Performance, that is, a focus on dynamic and temporal processes over static objects and representations, is generating a lot of interest currently in relationship to architecture but there is no agreed definition or context. Architecture as performative falls either into the scenographic, or the kinetic, or is seen as an event that destabilises traditional notions of spatial representation.
This talk aims to examine from theory, history and practice, how it might be possible to grapple with the architectural repercussions of environments increasingly marked by flux: not only of that of technology, but the temporal nature
of political and ecological instability itself.
Artist Chris Salter is Associate Professor for Computation Arts and Director of the Hexagram Centre for Research- Creation in Media Arts and Technology at Concordia University, Montreal. He collaborated with Peter Sellars and William Forsythe before co-founding the collective Sponge, whose works cover artistic production, theoretical reflection and scientific research. Salter’s per-formances, installations, research and publications have been presented at festivals and conferences around the world, including the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale. His first book Entangled: Technology and the Transformation of Performance was published by MIT Press in 2010.