CFP: Journal "Remote: Designing with Outlying Societies"

Deadline: Aug 1, 2015
 
REMOTE: Designing with Outlying Societies prompts us to investigate the
ethical and ideological assumptions of contemporary humanitarian
architecture in the contexts of isolated peoples.
 
What does it mean to intervene?
The question foregrounds a need to better understand the notion of
geographic and cultural remoteness as it relates to today’s global
practice and discourse.  An exterior voice is imaginably beneficial to
problem identification and the generation of potential solutions.
However, how can contemporary architecture and design proceed to work
with these societies while harnessing a better understanding and
reciprocity in both formal and cultural tolerances?
 
The “humanitarian” project is largely a mediated enterprise — apt for
popular dissemination. Are architects and institutions similarly
engaging such work for the chance to build altruistically-viewed
projects in distant, photogenic and exoticized landscapes? Through what
frameworks may contemporary architecture assess the integrity and
productivity of such projects?  Do these initiatives strike a
resemblance to cycles of colonization, industrialization, assimilation,
and exploitation? What are the agendas that motivate practical and
institutional contact in the 21st Century?
 
REMOTE is a peer-reviewed volume.  We are looking for scholarly papers
that address this topic through the lens of media studies,
anthropology, sociology, political science, and architectural history
and theory.  We are also interested in art and architectural projects
that explore these issues.
 
 
Editors:
Sixto Cordero Maisonet
Tyler Stevermer
Austin Smith
 
Peer-Review Board Director:
Mark Jarzombek
 
For correspondence and inquiries:
remote-arch@mit.edu
 
REMOTE, MIT Architecture
77 Massachusetts Ave, Room 7-337
Cambridge, MA 02139
remote-arch.com