Digital. Material. Structural: Ornament TodayInternational Conference at the Faculty for Design and Art
of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
On 31 May and 1 June 2010 the international conference Digital. Material. Structural: Ornament Today will take place at the Faculty of Design and Art of Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. The conference is being organised by Professor Dr.-Ing. habil. Jörg H. Gleiter.
The conference invites international designers, architects and artists as well as theoreticians, cultural scientists and philosophers to Bozen-Bolzano in order to pose the question of ornament in the digital age from the perspective of practice, theory, aesthetics, and media psychology.
Contributors will be from the USA (Harvard University, Cambridge Mass.; Giorgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta), Switzerland (ETH Zürich, Luzern), the Netherlands (Den Haag), Germany (University of Stuttgart, Berlin, Frankfurt/M., Schwäbisch Gmünd) and Italy (University of Palermo, University of Trento, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Milan). The conference will be held in German and Italian. All contributions will be simultaneously interpreted into the other language.
The debates on ornament have reignited. As the digital age dawns, ornament – the very thing that modernity attempted abolished at the beginning of the machine age – is making a comeback in design, architecture and art: Ornament. In fact, ornament has today returned – in an almost scandalously fresh and nonchalant form. It is visible not just in the superficial appearance of advertising, fashion or product design, but also in ornaments of spaces and computer-generated architectural design processes and the virtual object world of screens and media facades.
The return of ornament is an indication of a fundamental change. Opinions diverge when it comes to ornament, but less in the sense of taste than that the central formative questions crystallise on it. The attitude of modernism to ornament is ambivalent: it reveals the internal tension and dynamics of modernism.
But how does it now differ from machine ornament and classical ornament? Where do the affinities and continuities exist? Digital. Material. Structural: Ornament Today raises the question of the change in the structure and status of ornament in the digital age.
Public relations
Raffaella Fusina
Press & Organisation
Faculty of Design and Art
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Universitätsplatz 1 - piazza Università, 1
39100 Bozen-Bolzano
Italy
T: +39 0471 015007
F: +39 0471 015009
raffaella.fusina@unibz.it
Where
Room D1.02
Faculty of Design and Art
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Universitätsplatz 1 - piazza Università, 1
39100 Bozen-Bolzano
Italy
When
May 31 to June 1, 2010
Inscription
Marlies Andergassen-Sölva
Faculty of Design and Art
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Universitätsplatz 1 - piazza Università, 1
39100 Bozen-Bolzano
Italy
T: 39 0471 015006
F: 39 0471 015009
Marlies.AndergassenSoelva@unibz.it
Scientific director
Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Jörg H. Gleiter
Artistic director
Prof. Antonino Benincasa
Participants
Frank Barkow
Architekt, Barkow-Leibinger, Berlin (D)
Barbara u. Gerd Baumann
Designer, Schwäbisch Gmünd (D)
Jan Bovelet
Philosoph, Berlin (D)
Mario Carpo
Prof., Giorgia Inst. of Tech., Atlanta (USA)
Emanuela De Cecco
Prof., Freie Universität Bozen (I)
Benjamin Dillenburger
Architekt, ETH Zürich (CH)
Michael Dürfeld
Dr., Philosoph, Berlin (D)
Christian Kathriner
Künstler, Luzern (CH)
Achim Menges
Prof., Universität Stuttgart (D)
Matteo Moretti
Designer, Bozen/Milano (I)
Eric Nuijten
Prof., Designer, Rotterdam (NL)
Sebastian Oschatz
Designer, MESO, Frankfurt/M. (D)
Ingeborg Rocker
Prof., Harvard University (USA)
Elisabetta di Stefano
Prof., Università di Palermo (I)
Renato Troncon
Prof., Università di Trento (I)
Moderators
Luigi Russo
Prof., Università di Palermo (I)
Gerhard Glüher
Prof., Freie Universität Bozen (D)