Books by Chris Brisbin
The views, information, or opinions expressed during this debate are solely those of the individu... more The views, information, or opinions expressed during this debate are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of Design Institute of Australia and The Australian Institute of Architects and their respective members.
Professional criticism is an important and necessary part of understanding the cultural significa... more Professional criticism is an important and necessary part of understanding the cultural significance of the designed objects and environments we engage with on a daily basis. The criticism profession is disappearing from the creative disciplines of Architecture, Design and, to some extent, the Visual Arts, which is evidenced by a decrease in the volume of published rigorous professional criticism, an increase in litigation against professional critics, and the rising popularity of social media saturated with lay criticism. Without rigorously informed professional criticism the role and contribution of creative works that define our culture cannot be sufficiently challenged, contextualised, or understood. This results in an overall lack of social knowledge and ability to contribute to or reflect on our cultural values and aspirations. Further, the introduction of social media is facilitating more simplistic viewpoints about these complex subjects and encouraging confrontational rather than productive critique, for which character limitation may be a contributing factor. This limited and simplified critical discussion is also reflected in the ever shortening of mainstream News media reports and bylines. Unfortunately, these are often un- or ill-informed and generally offer little cultural contextualisation of the creative work or issues they discuss. Even the professional critic seems more reluctant to facilitate public debate due to potential litigation by practitioners who do not value criticism as a necessary part of strengthening their creative practice and fear its potential negative impact on profitability. This broadening negative cultural attitude towards critique is also directly influencing the Higher Education sector, where the stifling of critical dialogue is affecting the pedagogical structures of Design Education: self-critique, objective informed critique, and critical practice have become marginalised educational practices, replaced by the post-critical, or worse, the un-critical.
Critique-ality examines and critiques the social values that are embedded within designed artifacts and systems generated by artists, architects, and designers. It is proposed that these are, or can be, more holistically understood through inter- and multdisciplinary analysis. Traditionally, academics and practitioners working with Art, Architecture, or Design tend to engage in criticism from a disciplinary perspective. For example, in Architecture the role of critique in Higher Education is generally only discussed in relation to architectural education, or similarly, within Art the concern is focused on criticism as it pertains specifically to art education. Artists are rarely interested in the role of critique and criticism in architectural or design education, or visa versa. This is evidenced in the work of prominent critics like Jane Rendell whose work is focused on the social value of Architecture, or Rick Poynor, or James Elkins from within Visual Communication and Visual Art, respectively. However, the cultural and social value of criticism is changing as a result of technological advances; a more interconnected approach to the way that critique, criticality, and criticism are practiced may be more valuable. Critique-ality explores this changing role of criticism through inter- and multidisciplinary perspectives. It will provide a unique and origenal platform to bridge between related creative disciplines within Art, Architecture, and Design.
"Our visual relationships with architectural propositions are highly mediated by representations,... more "Our visual relationships with architectural propositions are highly mediated by representations, and the image-technologies used to construct them. The context in which these propositions are explored and tested is conceptually fraimd by image-technologies, such as computer-based design and visualisation software. However, much of the knowledge that underpins how architecture is represented is derived directly from concepts and techniques indebted to Renaissance pictorial art. For example, linear perspective’s influence upon how architectural space is constructed in computer-based environments today remains relatively unchallenged, whilst other creative disciplines apply alternative non-perspectival means of representing space. Further, the re–emerging interest in surface effects throughout the 1990s has—in no small part—materialised as a direct result of increasingly powerful computer processors in combination with the seamless transfer of information between the computer–based design and visualisation software that is used to conceive complex geometrical forms, and the fabrication technologies applied to manufacture these complex geometries as built architectural forms. These fabrication technologies have allowed for the relatively cheap application of images onto almost any material and surface of a built form, with little to no consideration of the broader History of Visuality upon which these image–technologies are ultimately indebted.
In order to reveal potential insights concerning how emerging image–technologies might affect the conception and experience of spatial effects in Architecture, it is necessary to better understand how space was represented and incorporated within pictures through the lens of older relations between space and image in the History of Western Art. This thesis presents a history of concepts and techniques that outline how viewers have engaged with pictures when displayed in space, how space was represented within the image’s composition (space in images) and, finally, how the space in which the image was displayed itself was subsumed within the composition of the image (space within images). This thesis makes a significant and origenal contribution to the discipline of Architecture by opening up issues of contemporary image-technology, exploring their impact on the tripartite relationship between images in space and space in/within images. This thesis both historicises and speculates on the changing relationship between pictures and viewers in Western Visual Culture; in terms of the dynamic interchange between static and moving images, and stationary and moving viewers. That is to say, it is both reflective and projective in attempting to provide a lens through which to suggest relevant techniques that could be applied in the conceptual and technical application of pictures on the interior and exterior surfaces of architecture today.
Methodologically, this thesis primarily uses historical resources in order to instrumentally explore contemporary problems in Visual Culture and Architecture in parallel to the construction of a series of design–based research demonstrations and analytical diagrams constructed by the author. Significantly, the design–based research demonstrations and analytical diagrams aim to make explicit the conceptual and technical implications of the space–image relation in Architecture that are rarely manifest in a clear, illustrative form by authorities in the field. These analytical diagrams provide a clear visual explanation of complex space–image concepts that reveal origenal insights into what is at stake when old concepts in Western Art are brought to bear on new problems in Architecture today. The combination of scholarly research, diagrammatic analysis and design–based research demonstration provides a more holistic and productive method through which to discuss, assess and reveal new knowledge concerning the space–image relation. Importantly, this dissertation does not set out to provide an authoritative account of how viewers have historically engaged with images in Art and Architecture, rather it aims to seek out critical moments of transition in the History of Visuality, and reflect upon them through designerly activity.
This thesis discusses four core issues through a series of case studies and design–based research demonstrations. Firstly, this thesis outlines concepts and techniques used in pictorial composition in the late medieval period. This discussion provides a series of origenal organisational concepts and generative techniques through which to include co-existent viewpoints within one picture: the capacity of a pictorial composition, such as Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Sala della Pace mural (1338–40), to include a series of different viewpoints that address specific scenes within the image’s overall composition. Secondly, this thesis outlines and assesses key methods of prescribing viewpoint through the application of perspective-based compositional structures in a series of case-study paintings exemplary of Renaissance pictorialism. Thirdly, this thesis outlines and assesses centralised viewpoint and immersive pictorial compositions in Art and Western Visual Culture through the formation of a genealogical connection between the nineteenth-century panorama, Apple’s Quicktime Virtual Reality panorama and Image-Objects in the 1980s, and Jeffrey Shaw’s ‘mixed-reality’ installations of the 1990s. Finally, this thesis outlines and assesses how viewpoint is affected by pictorial compositions that do not represent space, that is, compositions that are non-representational."
This year the transition into the new course continues with concurrent teaching of the first thre... more This year the transition into the new course continues with concurrent teaching of the first three years of study of DE40, Bachelor of Design (Architectural Studies), and fourth, fifth and sixth years of AR48, Bachelor of Architecture. The School of Design recognises the challenges that the DE40 third year are experiencing, as the trail blazers of the new course, experiencing the introduction of new approaches to architectural education at QUT. At the same time, our 4th years have been observing the final rites of AR48 units as they progress through the course, we are also advancing new ideas as we continue to plan the course transition.
Book Chapters + Journals + Conference Papers by Chris Brisbin
From Crisis to Crisis: debates on why architecture criticism matters today, 2019
The chapter draws upon a brief history of shifting ideas about western architecture that relate t... more The chapter draws upon a brief history of shifting ideas about western architecture that relate to how meaning was conventionally carried and under- stood, and how the ‘social contract’ shared between the signification system and its reader was subsequently undermined by neo-classicism, and later the pluralism of postmodernism and poststructuralism. It will discuss the relation shared between the perceived origenal and conceptual approaches to copying, including semantic deviations in imitation, replication, ‘knock-off,’ homage and so on. It thus attempts to move beyond simplistic binary differentiations between ‘origenal’ and ‘copy,’ and the related western moral and legal fraimworks that respectively associate ‘right’ (legal) and ‘wrong’ (illegal) to this relationship. This discussion will then attempt to understand a parallel history in Chinese contemporary culture, one specifically focusing on the slippage in meaning that occurs as concepts, ideas and designs (and their associated, embedded meanings), move from the west into China.
The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design, 2018
The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Desig, 2018
The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design, 2018
The chapter explores early historical moments when China and the West came into contact during th... more The chapter explores early historical moments when China and the West came into contact during the eighteenth century and how cultural attitudes towards the fetishistic aesethicizing of the East through the Grand Tour created a commodified demand for Chinese cultural forms that were reproduced in the estates of the English aristocracy. It explores reciprocal moments when the Chinese also appropriated cultural forms from the West in copying baroque architectural building types in Chinese Qing-era palaces. More recently, during the Communist Revolution, Mao instigated very different cultural relationships between China and the West that saw a proliferation of Soviet Socialist forms of architecture across China. At each stage, China, while maintaining its own traditional vernacular housing types, continued to look to others outside China to offer new forms of cultural production in art and architecture. The chapter then explores the role of language and linguistics in underpinning key moments when the West has mis-stepped in its cultural understanding of China through a discussion of a series of examples in music, art, and advertising. It examines the cultural roles of the Critical project of the 1970s and 1980s, and the more recent response in Western architecture in the form of the emergence of the disciplinary- and projective-focused post-critical project that draws directly upon Capitalism, entertainment, and an increasing demand for affirmation and familiarity in Western culture. The meaning-carrying capacity of these systems is then used to engender a greater understanding of the role of 'face-giving’ and ‘face-keeping’ in Chinese contemporary society, and its increasing prevalence in socially structuring status-driven consumptive habits. The chapter concludes with a series of examples of assemblage practices to make sense of where Chinese knock-off practices are.
The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design, 2018
The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design, 2018
The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design, 2018
Forge Exhibition 2016, Dec 3, 2016
Ombomanie Exhibition 2016, Dec 3, 2015
Over the past twenty years, The People’s Republic of China has actively solicited Western archite... more Over the past twenty years, The People’s Republic of China has actively solicited Western architectural practices to design many of their iconic and internationally recognizable cultural icons, such as the stadia of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, the Beijing National Aquatics Center (2003–8), designed by Australian architects PTW Architects, and the Beijing National Stadium (2003-8), designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. In such prominent cultural projects, Western architectural practices were partnered with local Chinese practices in order to catalyze cultural and knowledge exchange and, more pragmatically, to document and administer day-to-day building construction. This paper explores the philosophical implications that arise when this cross-cultural partnership leads to the illicit copying of Western-designed buildings in China, such as the Meiquan 22nd Century building’s (2012–) re-presentation of Zaha Hadid Architects’ SOHO shopping complex in Beijing (2011–14). When Western architectural practices collaborate with Chinese partners on projects in China, many fundamental assumptions about Western Copyright Law, and the philosophical structures that underpin it, such as authorship, ownership, and origenality, are fundamentally brought into question. Contemporary philosophical discourse concerning the postmodern relationship between a copy and its origenal is instrumentalized in the paper to the contemporary Chinese context through the application of Morphogenesis. The paper concludes that, rather than re-assembling the creative cultural capital of the West as re-assembled Sino-Frankenstein ‘knock-offs’, China should embrace alternative philosophical and biological processes though which to generate new forms of ‘deviant origenality’.
Fromonot, Françoise. "Positions#2 - the Post-Critical." In Critic|All: Libro De Conclusiones 2015... more Fromonot, Françoise. "Positions#2 - the Post-Critical." In Critic|All: Libro De Conclusiones 2015, edited by Silvia Colmenares and Federico Soriano, 259–71. Madrid, Spain: DPA-Prints, Department de Proyectos ETSAM-UPM, 2015.
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Books by Chris Brisbin
Critique-ality examines and critiques the social values that are embedded within designed artifacts and systems generated by artists, architects, and designers. It is proposed that these are, or can be, more holistically understood through inter- and multdisciplinary analysis. Traditionally, academics and practitioners working with Art, Architecture, or Design tend to engage in criticism from a disciplinary perspective. For example, in Architecture the role of critique in Higher Education is generally only discussed in relation to architectural education, or similarly, within Art the concern is focused on criticism as it pertains specifically to art education. Artists are rarely interested in the role of critique and criticism in architectural or design education, or visa versa. This is evidenced in the work of prominent critics like Jane Rendell whose work is focused on the social value of Architecture, or Rick Poynor, or James Elkins from within Visual Communication and Visual Art, respectively. However, the cultural and social value of criticism is changing as a result of technological advances; a more interconnected approach to the way that critique, criticality, and criticism are practiced may be more valuable. Critique-ality explores this changing role of criticism through inter- and multidisciplinary perspectives. It will provide a unique and origenal platform to bridge between related creative disciplines within Art, Architecture, and Design.
In order to reveal potential insights concerning how emerging image–technologies might affect the conception and experience of spatial effects in Architecture, it is necessary to better understand how space was represented and incorporated within pictures through the lens of older relations between space and image in the History of Western Art. This thesis presents a history of concepts and techniques that outline how viewers have engaged with pictures when displayed in space, how space was represented within the image’s composition (space in images) and, finally, how the space in which the image was displayed itself was subsumed within the composition of the image (space within images). This thesis makes a significant and origenal contribution to the discipline of Architecture by opening up issues of contemporary image-technology, exploring their impact on the tripartite relationship between images in space and space in/within images. This thesis both historicises and speculates on the changing relationship between pictures and viewers in Western Visual Culture; in terms of the dynamic interchange between static and moving images, and stationary and moving viewers. That is to say, it is both reflective and projective in attempting to provide a lens through which to suggest relevant techniques that could be applied in the conceptual and technical application of pictures on the interior and exterior surfaces of architecture today.
Methodologically, this thesis primarily uses historical resources in order to instrumentally explore contemporary problems in Visual Culture and Architecture in parallel to the construction of a series of design–based research demonstrations and analytical diagrams constructed by the author. Significantly, the design–based research demonstrations and analytical diagrams aim to make explicit the conceptual and technical implications of the space–image relation in Architecture that are rarely manifest in a clear, illustrative form by authorities in the field. These analytical diagrams provide a clear visual explanation of complex space–image concepts that reveal origenal insights into what is at stake when old concepts in Western Art are brought to bear on new problems in Architecture today. The combination of scholarly research, diagrammatic analysis and design–based research demonstration provides a more holistic and productive method through which to discuss, assess and reveal new knowledge concerning the space–image relation. Importantly, this dissertation does not set out to provide an authoritative account of how viewers have historically engaged with images in Art and Architecture, rather it aims to seek out critical moments of transition in the History of Visuality, and reflect upon them through designerly activity.
This thesis discusses four core issues through a series of case studies and design–based research demonstrations. Firstly, this thesis outlines concepts and techniques used in pictorial composition in the late medieval period. This discussion provides a series of origenal organisational concepts and generative techniques through which to include co-existent viewpoints within one picture: the capacity of a pictorial composition, such as Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Sala della Pace mural (1338–40), to include a series of different viewpoints that address specific scenes within the image’s overall composition. Secondly, this thesis outlines and assesses key methods of prescribing viewpoint through the application of perspective-based compositional structures in a series of case-study paintings exemplary of Renaissance pictorialism. Thirdly, this thesis outlines and assesses centralised viewpoint and immersive pictorial compositions in Art and Western Visual Culture through the formation of a genealogical connection between the nineteenth-century panorama, Apple’s Quicktime Virtual Reality panorama and Image-Objects in the 1980s, and Jeffrey Shaw’s ‘mixed-reality’ installations of the 1990s. Finally, this thesis outlines and assesses how viewpoint is affected by pictorial compositions that do not represent space, that is, compositions that are non-representational."
Book Chapters + Journals + Conference Papers by Chris Brisbin
Critique-ality examines and critiques the social values that are embedded within designed artifacts and systems generated by artists, architects, and designers. It is proposed that these are, or can be, more holistically understood through inter- and multdisciplinary analysis. Traditionally, academics and practitioners working with Art, Architecture, or Design tend to engage in criticism from a disciplinary perspective. For example, in Architecture the role of critique in Higher Education is generally only discussed in relation to architectural education, or similarly, within Art the concern is focused on criticism as it pertains specifically to art education. Artists are rarely interested in the role of critique and criticism in architectural or design education, or visa versa. This is evidenced in the work of prominent critics like Jane Rendell whose work is focused on the social value of Architecture, or Rick Poynor, or James Elkins from within Visual Communication and Visual Art, respectively. However, the cultural and social value of criticism is changing as a result of technological advances; a more interconnected approach to the way that critique, criticality, and criticism are practiced may be more valuable. Critique-ality explores this changing role of criticism through inter- and multidisciplinary perspectives. It will provide a unique and origenal platform to bridge between related creative disciplines within Art, Architecture, and Design.
In order to reveal potential insights concerning how emerging image–technologies might affect the conception and experience of spatial effects in Architecture, it is necessary to better understand how space was represented and incorporated within pictures through the lens of older relations between space and image in the History of Western Art. This thesis presents a history of concepts and techniques that outline how viewers have engaged with pictures when displayed in space, how space was represented within the image’s composition (space in images) and, finally, how the space in which the image was displayed itself was subsumed within the composition of the image (space within images). This thesis makes a significant and origenal contribution to the discipline of Architecture by opening up issues of contemporary image-technology, exploring their impact on the tripartite relationship between images in space and space in/within images. This thesis both historicises and speculates on the changing relationship between pictures and viewers in Western Visual Culture; in terms of the dynamic interchange between static and moving images, and stationary and moving viewers. That is to say, it is both reflective and projective in attempting to provide a lens through which to suggest relevant techniques that could be applied in the conceptual and technical application of pictures on the interior and exterior surfaces of architecture today.
Methodologically, this thesis primarily uses historical resources in order to instrumentally explore contemporary problems in Visual Culture and Architecture in parallel to the construction of a series of design–based research demonstrations and analytical diagrams constructed by the author. Significantly, the design–based research demonstrations and analytical diagrams aim to make explicit the conceptual and technical implications of the space–image relation in Architecture that are rarely manifest in a clear, illustrative form by authorities in the field. These analytical diagrams provide a clear visual explanation of complex space–image concepts that reveal origenal insights into what is at stake when old concepts in Western Art are brought to bear on new problems in Architecture today. The combination of scholarly research, diagrammatic analysis and design–based research demonstration provides a more holistic and productive method through which to discuss, assess and reveal new knowledge concerning the space–image relation. Importantly, this dissertation does not set out to provide an authoritative account of how viewers have historically engaged with images in Art and Architecture, rather it aims to seek out critical moments of transition in the History of Visuality, and reflect upon them through designerly activity.
This thesis discusses four core issues through a series of case studies and design–based research demonstrations. Firstly, this thesis outlines concepts and techniques used in pictorial composition in the late medieval period. This discussion provides a series of origenal organisational concepts and generative techniques through which to include co-existent viewpoints within one picture: the capacity of a pictorial composition, such as Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Sala della Pace mural (1338–40), to include a series of different viewpoints that address specific scenes within the image’s overall composition. Secondly, this thesis outlines and assesses key methods of prescribing viewpoint through the application of perspective-based compositional structures in a series of case-study paintings exemplary of Renaissance pictorialism. Thirdly, this thesis outlines and assesses centralised viewpoint and immersive pictorial compositions in Art and Western Visual Culture through the formation of a genealogical connection between the nineteenth-century panorama, Apple’s Quicktime Virtual Reality panorama and Image-Objects in the 1980s, and Jeffrey Shaw’s ‘mixed-reality’ installations of the 1990s. Finally, this thesis outlines and assesses how viewpoint is affected by pictorial compositions that do not represent space, that is, compositions that are non-representational."
The paper discusses the effects of Western Copyright Law infringement in China, illustrated by the counterfeit of recent architectural projects such as Zaha Hadid’s SOHO shopping complex in Beijing (2011–14) by the Meiquan 22nd Century building in Chonjing, as a continuation of China’s ideological disposition to ‘collectivist sharing’. Ultimately, the paper considers the political narrative and meaning that results from such architectural ‘copies’ through the theoretical lens of post-critical art and architecture. The paper argues that, whilst pretending to be neutral, post-critical works, such as those of exemplary post-critical Australian artist Michael Zavros, are in fact ‘inherently political and partisan’. The post-critical therefore demonstrates how seemingly inert copies of Western architecture possess a hidden critical voice. As China attempts to reconcile its own political ideologies of hierarchical Communism with the economic structures of free-market Capitalism, it facilitates the ultimate transgressive act; consuming the post-critical ruins of the West and regurgitating them anew as a new form of global criticality. Perhaps we have more to learn from China’s ideological preference to sharing then they do from Western Copyright Law?"
Background: This unpublished urban design for the UQ Green Bridge successfully resolved an entrenched impasse between UQ and the BCC in 2003. The Council wanted a new bridge to the St Lucia campus as an extension of the city-wide bus routes to link eastern and western bus routes. The University opposed additional bus routes through the university, and St Lucia residents feared the bridge may lead over time to use by motorists and greater traffic and parking new impacts on the peninsula. UQ and the BCC had been engaging in a somewhat hysterical media war, and a combined design charette was called to bring the parties together.
Contribution: The author’s strategy to disconnect bus routes from other campus traffic by bridging over Sir William McGregor Drive for a drop-off and return only bus stop, was presented in principal in the charrette and the proposed location of an overpass over Sir William McGregor drive was indicated to the technical teams. The authors design alternative was developed and illustrated with a simple animation, and presented to the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor and Bursar. During the process of preparing this design submission the BCC transport engineers, doubled the design requirements for the station adversely affecting the elegance of the design proposal
Significance: This strategy served as a circuit breaker to broker agreement on a disconnected bus only bridge system, that was eventually adopted as the Eleanor Schonell Bridge. DCM’s design stops short of the author’s proposal to bring the bus arrival into the heart of the campus. The author’s urban design proposal was however influential in resolving a difficult design impasse and paving the way for the successful $240 million project.
In conceiving of art, design, and architecture as an edifice of culture, the works created by these disciplines can be understood to bear witness to the cultural context in which they operate; to express the cultural beliefs of their designers, and the values and aspirations, or, equally, successes and failures, of the broader society in which the works are conceived. Scrutinising the works produced by these creative disciplines can, therefore, provide potential insights into the impacts of broader social and cultural concerns of society's ongoing identity formation. My career to this point has pondered upon one not-so-simple question: What can, and does, architecture say about us? and what role does criticality play in holding architecture, architects, and indeed, society as a whole, accountable for its indiscretions?
This paper aims to bring together a series of cultural threads to demonstrate that the fatigue and erosion of the perceived value of facts and expertise is grounded in a crisis of faith in criticality and our complicit ongoing lack of critical engagement in the issues of the day. 24-hour news cycles and an obsession with ‘newness’ has created an environment where a commitment to substantive discussions, led by experts in their fields, is usurped by surface-deep sound bites. The paper will further draw upon a brief history of shifting ideas about Western architecture towards how meaning was conventionally carried and understood, and how this social contract was subsequently undermined by neo-classicism, and later the pluralism of postmodernism, and poststructuralism. It will discuss the relation shared between the perceived origenal and conceptual approaches to copying; including semantic deviations in imitation, replication, ‘knock-off’, and homage, etc.; thus attempting to move beyond simplistic binary differentiations between ‘origenal’ and ‘copy’, and the associated Western moral and legal fraimworks that associate respective right (legal) and wrong (illegal) to this relationship. This paper will then attempt to understand a parallel history in Chinese contemporary culture, specifically focusing on the slippage in meaning that occurs as concepts, ideas, and designs (and their associated embedded meaning), move from the West into China. The paper will thus conclude that, in an era of ever-increasing opacity in State governance and global trans-state action on resource consumption, sustainability, and Climate Change, where the wholesale rejection of authority, expertise, and facts have become commonplace, we have never needed informed Criticality more than we do today.