Visualizing, Representing, and Interrogating Latin American Urbanism Day 1-Plenary Session

Over the last decades visual thinking has been increasingly incorporated into the production and dissemination of knowledge. In the field of urbanism and spatial research, diverse software, satellite cartography and other languages have transformed how the built environment is perceived, analyzed, and understood. The colloquium Visualizing, Representing, and Interrogating Latin American Urbanism: Buenos Aires, São Paulo, and Mexico City convenes scholars who use distinct media such as text, iconography, and audiovisual to study the historical evolution and growth of Latin American cities.

This is a two-day event Click here to view the program for Day 2, and see below for Day 1.

5:00 pm – 5:15 pm

Welcome and Introduction

Diane E. Davis and Heliana Angotti-Salgueiro

5:15 pm – 7:00 pm

Plenary Session 

The opening lecture of the colloquium "Digital Media + Methods of Producing Knowledge about Cities and Environments" will directly address Urban Intermedia’s initial use of digital technologies and other critical tools, to explore some key research themes. Eve Blau will moderate the Plenary Session, sharing more about the methodology and the experimental character of the layered visual narratives of the exhibition developed in the context of the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, as part of collaborative practices that bring together scholarship, design, and media around the study of cities and environments. Robert G. Pietrusko will explore the history of false-color aerial photography in the 1940s and examine how military infrared techniques evolved into tools for environmental disaster analysis. As a recent example, Pietrusko will also display excerpts from a video installation that transforms flood and storm data analysis into an immersive visual experience. Gabriel Kozlowski will introduce a critical-cartography project that makes visible anthropogenic transformations in Amazonia. Revealing centuries-old territorial imprints, the mapping presents the Amazon region as a complex, human-shaped landscape. Each of these projects responds to the aspiration to seek new visual languages of digital technology that allow us to examine complex and dynamic urban environmental phenomena through multiple critical lenses.

Speakers

Robert Gerard Pietrusko, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design.

Gabriel Kozlowski, Founding Partner at POLES-Political Ecology of Space, PhD Candidate at Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Moderated by Eve Blau, Professor of the History and Theory of Urban Form and Design, at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Co-Director of Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative.

This event is co-sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University and the Graduate School of Design (GSD), Harvard University.