Image, Representation, Media: Architecture After the Screen
Images —through digital platforms and data infrastructures— reshape architectural thinking and practice. Bringing together media theorists and architectural researchers, the discussion explores the image as signal, interface, and political agent. The conversation aims to reveal how representation, desire, visibility, and power are reconfigured in the age of computation, social media, and networked culture.
Speakers/s: Lev Manovich, Javier F. Contreras, John May
Host: Laura Bonell
Images —through digital platforms and data infrastructures— reshape architectural thinking and practice. Bringing together media theorists and architectural researchers, the discussion explores the image as signal, interface, and political agent. The conversation aims to reveal how representation, desire, visibility, and power are reconfigured in the age of computation, social media, and networked culture.
Speakers/s: Lev Manovich, Javier F. Contreras, John May
Host: Laura Bonell
ADDRESSING INTERIOR VIOLENCES
To address spatial violence from within a school of interior architecture is to acknowledge interior spaces as more than politically neutral backgrounds. They should not be understood as mere décor for the everyday lives of predefined identities, but rather as materially situated conditions that actively participate in shaping social and political interactions. Addressing Interior Violences follows Michel Foucault’s reflections in Discipline and Punish (1975) by considering interior architecture as a set of biopolitical techniques of control over bodies and subjectivities—techniques that uphold the construction of the “normal” subject: that is, the able-bodied, white, young, human, bourgeois, heterosexual, male subject. At the same time, the symposium questions the mirror image of this figure: the spatial production of the monstrous, the excluded, and the dehumanized. Building on the writings of Lennard J. Davis (2002), the symposium seeks to interrogate the role of interior spaces in perpetuating power structures organized around the Western and modern notion of normalcy.
Category: International Symposium
Speakers: Allan Mensah, EDIT Collective, M.C. Overholt, Romain Curnier Mercury, Janus Lafontaine Carboni, Lindsey Krug, Lisa Maillard, Lola Jutzeler, Hugo Maia Schmitt, Emily Vargas Soto, Rebeca Woodbridge, Christina Conti, Giuseppina Scavuzzo, Alberto Cervesato, Özüm Karadag, Anastasiia Noga, Evan Saarinen, Maevia Griffiths, Lucía J. Oyarzun, Aitor F.Sánchez, Adéla Vavríková, Gauri Bahuguna, Serena Langdon-Dimidjian, Michela Bassanelli, Lily Blanchard, Tumelo Mtimkhulu, EVERY ISLAND
Program Chair/s: Javier F. Contreras, Paule Perron, Valentina De Luigi
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To address spatial violence from within a school of interior architecture is to acknowledge interior spaces as more than politically neutral backgrounds. They should not be understood as mere décor for the everyday lives of predefined identities, but rather as materially situated conditions that actively participate in shaping social and political interactions. Addressing Interior Violences follows Michel Foucault’s reflections in Discipline and Punish (1975) by considering interior architecture as a set of biopolitical techniques of control over bodies and subjectivities—techniques that uphold the construction of the “normal” subject: that is, the able-bodied, white, young, human, bourgeois, heterosexual, male subject. At the same time, the symposium questions the mirror image of this figure: the spatial production of the monstrous, the excluded, and the dehumanized. Building on the writings of Lennard J. Davis (2002), the symposium seeks to interrogate the role of interior spaces in perpetuating power structures organized around the Western and modern notion of normalcy.
Category: International Symposium
Speakers: Allan Mensah, EDIT Collective, M.C. Overholt, Romain Curnier Mercury, Janus Lafontaine Carboni, Lindsey Krug, Lisa Maillard, Lola Jutzeler, Hugo Maia Schmitt, Emily Vargas Soto, Rebeca Woodbridge, Christina Conti, Giuseppina Scavuzzo, Alberto Cervesato, Özüm Karadag, Anastasiia Noga, Evan Saarinen, Maevia Griffiths, Lucía J. Oyarzun, Aitor F.Sánchez, Adéla Vavríková, Gauri Bahuguna, Serena Langdon-Dimidjian, Michela Bassanelli, Lily Blanchard, Tumelo Mtimkhulu, EVERY ISLAND
Program Chair/s: Javier F. Contreras, Paule Perron, Valentina De Luigi
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HEAD – Genève. Geneva. February 23-24, 2026
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ANIMALS INSIDE
A History of Objects and Furniture for Pets in Domestic Interiors
Animals Inside explores the material, spatial, and cultural intersections between human and animal life within the domestic sphere. By tracing the evolution of objects and furniture created for non-human companions — from antiquity to the digital present — the event examines how animals’ presence has shaped, challenged, and expanded our conception of home. Through a rich series of talks by designers, architects, historians, artists, and theorists, the symposium investigates the gradual domestication not only of animals but of design itself, as human creativity adapts to the needs, habits, and emotional bonds of interspecies coexistence.
Category: International Symposium
Speakers: Daniel Zamarbide, Gabi Schillig, Estelle Christe, Laura Mucciolo, Kim Schönauer, Anne Hölck, Marine de Dardel, Ayaka Okamoto, Riccardo Miotto, Francisco G. Triviño and Paula V. Álvarez, Antonio Yemail
Program Chair/s: Javier F. Contreras, Youri Kravtchenko
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A History of Objects and Furniture for Pets in Domestic Interiors
Animals Inside explores the material, spatial, and cultural intersections between human and animal life within the domestic sphere. By tracing the evolution of objects and furniture created for non-human companions — from antiquity to the digital present — the event examines how animals’ presence has shaped, challenged, and expanded our conception of home. Through a rich series of talks by designers, architects, historians, artists, and theorists, the symposium investigates the gradual domestication not only of animals but of design itself, as human creativity adapts to the needs, habits, and emotional bonds of interspecies coexistence.
Category: International Symposium
Speakers: Daniel Zamarbide, Gabi Schillig, Estelle Christe, Laura Mucciolo, Kim Schönauer, Anne Hölck, Marine de Dardel, Ayaka Okamoto, Riccardo Miotto, Francisco G. Triviño and Paula V. Álvarez, Antonio Yemail
Program Chair/s: Javier F. Contreras, Youri Kravtchenko
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HEAD – Genève. Geneva. November 17, 2025
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THE INTERIORS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
This presentation provides a thorough examination of how social media is influencing contemporary architecture, focusing on interior spaces as sites for consumerism, display, and mediatization. By analyzing the spatial dynamics of the most followed accounts on Instagram, Twitch, TikTok, and Pinterest, alongside the architectural landscapes within user-generated video games such as those hosted on Roblox, and the domestic environments featuring animals—particularly pets—on social media, the presentation sheds light on the ethical, political, and ecological implications of digital platforms. Ultimately, it elucidates the complexities that arise from the integration of technology, media, and architecture in shaping contemporary social interactions and spatial experiences.
Category: Lecture. Spanish
Author: Javier F. Contreras
Conference: MMMAD - Madrid Urban Digital Art Festival
Medialab Matadero, 2024
This presentation provides a thorough examination of how social media is influencing contemporary architecture, focusing on interior spaces as sites for consumerism, display, and mediatization. By analyzing the spatial dynamics of the most followed accounts on Instagram, Twitch, TikTok, and Pinterest, alongside the architectural landscapes within user-generated video games such as those hosted on Roblox, and the domestic environments featuring animals—particularly pets—on social media, the presentation sheds light on the ethical, political, and ecological implications of digital platforms. Ultimately, it elucidates the complexities that arise from the integration of technology, media, and architecture in shaping contemporary social interactions and spatial experiences.
Category: Lecture. Spanish
Author: Javier F. Contreras
Conference: MMMAD - Madrid Urban Digital Art Festival
Medialab Matadero, 2024
Madrid. May 11, 2024
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Mediated Archives
THE INTERIORS OF INSTAGRAM AND TIKTOK
This presentation examines the interior spaces of social media, with a particular focus on Instagram and TikTok as two of the dominant platforms shaping contemporary architectural archiving through the massive production, editing, and circulation of images and videos. The study focuses on the ten most followed accounts on both platforms, analyzing all the posts from 2022 that represent interior spaces without any officially stated commercial purpose. It ultimately questions the role social media plays in the redefinition of our environment and its blurred boundaries, namely how its representation directly affects our everyday material surroundings.
Category: Lecture. English
Author/s: Javier F. Contreras, Paule Perron
Conference: Architecture Archives of the Future.
Jaap Bakema Study Centre, TU Delft. 2023
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THE INTERIORS OF INSTAGRAM AND TIKTOK
This presentation examines the interior spaces of social media, with a particular focus on Instagram and TikTok as two of the dominant platforms shaping contemporary architectural archiving through the massive production, editing, and circulation of images and videos. The study focuses on the ten most followed accounts on both platforms, analyzing all the posts from 2022 that represent interior spaces without any officially stated commercial purpose. It ultimately questions the role social media plays in the redefinition of our environment and its blurred boundaries, namely how its representation directly affects our everyday material surroundings.
Category: Lecture. English
Author/s: Javier F. Contreras, Paule Perron
Conference: Architecture Archives of the Future.
Jaap Bakema Study Centre, TU Delft. 2023
Download Essay (English)
Delft. November 22, 2023
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