Cognitive Space @ 010 Publishers

Primary Conditions: The Emancipation of the Pluripotential.

In the societies of control, power relations come to be expressed through the action at a distance of one mind on another, through the brain’s power to affect and become affected, which is mediated and enriched by technology.
Maurizio Lazzarato

Publication Cognitive Space, From Biopolitics to Noopolitics Architecture & Mind in the Age of Communication and Information @ 010 Publishers, Delft School of Design Series on Architecture and Urbanism, Rotterdam, 2010

Cognitive
Architecture

Cognitive Architecture addresses the question of how evolving modalities from biopolitics to noopolitics might be mapped upon the city under contemporary conditions of urbanization and globalization. This volume is motivated by theories such as ‘cognitive capitalism’ and concepts such as ‘neural plasticity’ – the former indicating the mutation of labor and capital vis-à-vis the apparatuses of production within the confines of neoliberal economies and the latter the idea of mutability, transformation and the inherent potential for change within the spheres of imagination and ideology. Noo-politics, most broadly understood as a power exerted over the life of the mind, reconfiguring perception, memory and attention, also implicates potential ways and means by which the neurobiological architecture is undergoing processes of evolution and reconfiguration. This volume shows how architecture and urban processes, procedures and products commingle to form complex systems, which, in the end, help produce novel forms of networks that empower the imagination and constitute the cultural landscape.

Cognitive Architecture rethinks the relations between form and forms of communication, which, in contemporary culture, call for a new logic of representation. Moreover, it examines the manner in which information, with its non-hierarchical and distributed format, recursive looping and self-reflexivity, is contributing both to the sculpting of brain and production of mind. Architecture and urbanism inhabit the same spaces and temporalities that characterize these new modes of relations; their presence also possesses the potential to bend and contort the very systems in which they operate. This volume brings together renowned specialists in the areas of political and aesthetic philosophy, neuroscience, socio-cultural and architecture theory, visual and spatial theorists and practitioners, and architects; the contributions elucidate original ideas for thinking the city as a framework for possible gestations of noopolitics.

From Biopolitics to Noopolitics Architecture & Mind in the Age of Communication and Information

Editors: Deborah Hauptmann, Warren Neidich

Delft School of Design Series on Architecture and Urbanism
Series Editor:  Arie Graafland
Editorial Board: K. Michael Hays (Harvard University, USA), Ákos Moravánszky (ETH Zürich, Switzerland), Michael Müller (Bremen University, Germany), Frank R. Werner (University of Wuppertal, Germany), Gerd Zimmermann (Bauhaus University, Germany)

With contributions by Andreas Angelidakis, Lisa Blackman, Ina BlomFelicity Callard, Suparna Choudhury, Jordan Crandall, Elie DuringKeller Easterling, Lukas Ebensperger, Boris Groys, Janet HarbordDeborah Hauptmann, Patrick Healy, Maurizio Lazzarato, Daniel MarguliesMarkus Miessen, Yann Moulier Boutang, Warren Neidich, John ProteviSteven Quartz, Andrej Radman, Philippe Rahm, John Rajchman, Patricia ReedGabriel Rockhill, J.A. Scott Kelso, Terrence Sejnowski, Elizabeth Sikiaridi, Jan Slaby, Paolo Virno, Frans Vogelaar, Sven-Olov Wallenstein, Bruce WexlerCharles T. Wolfe

‘Cognitive Architecture’ questions of how evolving modalities – from bio-politics to noo-politics – can be mapped upon the city under contemporary conditions of urbanization and globalization. Noo-politics, most broadly understood as a power exerted over the life of the mind, re-configures perception, memory and attention, and also implicates potential ways and means by which neurobiological architecture is undergoing reconfiguration.

This volume, motivated by theories such as ‘cognitive capitalism’ and concepts such as ‘neural plasticity’, shows how architecture and urban processes and products commingle to form complex systems that produce novel forms of networks that empower the imagination and constitute the cultural landscape. This volume rethinks the relations between form and forms of communication, calling for a new logic of representation; it examines the manner in which information, with its non-hierarchical and distributed format is contributing both to the sculpting of brain and production of mind. Cognitive Architecture brings together renowned specialists in the areas of political and aesthetic philosophy, neuroscience, socio-cultural and architecture theory, visual and spatial theorists and practitioners; the contributions elucidate original ideas for thinking the city as a framework for possible gestations of noo-politics.

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