Ethics and/or Publics

Thomas-Bernard Kenniff has suggested an issue on ethics and publics.  He writes, ' Ethics and Publics: they are relevant in recent discourse and practice given the sort of 'ethical turn' in architecture of the last 15 or so years.  Think for example of relational aesthetics, assemblage theory, actor network theory, dialogism and how these major multi-disciplinary trends have and might influence how we understand the ethics and the publics of architecture.

As examples, questions I ask myself constantly along those lines are 'who am I designing/speaking for/ and 'what is my relationship to the Other(s).  Questions of definition (publics), questions of relating and acting (ethics).  Both of course are fundamental to design.'

This isn't a formal call for articles yet, just a notice for you to think about.  If you want to discuss this, do contact us. 

Photography, Architecture and Urbanism

On Site has always had a phobia about architectural photography: those wide-angle shots that make buildings look impossibly dynamic, all thrust and soar, so we ask our contributors to take their own photos of whatever they are talking about, presenting the world as they find it as designers, not as professional photographers.

However, we also have contributors who are photographers, artists who use photography as their medium, and war photographers: Nicole Dextras, Louis Helbig, Michael Leeb, Giulio Petrocco.

Now that everyone has a camera in their pocket, everything is potentially a photo-documentary.  There are issues about representation, about authenticity, about instrumentality — increasingly the world is as it is portrayed: are photographers gatekeepers, interpreters or simply recording instruments?  Is there such a thing as raw data; should there be such a thing?  

When you look back at early Canadian Architect covers from the 60s, they were all drawn, the inside pages are mostly drawings and diagrams.  Now, in most architectural magazines, you mostly see photographs; drawing is a CAD file and the hand is absent.  Yet, Jack Diamond has published a book of his travel sketches: hand, pencil, watercolour.  Somehow photography is not trusted as much as the drawing, yet there have never been more photographic images in circulation. 

Again, this isn't a formal call for articles yet, but just a note that it will be coming up.  Any discussion, just contact us.