Visioning Technologies - The Architectures of Sight is a collection of texts from theorists that examine how architecture has been, and is, reframed and restructured by the visual and theoretical frameworks introduced by different ‘technologies of sight’ – understood to include orthographic projection, perspective drawing, telescopic devices, photography, film and computer visualization etc. Each author will deal with their own area and historical period of expertise.

The premise of the book is that ‘visioning technologies’ have tended, in their incipient moments, to repeat one aim – the reproduction of reality. Perspective froze space visually, photography captured it momentarily, film presented it in time, and virtual reality immerses us in it holistically. Even parametricism can be said to reproduce a ‘reality’ on screen – it allows us to watch the real time process of form formation (what we previously called design).

However, more than just reproducing reality, these technologies influence architectural design, theory, and intellectual / spatial conceptualisations in a way that evolves over time. In the case of perspective drawing, the influence of the ‘new mechanical drawing technique’ would manifest itself in single point perspective images of Brunelleschi. In the context of photography, architecture had at its disposal a technology of hi-fidelity realism whose reproductive potential was, for Reyner Banham, what made the International Style, international. In turn, photography’s position as the visioning technology of ‘the real’ soon superseded by film and its introduction of ‘movement and time’ into the lexicon of architectural theory. Contemporary digital technologies in their turn continue this evolution, mimicking the design process, prefiguring the experience of spaces yet to be built and fundamentally alter the way we actually design.

This call is primarily for papers that will deal with the contemporary ‘digital turn’. Authors of papers on perspective, photography or film may also enquire.

More details:

Publisher: Ashgate publishing, UK
Editor: Dr. Graham Cairns
Copy: hardback followed by paperback and online.
Chapter Word limit (including footnotes): 5-7000 words
Those interest contact: Dr. Graham Cairns: gc at architecturemps.com