43/ PhD Defence, A. Radman © MMXII

GIBSONISM: Ecologies of Architecture / Thesis Defence
ir. A. Radman / Delft School of Design
Promotor Prof.dr. A.D. Graafland
Copromotor Dr.ir. H. Sohn

19 March 2012 15:00
Aula TU Delft

Abstract
Gibsonism is shorthand for what contemporary neuro-cognitive sciences classify under the dynamical animal-environment system approach. Perception cannot be considered independently of the environment, because it is defined as an evolved adaptive and constructive relation between the life-form and the environment. This is the watershed of the enactive, embodied, embedded and extended approach of the Affordance Theory in the wake of the recent Affective Turn. It targets a certain existence which is more than that which the idealist calls a representation, but less than that which the realist calls a thing. Unfortunately, an overwhelming amount of research has been carried out in the context of object perception, rather than environment perception, where the findings of the former are erroneously used as the basis for understanding the latter. The dissertation seeks to invigorate James Jerome Gibson's radical empiricism by exploring his unwitting affiliation with Gilles Deleuze's anti-representationalism. Ask not what is inside your head but rather what your head is inside of.

Biography
Andrej Radman is a licensed architect who has won a number of awards from national competitions in partnership with architect Igor Vrbanek, including the Croatian Association of Architects annual award for housing architecture in Croatia in 2002. Radman has been teaching design studios and theory courses at TU Delft Faculty of Architecture in The Netherlands since 2004. In 2008 he joined the teaching and research staff of the Delft School of Design (DSD) as Assistant Professor of Architecture. A graduate of the Zagreb School of Architecture in Croatia, he received a Master's Degree with Honours from the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture. He is a member of the National Committee on Deleuze Scholarship.