Spatial Alterity: the importance of unusual and unfamiliar spaces in everyday life - Knowledge Works
In a world where urbanisation, globalisation, and mobility emphasise the individuality of places, it is important to understand how unusual and unfamiliar spaces can have a positive effect on culture and society in everyday life.
Just as cultural alterity enriches the urban experience, so too can spaces be enriched by diversity. The unpredictable, the fantastic, the unimaginable are aspects of difference that have a rich and provocative history, and when incorporated into places, become a source of delight.
In his Knowledge Works lecture, Dr Thomas Mical will present a variety of international, historical and cultural examples of cities and spaces that are both real and imaginary - including, Chicago, Berlin, London and Delhi - as a way of framing the potentiality of alterity to become a projective source of pleasure. Examples of spatial alterity from sources in literature, art, philosophy, architecture, and urbanism, which include medieval pleasure gardens, Baroque architecture, and Asian-European hybridity will also be outlined.
Join us for this insightful lecture to learn how the the spaces we dwell in are enriched through the recognition and respect of the liberation of alterity.
Dr. Thomas Mical has recently joined the University of South Australia's School of Art, Architecture, and Design as the Associate Professor of Architecture. He holds a professional Master of Architecture from Harvard University, and a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has taught architectural history and theory in the United States and Canada, and has also practiced architecture in Chicago and Tokyo. He is an affiliate member of the Centre for Postcolonial and Globalisation studies and is looking forward to participating in a residency fellowship at the Future Institute in New Delhi later this year. Dr Mical's primary research interests include work on the history of modern thought in architecture, surrealism and cinematic spaces, the culture of transparency, and exotic (high-density) urbanism.