Daniel Ayat
Abstract: What role have epidemics played in the history of the city, and in turn in the history of modernity? Tracing the ways that the outbreaks of cholera and tuberculosis have shaped the urban public sphere, artist, historian, and theorist Daniel Simon Ayat will trace the ways that the invisible threat of contagion has been conceptualised, planned, and implemented in history. Ayat will present his contemporary art practise alongside the urban history of contagion and how this has shaped our modern condition, with specific focus on the familiarities and challenges posed by the outbreak of an entirely novel pathogen, COVID-19.
Biography: Daniel Simon Ayat is a Lebanese-American artist and writer based in Paris, France and New York City, USA. His work analyzes the political aesthetics of the everyday and the interdependence of ‘cleanliness, order, and beauty’ in contemporary culture. He has undertaken research on the history of infrastructure, sewerage technology, the development of public toilet networks, the place of the agricultural hinterland in the social imagination, and the value of waste and the legacy of the junk aesthetic in contemporary art practices. Ayat has worked in the Humanities and Media Studies at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture and also co-founded the Architectural Association Visiting School in Lyngør, Norway. Ayat holds an MSc in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from the University of Oxford and an MA in Art and Science from Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design. He also has an MA in the Histories and Theories of Architecture from the Architectural Association in London, where he assisted in the History and Theory Studies department.
Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_V9HfxX1UQf2eUeEoMf0OVg
Date:
Wednesday, 3 June, 2020 - 15:00 to 16:00
Event location:
Online