EAB#4 | Gilles Retsin

Digital Tactics | Decades of Digital Innovation
The financial crisis of 2008 served as a pivotal moment for the field of experimental architecture. The previous two decades, referred to as “The Digital Turn” by architectural historian Mario Carpo, were characterised by a deep and optimistic engagement in research of digital applications in architecture. But the crisis triggered a backlash against such digital design theory, which was suddenly associated with speculation and other unsavoury financial market practices, as well as the irresponsible neo-liberal policies which had enabled this conduct. Consequently, schools put the brakes of their digital programs, curators found other fields, and biennales turned their attentions elsewhere.
A new generation of students, freshly graduated from digitally-oriented master programmes, were confronted with a radically different post-crisis world. Today, a decade on, a number of new trends and approaches have crystallised, reflecting the past two decades of digital research in the field of architecture. Such trends range from what architect Alejandro Zaera Polo calls “austerity-chic”, to the Italian “Tendenza 2.0” as pioneered by Pier-Vittorio Aureli, to Dogma and Office. At the same time, the denominator “post-digital” indicates an attitude in which digital is no longer a novelty, but rather part of the everyday. Another group of young practitioners operating under the “Discrete” flag is asserting that society has, in fact, never been “digital” - meaning that today’s supposed “post-digital” world is a fallacy.
The past decade has sparked a range of architectural approaches, whose roots are essentially a reaction against “The Digital Turn”. Such approaches range from criticism to rejection to celebration, to continuation. However, are these new methodologies truly aesthetic in nature or mere critiques? The biennial traces some of these approaches, uncovering complexity, politics, and a drive to upend existing assumptions.
Gilles Retsin, London 2019
JAROSLAV FRAGNER GALLERY
Betlémské náměstí 5a, Prague 1
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