Prometheanity Prometheanity

Troy Conrad Therrien, Curator Architecture and Digital Initiatives at the Guggenheim Museum, gave a public lecture on Friday 30 October 2015 at the TU Delft, organized by The Berlage. Therrien's visit comprised part of the International Visitors Programme of Het Nieuwe Instituut.

Initially trained as a computer engineer, and later in architecture design, history, and theory, Troy Conrad Therrien has held positions as an architect, creative technologist, innovation consultant, and scholar. His current research focuses on the relationship between architecture, communication technology and political economy.

"We live in exciting times. News of genetic hacking and commercial space flight fill the headlines of even the most stoic feeds. The long and frosty winter of stagnation in artificial intelligence research has passed into the spring of deep learning applied to banal tasks like ordering pizzas and profiling terrorists. Drones are dispatched to rescue wayward day trekkers while nootropics available online from distributors in India allow knowledge workers in Austin the laser focus required for innovation on the vertical asymptote of contemporary historicity driven by Moore's Law.

The computerization of everyday life has tethered us to the roller coaster of technological development and perhaps the only effect more pronounced than excitement is the anxiety it has spawned. It has become very hard to keep up. It has become even harder to maintain a responsive critical position. As the locus of innovation fever moves from objects and environments to the categories of life and intelligence that we have long used as touchstones for our self-proclaimed special status as a species, the site of historical consciousness becomes coterminous with the primary object of historical change and complicates matters even further. This post-architectural wave destabilizes ontologies. It forces us to question who we are at the same time we are questioning what's happening around us.

While these open questions paralyze many, the have opened the door to a new era of Promethean thinking for others. This talk will explore "Prometheanity" as a contemporary theology through a series of case studies, from the evolution of Bitcoin to Åzone Futures Market, a new Guggenheim exhibition."

• Troy Conrad Therrien. [Source: website Berlage Instituut]