News/Research

Nicholas de Monchaux at Drawing Futures

08 Nov, 2016

Nicholas de Monchaux at Drawing Futures

BCNM Director Nicholas de Monchaux is speaking at Drawing Futures 2016, a conference on "Speculations on Contemporary Drawing for Art and Architecture" taking place at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL in London on the 11th to 12th of November. The two-day conference will bring together some of the world's leading practitioners in drawing for conversations about the contemporary cutting-edge and future directions of drawing as a critical tool for art and architecture. The conference involves 24 speakers from around the world alongside four keynotes, for two days of intense discussion on drawing. The event will also hold the launch of the Drawing Futures book, published by UCL Press and Riverside Architectural Press featuring 60 projects, serving as a critical compendium of contemporary drawing practice in art and architecture.

On Thursday November 10th, a special Drawing Futures edition of the Bartlett International Lecture Series will feature Nicholas de Monchaux discussing Local Code: 3,659 Proposals about Data, Design,and the Nature of Cities. Nicholas will also present "Drawing the Map, Drawing out the Territory’ on Saturday November 12th.

Despite numerous developments in technological manufacture and computational design that provide new grounds for art and architecture, the act of drawing still plays a central role as a vehicle for speculation. There is a rich and long history of drawing that is tied to innovations in technology as well as revolutions in our philosophical understanding of the world. In reflection of a society now underpinned by computational networks and interfaces allowing hitherto unprecedented views of the world, the changing status of the drawing and representation as a political act demands a platform for reflection and innovation.
Drawing Futures will focus on the discussion of how the field of drawing may expand synchronously alongside technological and computational developments. Bringing together practitioners from many creative fields, the conference will discuss how drawing is changing in relation to new technologies for the production and dissemination of ideas.

Nicholas is the author of Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (MIT Press, 2011), an architectural and urban history of the Apollo spacesuit, winner of the Eugene M. Emme award from the American Astronautical Society and shortlisted for the Art Book Prize, as well as Local Code: 3,659 Proposals about Data, Design, and the Nature of Cities (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016). His design work has been exhibited at the Biennial of the Americas, the Venice Architecture Biennale, SFMOMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Join us for the launch of Local Code on November 29th.