Surface Calculus
‘Surface Calculus’ will unpack the construction of a spatial practice through the lens of architectural representation, by framing various kinds of produced surfaces—analog, digital and composites. The talk will tickle a larger project that augments and, in some cases reroutes the 600-year-old dominance of linear perspective, the picture plane and the ‘subject’ position, or station point—and their historical, disciplinary, ethical, and operational consequences. Key partners-in-crime for the conceptualization of the work include curiosity cabinets; Robert Venturi’s pivotal book, ‘Complexity and Contradiction’; Wallace Stevens’ seminal poem ’13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’; Jorge Luis Borges’ fictional taxonomy, ‘Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge’; Surrealist techniques; and interests in indeterminacy, contingency and emergence. Language prompts, analogous thinking, the ‘naming problem’, tailored visualizations, and inventive programmatic thinking will populate the margins. ‘Surface Calculus’ will get under the metaphorical hood, of an approximate practice, constructed by an amateur, that leverages various forms of visualization towards spatial speculations, that aspire to enlarge the cultural imaginary and what might be possible.
After the lecture, join us for a happy hour at LMN’s The Shop, located at 723 1st Ave in downtown Seattle. Snacks will be provided, and drinks will be available for sale. Entry included with event ticket purchase.
About Perry Kulper
Perry Kulper is an architect and Professor of Architecture at the Tubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. In a prior life he was a SCI-Arc faculty member for 17 years and held visiting teaching positions at Penn and ASU during that time. After his graduate studies at Columbia University, he worked in the offices of respected mentors Eisenman/ Robertson, Robert A.M. Stern and Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown before moving to Los Angeles. His primary interests include: the roles and generative potential of architectural drawing; the outrageously different spatial opportunities offered by using diverse design methods in design practices; and in broadening the conceptual range by which architecture contributes to our cultural imagination. In 2013 he published Pamphlet Architecture 34, ‘Fathoming the Unfathomable: Archival Ghosts and Paradoxical Shadows’ with friend and collaborator Nat Chard. They are at work on a new book to be published by UCL Press. He was the Sir Banister Fletcher Visiting Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL 2018-19. Recently he optimistically ventured into the digital world attempting to get a handle on ‘cut + paste’ and ‘magic wand’ operations in Photoshop—as a result he encountered one of his steeper learning curves. Even more recently he has also been snooping around under the hood of said digital realms. Fantastic beasts have also been on his mind.
“I think there are multiple sights, or sites for the discipline to work on. I don’t think architecture has lost its sight, it’s just seeing other potentially interesting things at the moment”
