Welcome to the first online academic conference devoted to the works and writings of the visionary architects Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins. 

 

AG3-Online will run from March 12-26, 2010. During these two weeks, all conference events will take place online. For example, video presentations by the Keynote speakers will be scheduled to come online at a certain time (8:00 am in Brisbane, Australia on March 13, 2010 = 5:00 pm in New York, USA on March 12, 2010). Each keynotes video presentation (30-40 minutes) will be followed by a live chat open to all registrants. Similiarly, the Conference Streams will consist of an invited video presentation (15-20 minutes) followed by a live chat, a set of conference papers (word docs) and a Stream discussion forum (asynchronous) to encourage ongoing dialogue. A countdown clock will indicate when events on the program (a Keynote presentation or a Conference Stream) will go "live to the web". Once content - whether Keynote presentations Conference Streams videos or papers  - go "live" on the AG3 website, they will remain accessible for viewing. The forums will remain open for interaction throughout.  After the confence, all content will be archived and accessible as a resource.

 

This Third International Conference follows the 2005 conference at the University of Paris X—Nanterre (organized by Jean-Jacques Lecercle and Françoise Kral); and the 2008 conference at the University of Pennsylvania/Slought Foundation (organized by Aaron Levy and Jean-Michel Rabaté). Interest in the work of Arakawa and Gins has expanded greatly in recent years, and not only because of the attention created by the architectural visions introduced during their Guggenheim Museum Retrospective and Catalogue (1997), that have been realized at Yoro Park, Japan (landscape architecture), the Reversible Destiny Lofts - Mitaka (in Memory of Helen Keller), Japan (a multi-family living complex), and Bioscleave House in East Hampton LI—USA (single family residence). In addition, Arakawa and Gins have co-authored two significant manifestos --Architectural Body (2002) and Making Dying Illegal (2006)--that have had significant impact on research in numerous academic disciplines. In the ways that works and writings by Arakawa and Gins confront fundamental assumptions concerning embodiment and cognition, language and meaning, quality of life and the aging process, as well as human habitation with respect to ecology and sustainability, one may find philosophers of language, philosophers of science, literary and art historians and theorists, medical professionals, psychologists, cognitive scientists, biologists--and architects--engaging with their concepts and using their architecture to illustrate an array of intellectual work.  The seven topic streams through which we solicit submissions speak to the diversity of their impact.  Not only the content of the conference reflects these concerns, however, for the decision to hold the event online speaks to the ecological impact of travel and consumption that conferences create.

 

The official home for this online Conference is Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, whose Centre for Public Culture and Ideas has supplied all the hardware, software and technology management for the operation of the conference's multi-purpose website. The features of this website will include in part: online self-registration; email updates; discussion forums; real-time events involving video streaming of keynote talks, as well as real-time synchronous formal responses and break-out discussions; the posting of accepted papers in time slots associated with specific topic streams; and comments on specific papers by specific respondents as well as conference participants. This website will be user-friendly in the extreme, allowing full flexibility for global participation as presenters or attendees. 

 

Selected proceeds from this conference will be edited by Jondi Keane and Martin E. Rosenberg for the journal Inflexions,  associated with the Sense Lab, a Montreal research center on philosophy and embodied cognition founded by Brian Massumi of the University of Montreal and Erin Manning of Concordia University.  In addition, Bill Lavender, Alan Prohm, and Jason Nelson are curating submissions of Creative Responses to the Work of Arakawa and Gins, to be exhibited at Netpoetics. Subsequent print publication is also likely from University of New Orleans Press. Poets, graphic artists, and multi-media artists interested in submitted proposals should see the call for work at http://netpoetic.com/ag3art/call.html.

 

Plans to celebrate Arakawa and Gins, and the conclusion to AG3-Online, have now been finalized.

In NYC:

April 30, 2010, 4-8pm, at Barnard College/Columbia University

May 1, 2010, 1-5pm, a symposium at the multimedia theater, the Solomon Guggenheim Museum,

with the speakers including Gregory Lambert, Mary Ann Caws, Arthur C. Danto, Stanley Shostak and others.

May 2, 2010, all day, a chartered bus to Bioscleave House!

In LA:

May 8, 2010, 1-5pm, a symposium at the Los Angeles County Museum,

with the speakers including Director of LACMA Michael Govan, Erin Manning and Brian Massumi, and others.

 

 

Conference Organizers: Jondi Keane, Martin E. Rosenberg, Russell Hughes, Bobby George and Patricia Glazebrook.