CfP: 2017 Interstices 19 symposium. Surface – Pattern: a pursuit of material narratives. Auckland, 2–4 June 2017.

2017 Interstices 19 (Under Construction) symposium. Surface – Pattern: a pursuit of material narratives.
2 – 4^th June 2017, Auckland, New Zealand. The University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand 
Surface and ornament have been extensively reviewed, admonished, discarded and pursued. More recently there has been a renewed interest in the writing of Aby Warburg and Alois Riegl, while numerous studies have addressed these issues relative to Semper, Adolf Loos, Hermann Muthesius, and Le Corbusier. They have been made prominent by issues of animation (see, for example, Papapetros 2012, Payne 2013, van Eck 2014) and digitation (see for example Spuybroek 2008 and Schumacher 2009).
Incrustations, protuberances, textured expressions, smoothed surfaces, surfaces enlivened as screens, are they ornament or cladding? The 2017 Interstices Under Construction Symposium, “Surface – Pattern” pursues the tension between ornament, adornment, object enlivenment, cladding, surface and pattern, and an exploration into the strange animations inherent in surface-pattern continua.
Thought in one direction, smooth surface tends towards speed and a friction-less gloss; in another, pattern stirs surfaces inciting decelerating, contemplation, and even deviation. Etymologically, ‘surface’ accords with the revealing of an upper or outward layer, but it also points to things that receive a surface through polishing or finishing. Pattern suggests the imposition of a plan or design that ultimately models or leads back to exemplars and the impact of patrons. Conjunctures of surface-patterns thus encompass rich and complex narrative effects.
This call for papers invites considerations, at a range of scales, of surface-pattern complexes like territory and landscapes, built assemblages and ‘cladding’, interior surfaces, décor and furniture, sculpture or objects of the decorative arts.
Please send a 500-word abstract and a short biographical statement of 100 words to Susan Hedges (susan.hedges@aut.ac.nz) by 28^th February 2017. Abstracts will be vetted through blind peer review and, if accepted, published on the Interstices website (http://interstices.ac.nz/news-events/). Notifications will be sent out by March 2017. The symposium will be followed by a call for papers for Issue 19 of Interstices: A Journal of Architecture and Related Arts on the same topic in June 2017.
 
Convenors: Andrew Douglas , Tina Engles—Schwarzpaul, Susan Hedges.