AAD Portfolio Talks I: The Digital

The AAD Portfolio Talks I: The Digital explores the site of the internet, and the architecture of the digital platform as a site of criticality. How does architecture and its embedded politics inhabit, expand, occupy, and challenge the digital ecologies that we are entangled in? Where are sites of engagements for cyber-equity? How do we start to see the materiality of the internet in order to practice critically across this medium as architects?

We explore these questions with speakers Mindy Seu and Max Lauter, who will share their work as techno-critical architects and designers across an expansive ecology of digital and physical mediums. Following their presentations, a discussion will be moderated by David Isaac Hecht.

The events are open to the Columbia University community.
The general public must register in advance and confirm COVID-19 vaccination status in compliance with current Columbia University health requirements using this online form.

Max Lauter
Max guides R&D and innovation with educators, nonprofits, and brands of all sizes—from local galleries to big tech. He aims to support art and culture, developing spaces and programs for public participation and collaborative creativity. Functioning as a multitool, he works as a creative producer, designer, technologist, strategist, and curator. He served as Programs Director and Gallery Manager at the pioneering cultural organization Storefront for Art and Architecture. Independently he co-founded Sonic Platforms, a sound-first media collective, and Global Listening, an innovation studio. He helped to build the immersive design team at the creative company BUCK, and continues to lead research and development in XR technologies—formerly at R&D at the New York Times, leveraging emerging technology in support of journalism, and most recently in Reality Labs at Meta, building VR and MR applications with spatial computing. He holds a B.S. in Philosophy and a M.S. in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices (CCCP) in Architecture from Columbia University’s GSAPP.

Mindy Seu
Mindy Seu (b. 1991, California) is a designer and technologist based in New York City. Her expanded practice involves archival projects, techno-critical writing, performative lectures, design commissions, and close collaborations. Her latest writing surveys historical precursors of the metaverse and reveals the materiality of the internet. Mindy’s ongoing Cyberfeminism Index, which gathers three decades of online activism and net art, was commissioned by Rhizome and presented at the New Museum in its online form, and its print form is a recipient of a Graham Foundation Grant. She has lectured internationally at cultural institutions (Barbican Centre, New Museum), academic institutions (Columbia University, Central Saint Martins), and mainstream platforms (Pornhub, SSENSE, Google), among many others, and has been a resident at MacDowell, Sitterwerk Foundation, Pioneer Works, and Internet Archive. Mindy holds an M.Des. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a B.A. in Design Media Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is currently Assistant Professor at Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts and Critic at Yale School of Art.

David Isaac Hecht
David Isaac Hecht is a transdisciplinary practitioner, researcher, and organizer whose work operates between communities, technologies, knowledge structures, physical structures, ecological networks, organizational dynamics, and collaborative labor practices. He is a member and Director of Facilities at the Prime Produce Apprentice Cooperative, is a co-organizer of the Cybernetics Library, and has been a member of the Organizing Committee of the Architecture Lobby. David’s work is usually oriented around helping people, communities, and projects gain access to and make use of resources that can help make their visions real.

Image Caption: Antibody Club by Max Lauter (above) and Cyberfeminism Index by Mindy Seu (below)