Virtual Public Lecture: John May, “Rules for the Electronic Zoo”
The original television model, invented by the Scottish television pioneer John Logie Baird, (1888 - 1946). (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The GSD is pleased to present a series of talks and webinars broadcast to our audiences via Zoom.
Event Description
This is meant as a brief pause, amidst the gathering weight of pressing institutional deadlines and professional decisions, to reflect on the historical and theoretical conditions around our deepened dependence on real-time electronic images, and to connect those reflections to practical realities in the present.
A passing glance at the technical history of computational images reveals that we have not suddenly found ourselves living on our screens. Long before Covid-19, it was possible to declare: we already see with electronic images; we already think and act and live by way of them. The ongoing pandemic exaggerates and magnifies this fact, but also reveals it as a preexisting condition—in the design fields, and in culture more broadly—with extensive psychosocial, political and environmental consequences.
We know now that life will not suddenly “return to normal.” But life must be lived, and decisions made, individually and collectively. If our ideas are inseparable from the media through which we express ourselves, the task of articulating our near-future must be undertaken as more than a set of managerial protocols, so that we might press into deeper intellectual regions, into questions of knowledge, life and mediation.
Speaker
John May is founding partner in MILLIØNS, a Los Angeles-based design practice, and author of Signal. Image. Architecture. (Columbia, 2019). He is Assistant Professor of Architecture and Co-Director of the Master in Design Studies program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
How to Join
2. Register to attend the lecture here. Once you have registered, you will be provided with a link to join the lecture via Zoom. This link will also be emailed to you. Please make sure the email you use to register is the same email connected to your Zoom account.
The event will also be live streamed to the GSD’s YouTube page. Only viewers who are attending the lecture via Zoom will be able to submit questions for the Q+A.
Harvard University welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you would like to request accommodations or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected] in advance of your participation or visit. Requests for American Sign Language interpreters and/or CART providers should be made at least two weeks in advance. Please note that the University will make every effort to secure services, but that services are subject to availability.
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