Engaging the political potentials of Architecture demands a prerequisite understanding of the emerging socio-political conditions that encode the built environment - systems both material and ideological. This seminar will position contemporary and radical political theories alongside architectural and urban reflections, engaging the concepts of Control Society, Cybernetic Governance, Forms-of-Life, and Material Ideology. (Tiqqun, Invisible Committee, Spencer)

Combining regular reading group discussions with three activity-based block sessions, the seminar will cultivate an understanding of political paradigm, affordances of architectural and infrastructural production, and imaginaries along alternatives “lines of flight” (Deleuze), and crystallize in the material examples which exemplify the unevenly emerging derivative political modes which are “architectural and impersonal,” rather than hierarchical and representative. (Tiqqun)

Course Goals:

(a) learn relevant perspectives and theories of political theory and philosophy and their potential relevance within architectural discourse.

(b) apply theoretical framing for personal research within production and social systems that relate to architectural production.

(c) visualize research into a communicable format, combining text and graphics.

14.04.25

    Info-Session
        a. pedagogical overview
        b. semester content     

28.04.25 : Reading Session, “The New Control” Part 1
    13:00-14;00  
        a. “Postscript on the Society of Control,” Gilles Deleuze (1990)
        b. “I - III” from The Cybernetic Hypothesis, Tiqqun (2020)

05.05.25 : Reading Session, “The New Control” Part 2
    13:00-14;00  
        c. “Power,” from Protocol, Alexander R. Galloway (2004)
   
12.05.25 : Reading Session, “The New Control” Part 3
    13:00-14;00  
        c. “Architectural Deleuzism,” from Critique of Architecture, 
            Douglas Spencer (2021)

16.05.25    
    Workshop : System
    11:00-17:00   

    Operative Visuality Presentation
        + discussion

    Systems Visualization Workshop

19.05.25 : Reading Session, “Forms-of-Life” Part 1
    13:00-14;00  
        d. Introduction to Civil War, Tiqqun (2010)
   
26.05.25 : Reading Session, “Forms-of-Life” Part 2
    13:00-14;00  
        e. “Critical Metaphysics as a Science of Apparatuses,” 
            from This is not a Program, Tiqqun (2011)

06.06.25 : Reading Session, “Forms-of-Life” Part 3
    13:00-14;00  
        f. “Redefine Historical Conflict,”
            from This is not a Program, Tiqqun (2011)

07.11.26
    Workshop : Affordance
    11:00-17:00

    Affordance & Prefiguration Presentation
        + discussion

    Zoom-In Analysis Workshop

19.05.25 : Reading Session, “Material Ideology” Part 1
    13:00-14;00  
        g. “V & VII,” from The Cybernetic Hypothesis, Tiqqun (2020)
        g. “Power is Logistic, Block Everything,” from To Our Friends,
             The Invisible Committee (2015)       
   
26.05.25 : Reading Session, “Material Ideology” Part 2
    13:00-14;00  
        e. “IX-XI,” from The Cybernetic Hypothesis, Tiqqun (2020)

07.11.26
    Workshop : Material Ideology
    11:00-17:00

    Material Tracing Presentation
        + discussion

    Protocol and Network Tracing Workshop