “The Ages of Beauty” which investigated Charles Hartshorne’s Diagram of Aesthetic Values. The argument is placed in a long history of beauty being considered as the middle between extremes. It slowly develops into a structure not merely of aesthetic experience but of existence itself, making it an alternative to Heidegger’s fourfold.
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312Sun and Lightning: The Visibility of RadianceIn Joke Brouwer, Lars Spuybroek & Sjoerd van Tuinen (eds.), The War of Appearances: Transparency, Opacity, Radiance, V2_publishing. pp. 98-127. 2016.A long chapter for The War of Appearances: Transparency, Opacity, Radiance (V2_Publishing, 2016) building on the findings of “Charis and Radiance,” an essay published two years earlier. It discusses the inherent connection between visibility and radiance within the framework of Plato’s sun model as the source of reality.
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341Grace and Gravity: Architectures of the FigureBloomsbury. 2020.A pdf sample that contains the cover, contents page, preface and the back cover with endorsements and blurb.
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468The Matter of OrnamentIn J. Brouwer A. Mulder (ed.), The Politics of the Impure, . pp. 232-267. 2010.A shortened version of the second chapter of The Sympathy of Things as it was published in The Politics of the Impure (V2_NAI Publishers, 2010). It relates John Ruskin’s “Wall-Veil” to the better-known “Wall-Dress” (Gewand) of Gottfried Semper by understanding both as occurring at the intersection of matter and force. Matter tends to generate patterns in two ways, either downward or upward in dimensions. The first relates to tessellated ornament (cf. Owen Jones); the second to the ribboned ornam…Read more
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312Gothic Ontology and Sympathy: Moving Away From the FoldIn Sjoerd van Tuinen (ed.), Speculative Art Histories: Analysis at the Limits, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 131-61. 2017.This transcription of a keynote for the Speculative Art Histories conference in May 2013 is a mixture of the main argument of The Sympathy of Things and some new insights. The text might be helpful for those who have not read the Sympathy book, which has been sold out for a number of years. This essay will appear as a chapter in Sjoerd van Tuinen's Speculative Art Histories, to be published with Edinburgh University Press in 2017.
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1020Charis and Radiance: The Ontological Dimensions of BeautyIn J. Brouwer S. Van Tuinen (ed.), Giving and Taking: Antidotes to a Culture of Greed, . 2014.This essay developed out of the final chapter of The Sympathy of Things where I related beauty to a notion of radical generosity. Tracing generosity back to the ancient Greeks brought me to a whole new world of grace and “charis”, the etymological root of words like charisma and charity. The essay establishes a fundamental connection between grace and beauty, deeply interrelating movement and object. In the second part the argument develops into an ontology based on the concept of radiance, whic…Read more
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1335The Sympathy of Things: Ruskin and the Ecology of DesignV2_NAI Publishers/Bloomsbury. 2011/2016.The revised and expanded edition of The Sympathy of Things with Bloomsbury Academic, which appeared in 2016. The pdf sample contains the new preface to the second edition and the foreword by Brian Massumi.
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352In the Thick of ThingsIn Joke Brouwer, Lars Spuybroek & Sjoerd van Tuinen (eds.), The War of Appearances: Transparency, Opacity, Radiance, V2_publishing. pp. 6-11. 2016.Short introduction to the V2 publication of "The War of Appearances: Transparency, Opacity, Radiance" (2016). An anthology with Matteo Pasquinelli, Luciana Parisi, Graham Harman, Tomas Saraceno, René ten Bos, Tim Morton, McKenzie Wark, Wim Delvoye, Diana Scherer, Paolo Cirio, Paul Frissen, and Willem Schinkel.
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4721The Architecture of ContinuityV2_NAI Publishers. 2009.A number of essays and interviews published between 1997 and 2008, revised for this publication with V2_
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2180The Digital Nature of GothicIn Research & Design: Textile Tectonics, Nai Publishers. pp. 8-41. 2011.The first chapter of The Sympathy of Things published in Research & Design: Textile Tectonics (2011). It develops the notion of a “gothic ontology” which inverts Deleuze’s baroque ontology of the fold. Where in the universe of the fold continuity precedes singularity, in the gothic singularity precedes continuity. The reversal is based on the Ruskinian notion of the rib, which is the source of “changefulness”, expressed through “millions of variations” of figures. Figures move and change only to…Read more
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697The Ages of Beauty: Revisiting Hartshorne's Diagram of Aesthetic ValuesIn J. Brouwer A. Mulder (ed.), Vital Beauty: Reclaiming Aesthetics in the Tangle of Technology and Nature, . pp. 32-63. 2012.This long essay was published in Vital Beauty, a collection including Wendy Steiner and Tim Ingold, which investigates the possibility of new ways toward beauty. This is my first encounter with Hartshorne’s Diagram of Aesthetic Values, a mandala-like structure explaining the relations between aesthetic experiences. The essay looks into the awkward history of the diagram in Hartshorne’s philosophy, its connection to Max Dessoir’s work, to Whitehead’s chapter on beauty in Adventures of Ideas and t…Read more
Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Aesthetics |
History of Aesthetics |
Aesthetics, Miscellaneous |
Areas of Interest
Aesthetics |