Warren Neidich // Epigenetic Architecture and the Statisticon

Last night our guest lecturer Warren Neidich, invited as part of the Fall Lecture Series 2016, inspired the audience with his lecture: Epigenetic Architecture and the Statisticon.

Warren Neidich – Epigenetic Architecture and the Statisticon

Neidich started his talk defining a term he developed in 2014: the Statisticon. The Statisticon is a product of the information economy, in which  the conditions of massive data collection, epigenetic sculpting of the brains’ neural plasticity, parametrically derived architecture and urban design, the processes of valorization created by communicative capitalism are entangled.

Warren Neidich – Epigenetic Architecture and the Statisticon

Furthermore he introduced the idea of Epigenetic Architecture through the conceptual platform of Evolutionary Architecture which preceded it. Epigenetic architecture is understood as a means through which designed spaces as they exist in interactive and sustainable environments sculpt the materiality of the brain through a process akin to selective stabilization and pruning of labile synapses.

Warren Neidich – Epigenetic Architecture and the Statisticon

Warren Neidich is an internationally recognized artist whose work has been exhibited in over one hundred and fifty museums and galleries world wide including the Whitney Museum of American Art, PS 1 MOMA, The Kunsthaus Zurich, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, The Ludwig Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  He studied photography, video, cognitive neuroscience, medicine and architecture. He is Professor of Art at Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee and is founding director of the Saas Fee Summer Institute of Art. His books The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism Part 3, Archive Press and Resistance is Fertile, Merve Verlag are forthcoming in 2016.