Areti Markopoulou to Lecture at IoA Sliver Lecture Series

Next November 9th IAAC Academic Director Areti Markopoulou will take part to the SLIVER Lecture Series of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Institute of Architecture (IoA), that will run this year under the title Architecture and Technology.

The aim of this year’s IoA Lecture Series is trying to gather professionals to present versatile notions of technology and its impact on the discipline of Art and Architecture. The invited lecturers will present their take on technology and reflect on the potentials which it bears or what conventions it questions and how to approach those creatively/artistically.

“Technology is the answer … but what was the question?” (Cedric Price, 1966)

The Greek term téchne, is a term which up until today in European philosophy, coined the notion of Art, Science and Craft. The history of technology could be described as the history of inventions in form of tools and techniques. At the same time, it is closely connected to the history of science, economics and social agendas – a history of the very human condition itself. Weather viewed through the topic of energy, information, productivity, machines, or social development, today most of the world is accommodating a “technically civilized life” to some extent.

“It is the moral, economic, and political choices we make, not the machines we use”, Lewis Mumford argues, “that have produced a capitalist industrialized machine-oriented economy, whose imperfect fruits serve the majority so imperfectly.”

Technology as a popular cultural phenomenon, began after the initiation of space program in the 1950´s. The same program represents the advent of digital technologies and the rise of the information society. Since then, digital technologies in particular infiltrated into all of the domains of our contemporary life: from farming, work, education, entertainment, sciences, communication, intelligent machines, domestic and urban environments.

In recent years the SLIVER Lecture Series has gained international recognition as platform for emerging and established designers and theoreticians to present and exchange ideas amongst some of the most influential thinkers and practitioners in the world of architecture, design, the arts and other creative disciplines. Additional information regarding the series and a list of former participants can be found at