112. Connectedness, Eroticism, and the Flâneur with David Turnbull
Original Drawing by Tori Haynes
“...all of those old-fashioned values to do with tectonic integrity, climate responsiveness, compositional clarity and so on have been replaced by cut-and-paste and an assemblage of images rather than the construction of real, authentic, meaningful places…I see this as a symptom of cultural exchanges that have accelerated to the point where the authorship of the image is no longer of consequence, its the image itself that matters and the image only at the service of a mood and that mood has replaced a connectedness to atmospheres and things that I’m familiar with.”
David Turnbull
Join us this week for a far-ranging and fascinating conversation with David Turnbull, architect, thinker and educator.
Timestamp Outline
00:00 Introducing David Turnbull
1:30 Nehruvian Modernism and the question of India’s infrastructure in the times of the Coronavirus global pandemic
6:30 Discussion of Aditya Prakash’s paintings and works and his hybrid practice
7:20 Discussion of the corruption of the Modernist project
8:20 Guy Debord and Situationism
10:15 Freedom Press an Anarchist book publishing house in London, UK
12:15 Politics of Propinquity edited by Joan Copjec mentioned in the conversation about the “new modernity of today”
15:30 a critique of “design follows pinterest” and the current regime of fascination with the image
16:14 “...all of those old-fashioned values to do with tectonic integrity, climate responsiveness, compositional clarity and so on have been replaced by cut-and-paste and an assemblage of images rather than the construction of real, authentic, meaningful places…I see this as a symptom of cultural exchanges that have accelerated to the point where the authorship of the image is no longer of consequence, its the image itself that matters and the image only at the service of a mood and that mood has replaced a connectedness to atmospheres and things that I’m familiar with.” DT
17:30 James Stirling
17:43 Vikram asks why authorship, reference and integrity are key attributes for David
20:34 reference to Giorgio Agamben, philosopher and his work on Anarchism
25:00 Discussion of James Stirling’s contribution to the Bibliothèque de France Competition
36:46 David reads an excerpt from his Journal
40:30 David mentions the Middens he grew up near in England. They were the remains of a shellfish processing operation executed by the Ancient Romans who occupied the land
45:00 Discussion of Aditya Prakash’s Modular and David’s favorite drawings from One Continuous Line
48:00 “...the agency of the erotic, the pyschoenergetic...whatever it is...seems to me to be very present in the anular rings and spirals that your father draws into that foot…” DT
53:03 David references Paul Klee’s concept of taking a line for a walk
56:05 Vikram asks David where he is in the present
1:04:00 Baudelaire’s Flâneur
1:04:22 “...We don’t just want to destroy art, we want to remake it...the Situationists wanted to destroy art in order to remake it...and I am increasingly interested in destroying architecture in order to remake it…” DT
