The Intelligence of Structures

[i]International Bauhaus Lectures[/i] 22-23 May 2008, 10-18 h and 9- 13 h Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, Aula, Gropiusallee 38, 06846 Dessau/Germany For the third time, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences and Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, host the international „bauhaus lectures“. Which concepts of structure are valid in the different sciences and the designing and building arts and how are they related? Which notion of intelligence is characteristic for each of them? In architecture and design, the scope of activity naturally is situated at the intersections of the sciences, technology, art and media. Therefore, researching the essential structures of these disciplines opens ways for a mutual understanding, especially in those cases, in which it might be read as a crystallization of characteristic operations. Using linguistics as a leading science, structuralism tried to lay open elementary structures of languages and relationships of cultural exchange. However, this cross-sectional approach was limited to the realm of its paradigm: language. No attempt was made although to establish bridges towards structural studies in natural sciences, technology, architecture and other designing disciplines. Without doubt, we may read even very straightforward objects as a table, a window, an electronic circuit, a net or a map as epistemic objects and as specific embodiments of intelligence. This approach becomes even compelling in those cases, in which these structures belong to that specific arsenal of tools and media we use as outsourced human intelligence and with which we continuously interact. As cognitive ability, intelligence continuously depends on structures, which emerge out of nature and life and are culturally recognized, transformed and transmitted as „made“, „built“ and „constructed“. The conference is starting here, asking about „The Intelligence of Structures“ as crystallization of characteristic operations and its interrelations towards natural science, cultural science, art and form. Visit the official site: www.bauhaus-dessau.de