Calendar

Claudia Pasquero, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Curriculum of Architecture and Urban Planning will defend her thesis “Polycephalum: Aesthetic as a measure of ecological intelligence in Architecture and Urban Design” (“Polycephalum: esteetika ja ökoloogiline intelligentsus arhitektuuris ja linnakujunduses”) on the 22nd of November 2019 at 10.00 at Exhibition Space of BAU Design College of Barcelona (Carrer de Pujades, 118 Barcelona)

Supervisors: dr Veronika Valk (Estonian Academy of Arts) and prof Mario Carpo (The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London)

Pre-reviewers: Prof Dr Christopher Pierce (Architectural Association, London) and Prof Dr Bart Lootsma (University of Innsbruck)

Opponent: prof dr Dr Christopher Pierce (Architectural Association, London)

This dissertation, titled ‘Polycephalum: the aesthetic as a measure of ecological intelligence in architecture and urban design’, unpacks and articulates the design methodology of the candidate’s practice-based research. It moves from an analysis of the relationship between ecoLogicStudio (co-founded by the candidate in 2005) and the academic work she conducts at the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) and at Innsbruck University (UIBK). The thesis then explores how, in this body of work, biology intersects computation as the basis for a new architectural and urban design method. Critical to the synergy among these disciplines is the role of aesthetics. The candidate refers to aesthetics as a language of non-verbal communication, a metalanguage, which, she argues, must now embody greater ecological agency in shaping future cities.

Methodologically, the development of this thesis has followed the Creative Practice Research model developed by RMIT University (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), founded on the notion that any creative venturous practice intrinsically involves a form of research enquiry. In supporting the development of this original piece of work the Estonian Academy of Arts doctoral program in architecture and urban planning, in which the candidate enrolled as an ADAPT-r Research Fellow, has aligned its stream of creative practice research with RMIT’s long-established program.

A key outcome of this research is embodied in the concept of Polycephalum architecture. This notion mobilizes multiple forms of intelligence, both human and non-human, to redefine the urban realm in the post-Anthropocene age. What role will non-human intelligence, both artificial and biological, play in shaping future architecture? The Polycephalum dismisses the core notion of modern master-planning, to elevate humanity beyond its material substrate via its foundations in rationality. Its aesthetics apparatus becomes here a mean to establish cybernetic conversations, within which human and non-human ecologies constitute co-evolutionary systems, a form of extended mind.

The thesis was developed as part of the ADAPT-r (Architecture, Design and Art Practice Training-research) program within Architecture and Urban Planning program of EKA Doctoral School.

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

On Tuesday November 12 Ulvi Haagensen will open her solo exhibition “Distracting the workers” in the EKA Trepigalerii (Showcase gallery at Linnahall’s side of Estonian Academy of Arts’s building) at 5pm. The exhibition will be open until 27 November and being a window exhibition it is viewable 24/7. 

“I am working on the line between art and everyday life. With a particular emphasis on the practices of art-making and domestic cleaning, I focus on the places where art and life meet to try to find out what the dividing lines, overlaps and resulting ambiguities look and feel like. Helping me with my work I have three imaginary assistants – an artist-cleaner, an artist-researcher and an artist-bricoleuse. Together we make, clean, think and write. This installation is a view into our working and thinking space,” says the artist Ulvi Haagensen. 

The title of the show is in part a response to the German art critic Julius Meier-Graefe’s concern about art that is decorative, accusing it of being like a “gentle little housewife” merely amusing “tired people after a hard day’s work”. 

Ulvi Haagensen, originally from Australia, has been living and working in Estonia for many years and is currently a doctoral candidate at the Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Design.

Thanks to Kaido Kruusamets, Mart Vainre, Aksel Haagensen, Michael Haagensen, Risto Tali, Fiona Davies

Join us for the opening of the solo exhibition and performance on Thursday, November 5 at 8 PM. The exhibition will remain open until November 30.

Vaarik’s sixth solo exhibition is a continuation of her solo exhibition “Possessed” (2017). The expressive, provocative, daring and heartfelt show is about being a woman, a mother, about saving the world, raising children and cuddling. The artist is observing her close relationships and is seeking for conclusions to save the world.

“Skin is our contact with the world. Scroll up to your sleeves and stroke your arm with your hand. This is a feeling. We feel and learn to feel our bodies through strokes, pamper and cuddles. Sometimes there’s no need to overthink! Weird feelings create weird thoughts. But if you know it’s only that–a feeling–and you stop forcing yourself to collaborate with your brain, you can only feel without attributing linguistic meaning. Things are simply as they are. If we start to over-explain something we can mess it up.
We can try to save the world, but if we grow our children to be empathetic, they are doing it naturally. All humans grow inside their moms! I am lucky I was held tight.” – Marta Vaarik

Marta Vaarik (b. 1986) is an artist, photographer and self-proclaimed blond trickster based in Tallinn, Estonia. She holds a BFA degree in painting from the Estonian Academy of Arts and is currently studying Contemporary Art in the same university. She did an exchange program in UDK studying under professor Josephine Pryde. The current solo show at EKA Gallery is her sixth and she has participated in group shows in Berlin and Estonia. She works in the mediums of painting, photography, performance, and video.

Thanks: Sandra Mäesepp, Rebecca Künnis, Ülle Vaarik, Aadam Taaksalu, Andrus Vaarik, Kelly Turk, Margit Lõhmus, Sveta Grigorjeva, Piret Karro, Rasmus Neljand, Krislin Ots, Big Boy, Gunnar Laal, Taavi Lepp, Pire Sova, Johannes Luik, Kersti Heile

Exhibition title: Sveta Grigorjeva

Graphic design: Kersti Heile

The exhibition is supported by A. Le Coq.

Vent Space, student-run project space, announces its new team and Open Call for the Second Season, running from January to October 2020.
The focus of the new season is on the potentiality of unexpected encounters, seeking to expand conventional practices by encouraging experimentation and open-mindedness through cross-disciplinary collaborations.

You can apply here!
Deadline for applications is on the
30th of December 2019.

Claudia Pasquero, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Curriculum of Architecture and Urban Planning will defend her thesis “Polycephalum: Aesthetic as a measure of ecological intelligence in Architecture and Urban Design” (“Polycephalum: esteetika ja ökoloogiline intelligentsus arhitektuuris ja linnakujunduses”) on the 22nd of November 2019 at 10.00 at Exhibition Space of BAU Design College of Barcelona (Carrer de Pujades, 118 Barcelona)

Supervisors: dr Veronika Valk (Estonian Academy of Arts) and prof Mario Carpo (The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London)

Pre-reviewers: Prof Dr Christopher Pierce (Architectural Association, London) and Prof Dr Bart Lootsma (University of Innsbruck)

Opponent: prof dr Dr Christopher Pierce (Architectural Association, London)

This dissertation, titled ‘Polycephalum: the aesthetic as a measure of ecological intelligence in architecture and urban design’, unpacks and articulates the design methodology of the candidate’s practice-based research. It moves from an analysis of the relationship between ecoLogicStudio (co-founded by the candidate in 2005) and the academic work she conducts at the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) and at Innsbruck University (UIBK). The thesis then explores how, in this body of work, biology intersects computation as the basis for a new architectural and urban design method. Critical to the synergy among these disciplines is the role of aesthetics. The candidate refers to aesthetics as a language of non-verbal communication, a metalanguage, which, she argues, must now embody greater ecological agency in shaping future cities.

Methodologically, the development of this thesis has followed the Creative Practice Research model developed by RMIT University (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), founded on the notion that any creative venturous practice intrinsically involves a form of research enquiry. In supporting the development of this original piece of work the Estonian Academy of Arts doctoral program in architecture and urban planning, in which the candidate enrolled as an ADAPT-r Research Fellow, has aligned its stream of creative practice research with RMIT’s long-established program.

A key outcome of this research is embodied in the concept of Polycephalum architecture. This notion mobilizes multiple forms of intelligence, both human and non-human, to redefine the urban realm in the post-Anthropocene age. What role will non-human intelligence, both artificial and biological, play in shaping future architecture? The Polycephalum dismisses the core notion of modern master-planning, to elevate humanity beyond its material substrate via its foundations in rationality. Its aesthetics apparatus becomes here a mean to establish cybernetic conversations, within which human and non-human ecologies constitute co-evolutionary systems, a form of extended mind.

The thesis was developed as part of the ADAPT-r (Architecture, Design and Art Practice Training-research) program within Architecture and Urban Planning program of EKA Doctoral School.

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

Luce Grosjean, head of Miyu Distribution will visit EKA animation department on Tuesday November-26. She has been distributed some of the biggest hits from the last couple of years, like Negative Space, Garden Party, Bloeistraat 11, Egg and I’m Going Out for Cigarettes. She is currently working for six animation schools in France and Denmark.

At 20:00 starts the screening in EKA auditorium A101 and Luce Grosjean will be there to comment the screening.

#21XOXO by Sine Özbilge, Imge Özbilge
Hors Piste by Léo Brunel, Camille Jalabert, Loris Cavalier, Oscar Malet
Egg by Martina Scarpelli
I’m Going Out for Cigarettes by Osman Cerfon
Symbiosis by Nadja Andrasev
Toomas by Chintis Landgren

Miyu Distribution was created in 2017, Miyu Distribution was born from the partnership between Luce Grosjean and her company Seve Films, and Miyu Productions. Specialized in international sales and distribution of animation short films, Miyu Distribution distributes the graduation films of leading animation school as well as films from independent production structures.

Find out more here.

The Inevitability of Urbanization: Open Lecture by Ross Exo Adams

The next lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this autumn will be London based architect, urbanist and historian Ross Exo Adams, who will talk about the inevitability of urbanization. Adams will be stepping on the stage of the main auditorium of the new EKA building on the 28th of November at 6 pm.

Ross Exo Adams is Assistant Professor and Co-Director of Architecture at Bard College. He is the author of Circulation and Urbanization (Sage, 2019) and has written widely on the intersections of architecture and urbanism with geographies and histories of power. His research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Royal Institute of British Architects, The London Consortium, Iowa State University and The MacDowell Colony.

To speak about an urbanized planet today is at once to utter an unthinkable reality and to name the inevitability of a process we take to be rooted in the human condition itself. As we confront this situation today, we are met with questions of how we urbanize—sustainable urbanism, resilient urbanism, adaptation regimes, development as improvement, etc.—almost never asking why we must urbanize in the first place. In his talk, Adams argues that the inevitability of urbanization is based in part on the way in which we have historically overlooked the emergence of the urban itself, treating it instead as a natural outcome of human co-existence. By suggesting a genealogical account of the formation of this space-process in parallel to the rise of the modern state, its colonial outposts and the capitalist order it gave rise to, he attempts to open a space in which we might challenge the inevitability of an urban future. Now more than ever, as we confront endgame thresholds and the countless injustices of limitless growth, we need to find ways to ask: if not the urban, then what?

The Faculty of Architecture of the Estonian Academy of Arts has curated the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to everyone.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Curators: Sille Pihlak, Johan Tali

www.avatudloengud.ee
www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

More info:
Kadi Karine
E-mail: arhitektuur@artun.ee
Tel. +372 642 0071

On December 13th, the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture at the Estonian Academy of Arts is hosting a seminar in honour of professor emeritus Jaak Kangilaski. The seminar will focus on the history of Estonian art history, with four presentations by Jaak Kangilaski’s former students (prof Krista Kodres, prof Virve Sarapik, dr Epi Tohvri and Eero Epner), followed by speeches and a reception.

Maris Mändel PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, Curriculum of Cultural Heritage and Conservation will defend her thesis “Bricks, blocks and panels commonly used in 20th century Estonian architecture. The story of their use and value” on the 18th of December 2019 at 14.00 at Põhja pst 7, room A501.

Supervisors: dr Mart Kalm (Estonian Academy of Arts) and dr Lembi-Merike Raado (Tallinn University of Technology)

Pre-reviewers: dr Karl Õiger (Tallinn University of Technology, School of Engineering) and dr Kurmo Konsa (University of Tartu, Institute of History and Archaeology)

Opponent: dr Karl Õiger

This research focuses on issues in restoration regarding man-made building materials commonly used in 20th century Estonia. These are building materials that in contemporary restoration processes tend to be regarded as having less value and because they are commonplace are often overlooked. The aim of this doctoral thesis is to find solutions to the issues of value and appreciation that arise in the restoration of such materials – to determine when these commonly used materials should be preserved as a valuable original material and when and what kind of a replacement material should be used.

This thorough study of concrete blocks, silicate bricks, large silicalcite blocks and large reinforced concrete panels provides a good overview of Estonian building practices and its step-by-step development from handcrafted techniques and building methods to fully industrialised construction.

This research has clear practical applications. Its outcomes will make it possible for architecture historians, heritage protection specialists, construction engineers, homeowners and others, to make considered decisions about restoration in regard to the materials covered in this study. It will also assist in the informed preservation of Estonian cultural heritage.

Please find the PhD thesis here

On February 21–22, 2020, the Estonian Academy of Arts will host an international symposium titled “Prisms of Silence”. The symposium seeks to analyse and understand the prisms through which we could meaningfully reconsider significant silences. A particular interest lies in rethinking the silences about WWII, its aftermath and the Soviet era in order to explore how they could offer productive ways of understanding present social change. The main organizers of the symposium are dr Margaret Tali at the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and Ieva Astahovska at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art. The symposium is a part of the collaborative project “Communicating Difficult Pasts” between the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture at EAA and the LCCA.

Early career humanities scholars, curators and artists are welcome to apply: see the CFP.

The next European Society for Aesthetics Conference will take place in Tallinn on June 10-12 2020, hosted by the Estonian Academy of Arts.
This year’s keynote speakers are:
· Professor David Davies (McGill University)
· Professor Bence Nanay (University of Antwerp)
· Professor Virve Sarapik (Estonian Academy of Arts)

More information along with the CFP at the ESA homepage.