During my research stay I will explore possible narratives to approach conceptually the question of structure in networked culture. Foucault’s analytics of discourse will be as important thereby as Deleuze’s mathesis of the differential. I regard the »differential« as the element of an emerging cultural technique of thinking that is crucial for the possibility of orientation in networked structures. Although it tentatively manifests itself in emerging modelling and simulation practices, the potential of the “differential” as a widely cultivated technique of thinking seems to be largely unmapped. I will depart from an understanding of virtuality as an a priori for analysis, and consequently also for construction. I would like to work out and sharpen narratives to communicate this perspective’s potential for both, for practices of interpretation as well as of formalization. This research will be reflected in an essay.

For my talk at the e-t+t Residency, I will focus on concrete examples of contemporary practices within Computer Aided Architectural Design, where the integration of scripting as a means of “stage-design on a formal level” profoundly alters the modelling, design, and planning practices. I would cautiously like to call this integration a usage and exploration of electronic writing techniques for a “scenography of syntax” beyond the “paradigm of the grid”. I will introduce several diverging series of how the semiotics of this integration into architectural design currently manifests itself, ranging from reflections around datascapes, density, and morpho-ecologies, and towards an emerging new structuralism or pragmatism in architectural theory. The role of signs and symbols still proves crucial to these developments; yet the role of language seems to be shifting from the (macro)level of textuality towards a (micro)level of differential alterations within the order of the symbolic itself. The talk will focus on different ways of how media architecture today engages in practices of “symbolization”.

This research stands in the context of the preparation for the SLSA Europe 2010, where I am co-organizing (together with Janis Taurens) a stream entitled “architextures”. Furthermore, it is closely related to my PHD project at the University Basel/ETH Zurich, which is entitled Inhabiting media. On the relation between virtuality and infrastructure within a dispositive of the digital (provisionary title).

Vera Bühlmann 

Vera Bühlmann currently works as a researcher at the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design, ETH Zurich. As a literary and media theorist, she researches on contemporary practices in architecture and design. Her special focus lies on the emerging narrativity of infrastructures, as it results from the integration of information technologies into the practice of design. She explores the consequences and potentials of “virtualization” under the perspective of an altered relation between theory and synthesis. Her understanding of virtualization foregrounds the question of “integrability”, which defines the conditions for a creative management of the frame of reference within which »a something« takes up its specific form and meaning.

Vera Bühlmann is a founding member of epsilon – institute for applied virtuality in Zürich, Switzerland. Her most recent publication (forthcoming spring 2009): Peter Sloterdijks analytisches Spiel mit der synthetischen Kraft phantastischer Philosophie, in: Marc Jongen, Sjoerd van Tuinen und Koenrad Hemelsoed Die Vermessung des Ungeheuren. Versuche über Peter Sloterdijk. Fink Verlag, München; pre-specifics. Some comparatistic investigations on research in design and art, jrp|ringier press, Zurich 2008 (co-edited with Martin Wiedmer). (Weblink: www.prespecifics.org).

Residency is supported by Gebert Rüf Stiftung, Basel