CAAD Theory: Digital Epic - Creative Writing for Architects

Abstract

Architecture is already saturated in images. In order to skilfully articulate the digital cosmos of today we need creative writing and code.The problem addressed in this course is how to allow the digital cosmos to find its voice, and how you as architects can inhabit this voice to speak both freely and carefully, both playfully and seriously, from word-building to world-building.

Objective

No creative writing experience is required; you can forget everything you have learned. We will use experimental writing modes, movements and exercises to find ways to develop agility and grace in writing by testing the motility of concepts such as light and matter, gravity and grace, night and day. Each week there will be a lecture followed by a group discussion. There will be a short text to read each week, and a short writing experiment to do. Readings will be provided online. You will form your own voices, forms and styles. We will start with the initial theme of SATURATION. The digital cosmos is saturated. Saturation is extreme. Saturation is overwhelming. Saturation is beyond what is required. The task of the architect-writer here is to inhabit and write with this saturation; to find voices to properly articulate the saturated world. This requires skill and balance; gravity and agility; humour and lightness. During the course you will be guided through the process of writing texts which playfully inhabit the styles of the following: fragments of ancient epic poetry, Renaissance sonnets, modernist avant-garde poems and contemporary voices.

Resources