What?
A polycentric seminar aiming to rethink the boundarıes of aurality and spatiality scrutinizing the concept of parasite. Dwelling on the metaphor of orbital movement, it allows participants to follow interdisciplinary paths through philosophy, literature, architecture, and music. The path never remains the same and the continuous questioning becomes a perpetuum mobile.
In Lucian’s The Parasite, Simon explains a dazzled Tychiades that not only the survival of the parasite but also the “art” of being parasitic depends on the continuous exercise of knowledge. It is through this dependence on a daily diligence that differentiates it from other arts. As the dialogue continues pleasure, happiness, and virtue are amongst others that Lucian brings forth. Whether social or biological, parasitism generates multiple dualities: structure and agent; existing and alternative; host and guest –Combes asks if it is the host or the parasite that in reality becomes the subject of exploitation-; self and other; visible and invisible. In the realm of the aural, some languages refer to the parasite as an interruption: a noise that temporarily blocks flawless communication. Within all this polycentric setting the question would be how to locate the parasite in architecture: what is a spatial parasite?
How?
The seminar dwells on the tripartite structure of thinking, reading, and expressing. Brainand- earstorming sessions with guest musicologists/composers trying to understand “noise” and how the aural relates to the spatial, and a wandering (with guest biologist) will be part of the schedule.
The seminar foresees two writing tasks in which participants will write a fable and a final paper.
Preliminary Syllabus
- Attali, Jacques. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Translated by Brian Massumi. University of Minnesota Press, 1985.
- Combes, Claude. The Art of Being a Parasite. Translated by Daniel Dimberloff. University of Chicago Press, 2005.
- Erlmann, Veit. Reason and Resonance: A History of Modern Aurality, 2014
- Lucian of Samosata. “The Parasite, Parasitic an Art.” In Lucian, Vol. 3. The Loeb Classical Library, 1960.
- Serres, Michel. The Parasite. Translated by Lawrence R. Schehr. The John Hopkins University Press, 1982.
Mondays 16:00 - 18:00
First meeting: Monday, March 11th 2019 16:00.
Seminarraum der Architekturtheorie, Wiedner Hauptstr. 7, Stiege 2, 1. Stock.
Please consider the plagiarism guidelines of TU Wien when writing your seminar paper: Directive concerning the handling of plagiarism (PDF)
