Talks by Brett Mommersteeg
4S 2019 conference in New Orleans (Sept. 4-7)
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Conference paper from "DESIRE: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference", August 21-23, Dalhousie... more Conference paper from "DESIRE: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference", August 21-23, Dalhousie University, Halifax
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In both Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari refer to schizophrenics out on... more In both Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari refer to schizophrenics out on a stroll. They move through space according to, as Deleuze and Guattari write, “laws of boundary and territory that may escape us” (ATP 320); in other words, they construct pure blocs of space-time, a particular mise-en-scène; they dwell or are in the world according to a different logic. But what sorts of dramas are these? What space-times do they construct? This paper will address how we can understand the mobile territories of the larval or nomadic subject.
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Papers by Brett Mommersteeg
Science, Technology, & Human Values, 2022
ct
What sounds and noises does a future building make? How do architectural acousticians listen t... more ct
What sounds and noises does a future building make? How do architectural acousticians listen to a building in the making? How do you measure something that is not yet there? What is the epistemological status of approximations? Following the listening practices of acousticians as they measure a future experience of sound through a mock-up and of noise through an incomplete simulation, this article explores the challenge of fixing sound and noise as elusive objects of knowledge. Based on an ethnography of a building project, we see how architectural acousticians rely on what they call “approximations,” both the inscriptions and inscriptive work used to give traces of reality to future lived experiences of sound and noise that they hope “would be” there. Bringing together sound studies, ethnographies of architectural practice and science and technology studies accounts of inscription practices, the article argues for attention to be placed on the ephemera of knowledge and design practices, which allows analytic focus to remain upstream between the possible and the actual. Situated within the practices of the acousticians, we can witness some of the ways that sound and noise take shape within a building project, grosso modo.
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Aesthetics Equals Politics: New Discourses across Art, Architecture, and Philosophy, 2019
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The Routledge Companion to Actor-Network Theory, 2019
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Architectural projects have conventionally been conceived as a linear progression from conception... more Architectural projects have conventionally been conceived as a linear progression from conception to completion, from site to site, and through an idealised timeline, whereby progression goes from stage to stage. However, recent ethnographic accounts of architectur-al practices, informed by Science and Technology Stud-ies (STS) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) have shown that design develops differently: often through multi-ple irregular and bifurcating paths. This article argues that a building-in-the-making, in particular during the construction stage (rarely explored in the design stud-ies literature), develops not through a linear project logic but along a contingent and branching trajectory, as it twists and turns through a complex ecology of actors (developers, city planners, clients, contractors, engineers, etc.) according to ‘matters of concern.’ A multi-sited ethnographic approach based on ‘ecologies of practice’ will allow us to account for the varying sets of experiences and ontologies that can be witnessed as a building concept is shaped during design develop-ment and construction. This will be illustrated by shad-owing Carol, an architect from OMA, during the design development and construction stages of the Factory project in Manchester, UK, where we will witness how design does not progress along a linear path, but rather bifurcates, shifts and aligns in a dynamic way.
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Thesis Chapters by Brett Mommersteeg
From the outside, buildings seem to appear magically in our cities. But what would we see if we f... more From the outside, buildings seem to appear magically in our cities. But what would we see if we followed their making from the inside? What different worlds, concerns, and actors would we encounter? What realities are at stake in its making? How do they overlap and relate to one another? And, how, in the end, is a common world drawn together within which the building becomes possible? This thesis follows the
making of a building as a collective process from inside various practices that a building draws together. Travelling alongside an ongoing project in Manchester, UK, called “Factory,” designed by the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), during its detailed design and construction stages, the aim of the thesis is to explore another
way of thinking about the political dimensions of architecture from the experiences of design practices. Proposing a notion of architectural politics situated on the plane of experience, it foregrounds the ways in which various realities of the buildings are actively defined, come into tension, interfere and rely on one another in practice. It shows, moreover, that buildings do not emerge solely from a single office and practice but are distributed across different sites, concerns, and sets of relations.
Following the making of Factory between 2017 and 2019, this thesis is based on an Actor-Network Theory inspired multi-sited ethnography. The fieldwork involved spending time learning from practitioners in various kinds of practices where Factory is made and discussed – the offices of the structural and mechanical engineers, acousticians, architects, the city council, and moments of public engagement. The focus in each site was to see how, through what practices and technologies, multiple
realities at stake in the making of the building relate, overlap and are fit together without the guarantee a pre-existing common world. This is shown through processes of coordination, approximation, and formation that happen around ontologically uncertain and indeterminate entities: the building, its acoustic lived reality, and various publics. For each, the thesis illustrates how their conditions of existence are not given
in the “order of things,” but negotiated, tested, and made within practice.
This thesis builds on previous studies of architectural practice but departs from them by witnessing the making of a building through the overlap of different practices from multiple sites. It is in and across these practices that the tension between variations of the building come to the foreground, and through which another understanding of
buildings and their politics is developed. Further, it shows how design practices are not neutral technical practices, but have consequences in how the common world is ordered around a building, and suggests another way in which to conceive the “success” or “failure” of design as what turns around the many ways in which a building exists. By following these processes from the plane of experience, the making of a building is more than mere complexity, but a political process through which a city and a building are re-composed together.
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Talks by Brett Mommersteeg
Papers by Brett Mommersteeg
What sounds and noises does a future building make? How do architectural acousticians listen to a building in the making? How do you measure something that is not yet there? What is the epistemological status of approximations? Following the listening practices of acousticians as they measure a future experience of sound through a mock-up and of noise through an incomplete simulation, this article explores the challenge of fixing sound and noise as elusive objects of knowledge. Based on an ethnography of a building project, we see how architectural acousticians rely on what they call “approximations,” both the inscriptions and inscriptive work used to give traces of reality to future lived experiences of sound and noise that they hope “would be” there. Bringing together sound studies, ethnographies of architectural practice and science and technology studies accounts of inscription practices, the article argues for attention to be placed on the ephemera of knowledge and design practices, which allows analytic focus to remain upstream between the possible and the actual. Situated within the practices of the acousticians, we can witness some of the ways that sound and noise take shape within a building project, grosso modo.
Thesis Chapters by Brett Mommersteeg
making of a building as a collective process from inside various practices that a building draws together. Travelling alongside an ongoing project in Manchester, UK, called “Factory,” designed by the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), during its detailed design and construction stages, the aim of the thesis is to explore another
way of thinking about the political dimensions of architecture from the experiences of design practices. Proposing a notion of architectural politics situated on the plane of experience, it foregrounds the ways in which various realities of the buildings are actively defined, come into tension, interfere and rely on one another in practice. It shows, moreover, that buildings do not emerge solely from a single office and practice but are distributed across different sites, concerns, and sets of relations.
Following the making of Factory between 2017 and 2019, this thesis is based on an Actor-Network Theory inspired multi-sited ethnography. The fieldwork involved spending time learning from practitioners in various kinds of practices where Factory is made and discussed – the offices of the structural and mechanical engineers, acousticians, architects, the city council, and moments of public engagement. The focus in each site was to see how, through what practices and technologies, multiple
realities at stake in the making of the building relate, overlap and are fit together without the guarantee a pre-existing common world. This is shown through processes of coordination, approximation, and formation that happen around ontologically uncertain and indeterminate entities: the building, its acoustic lived reality, and various publics. For each, the thesis illustrates how their conditions of existence are not given
in the “order of things,” but negotiated, tested, and made within practice.
This thesis builds on previous studies of architectural practice but departs from them by witnessing the making of a building through the overlap of different practices from multiple sites. It is in and across these practices that the tension between variations of the building come to the foreground, and through which another understanding of
buildings and their politics is developed. Further, it shows how design practices are not neutral technical practices, but have consequences in how the common world is ordered around a building, and suggests another way in which to conceive the “success” or “failure” of design as what turns around the many ways in which a building exists. By following these processes from the plane of experience, the making of a building is more than mere complexity, but a political process through which a city and a building are re-composed together.
What sounds and noises does a future building make? How do architectural acousticians listen to a building in the making? How do you measure something that is not yet there? What is the epistemological status of approximations? Following the listening practices of acousticians as they measure a future experience of sound through a mock-up and of noise through an incomplete simulation, this article explores the challenge of fixing sound and noise as elusive objects of knowledge. Based on an ethnography of a building project, we see how architectural acousticians rely on what they call “approximations,” both the inscriptions and inscriptive work used to give traces of reality to future lived experiences of sound and noise that they hope “would be” there. Bringing together sound studies, ethnographies of architectural practice and science and technology studies accounts of inscription practices, the article argues for attention to be placed on the ephemera of knowledge and design practices, which allows analytic focus to remain upstream between the possible and the actual. Situated within the practices of the acousticians, we can witness some of the ways that sound and noise take shape within a building project, grosso modo.
making of a building as a collective process from inside various practices that a building draws together. Travelling alongside an ongoing project in Manchester, UK, called “Factory,” designed by the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), during its detailed design and construction stages, the aim of the thesis is to explore another
way of thinking about the political dimensions of architecture from the experiences of design practices. Proposing a notion of architectural politics situated on the plane of experience, it foregrounds the ways in which various realities of the buildings are actively defined, come into tension, interfere and rely on one another in practice. It shows, moreover, that buildings do not emerge solely from a single office and practice but are distributed across different sites, concerns, and sets of relations.
Following the making of Factory between 2017 and 2019, this thesis is based on an Actor-Network Theory inspired multi-sited ethnography. The fieldwork involved spending time learning from practitioners in various kinds of practices where Factory is made and discussed – the offices of the structural and mechanical engineers, acousticians, architects, the city council, and moments of public engagement. The focus in each site was to see how, through what practices and technologies, multiple
realities at stake in the making of the building relate, overlap and are fit together without the guarantee a pre-existing common world. This is shown through processes of coordination, approximation, and formation that happen around ontologically uncertain and indeterminate entities: the building, its acoustic lived reality, and various publics. For each, the thesis illustrates how their conditions of existence are not given
in the “order of things,” but negotiated, tested, and made within practice.
This thesis builds on previous studies of architectural practice but departs from them by witnessing the making of a building through the overlap of different practices from multiple sites. It is in and across these practices that the tension between variations of the building come to the foreground, and through which another understanding of
buildings and their politics is developed. Further, it shows how design practices are not neutral technical practices, but have consequences in how the common world is ordered around a building, and suggests another way in which to conceive the “success” or “failure” of design as what turns around the many ways in which a building exists. By following these processes from the plane of experience, the making of a building is more than mere complexity, but a political process through which a city and a building are re-composed together.