Molly Steenson on September 26th

September 26, 2014 at 4:30 PM in AUP 170 at UW-Milwaukee
“Architectures of Information” presentation by Molly Steenson, Assistant Professor, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI

In the 1960s, architecture got smart. Architects began turning to computation to make buildings and cities responsive and to model the increasing complexity of their work. In so doing, they did more than merely apply the computer to architecture: they employed the logics of cybernetics and artificial intelligence in order to alter their own design processes and their approaches to representation. At the same time, computation researchers embraced architecture as a way to describe the impact of their work on the world. In this lecture, we'll explore architectures of information: what happens when architecture and AI mesh at the scale of the human, the city, and the world.

Molly Steenson is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication, where she focuses on digital media. Her research meshes architecture, communications and history of science. She holds a PhD in architecture (2014) from Princeton University School of Architecture. Her dissertation is titled “Architectures of Information: Christopher Alexander, Cedric Price, Nicholas Negroponte & MIT’s Architecture Machine Group.” She also holds a Master’s of Environmental Design from the Yale School of Architecture (the history-theory degree). She was a professor at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy for two school years, from 2003–04, where she ran the Connected Communities research group. Before this return to academia, she worked with the Web and social media for 20 years in a variety of roles at a variety of companies. She continues this practice as a digital strategist and design researcher who examines how technology and interactivity fit into our contemporary cities and lives. This interest has sent her to India to study mobile phones, to China to study social networking sites, and to the 1960s to study the effect of artificial intelligence on architectural systems and interactivity.http://www.girlwonder.com