Beta-Real Symposium

March 23, 2018 in Slocum Hall at Syracuse University. Harry der Boghosian Symposium A diverse group of seven thinkers and makers explores the philosophical turn away from singular, knowable, stable, and metaphysical absolutes, towards a multitude of experiential, ambivalent, shared realities. Such ambivalent and unstable states have come increasingly to characterize our shared reality—from sites of contested memory and amnesia, to economic and identity politics in a globalized age of displacement, to scientific and technological revolutions. The Beta-Real names a search for alternative frameworks of understanding that might allow us to confront the contradictions of our contemporary reality. How we deal with these contradictions has social, cultural, and political implications—not only for architecture, humanities, science, society, and culture at large, but also for everyday life. Participants discuss how architecture might address and negotiate these states of contradiction. Participants present their own designs and research and discuss in round-table format how they each confront and navigate the Beta-Real. Participants: Linda Zhang, Boghosian Fellow Ani Liu, Artist and speculative technologist, New York, NY Biko Mandela Gray, Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, Syracuse University Natalie Koerner,  Ph.D. candidate, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark Bryan E. Norwood, Ph.D. candidate in the history and theory of architecture, Harvard University; Visiting Assistant Professor, Mississippi State University School of Architecture Irene Chin, Curatorial Coordinator, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Canada William Stewart, Ph.D. candidate, Princeton University Department of German Yolandé Gouws, Artist, Berlin