The origin of geometry itself, so Serres claims, was of a double nature: Using figures, schemas, and diagrams on the one hand, and using letters, words, and sentences of the system, organized by their own semantics and syntax on the other hand. Geometry is seen by Serres as a double system which represents itself and expresses itself, one by the other. Different schools of thought in different times have liked to privilege the narratives and legends over the proofs or figures, words and formulas – or the other way around. Thus our current problematics of how to deal with our possibility in CAAD to design by scripting first, and then render the design into geometrical concreteness second, is thus as ancient as the origin of geometry itself. The question for us to focus on can thus not be how to close this constitutive gap. Our focus needs to address how to refine, how to differentiate and cultivate the abundant potentials that spring form the “horn of plenty,” as which Serres characterizes geometry in its mediating role between narratives and numbers.

slides: architectonics& mediality& web pdf

Listen to the lecture here: part3

Do we have enough energy for everyone? Of course not: we have more than enough.

More than enough to cover all our current needs, more than enough to cater for expanding populations, growing economies and rising standards of living, across the globe. We have so much energy that, once weʼve sorted out the logistics of distributing it, we wonʼt know what to do with it all. And we wonʼt need to, either: it will just be there. As a matter of course.

We have, on planet earth, an abundance of energy. True, our resources here are finite and some of them are now getting scarce. And there is a limit, it seems, to what the planet and its atmosphere can take in terms of factors that alter their finely tuned balance. But in actual fact, resources are not the issue. And if it is the case that our carbon dioxide emissions, for example, are causing climate change, then an end to this is also on the cards. We can, with technology that is available today, solve all our energy problems for generations to come, and take care of the CO2 situation, quite in passing.

There is a world in which the power is always on. Where energy, instead of being owned and controlled by a few, is owned by nobody, harvested by many and controlled by everybody, because everybody has an active say in it. Energy that doesnʼt pollute the planet, that doesnʼt heat up the atmosphere and thatʼs not going to run out if we add a few billion of us people to the planet. And itʼs not a world that exists in our wildest dreams, itʼs a world we have right at our fingertips: there is room, there is water, there is food and there is power for everybody. We can now, at the beginning of the 21st Century, take a conceptual leap forward and put ourselves onto a different footing altogether: we can embrace abundance.

The Abundance Story pdf a radical new perspective on our energy ‘situation’

slides: M zero energy pdf

Listen to the lecture here:

part1

part2

MAS10_0M9_energy3_M8k16b part3

part4

MAS10_0M9_energy5_M8k16b part5