Guests from the University College London and Temple University at the University of Wrocław
The Institute of Romance Studies and the Institute of English Studies cordially invite you to open lectures from professors who visit the Faculty of Languages, Literatures and Cultures as part of IDUB visits at the beginning of May: Prof. Marjana Collettiego of University College London and Dr. Víctora Pueyo Zoco of Temple University (USA).
Prof. Marjana Collettiego will give two lectures. The first one is titled “XD – Exploring Transdimensionality (A Design-Research Investigation into Postdigital Spatial Practices)”, which will take place on May 7, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., at the Institute of Romance Studies (room 4.3, in-person lecture). The second lecture is titled “PDNB – Postdigital Neobaroque (A Plurivocal Architectural Design-Research Project)” and will take place on May 8, from 9:20 a.m. to 10:50 a.m., at Aula Leopoldina (in-person lecture).
About the lecture
- XD – Exploring Transdimensionality (A Design Research Investigation into Postdigital Spatial Practices)
This lecture explores how dimensions from 0D to 5D shape our perception and experience of space and form. The project discussed in the lecture moves beyond raditional architectural 2D and 3D drawing paradigms to explore the complexities of multiple dimensions and interdimensions such as 0.5D, 1.5D, 2.5D, 3.5D and 4.5D, encompassing spatial, temporal, emotional, and interactive elements. Grounded in the author’s 25 years of architectural digital and postdigital design research, XD project demonstrates that transdimensionality offers a powerful lens for reimagining the relationship between humans and their environment. By transcending conventional boundaries between the physical and digital, this design research fosters new possibilities for creative expression, critical analysis, and meaningful spatial experiences. The findings demonstrate the potential to create new aesthetic paradigms, innovative design tools, critical engagement with technology, and enhanced spatial experiences, holding implications for architecture, interaction design, and 1:1 prototype design (XD also offers a framework for other disciplines such as transhumanism, postcolonialism, cultural/identity/media theory, critical data studies, art history, graphic design, AI ethics).
- Postdigital Neobaroque (PDNB) (A Plurivocal Architectural Design-Research Project)
This lecture presents an innovative design research project exploring the dynamic tension between modern and Baroque ideas in contemporary culture. Led by Marjan Colletti, the five-year project investigates this interplay across disciplines, primarily focusing on architectural design and blurring boundaries between theory, research, and practice. Framed as both inclusive and exclusive, PDNB adopts a critical stance towards its aesthetics and technologies, aligning with Eco’s Open Work (1962) to foster plurivocal dialogue. Using Wölfflin’s comparative formalism (1915) and Calabrese’s semiotic analysis (1992), PDNB rethinks architecture’s role in the 21st century by considering the impact of digital technologies. The project, characterised by transdisciplinarity, innovation, and engagement with the Anthropocene, features 1:1 installations, animated projects, and a three-volume compendium, offering valuable resources for researchers and designers seeking to innovate in socially, culturally, and environmentally conscious architectural design.
Bio
Professor Marjan Colletti teaches at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL (University College of London) and is the Director of the Institute of Experimental Architecture at Innsbruck University in Austria. Prof. Colletti is an internationally respected researcher who has lectured at such universities as UT Arlington, Texas and UCLA, Los Angeles. At the University of Innsbruck, he founded an experimental laboratory for research on the integration of virtual design and new technological approaches in architecture. Prof. Colletti is the author of innovative monographs such as Digital Poetics: An Open Theory of Design-Research in Architecture (Routledge, 2013) and Hyperarticulated Morphologies (listLab, 2015). They summarise his research on the relationships between neo-Baroque sensibility and modern approach to architecture and design. His current research interests are ecologies of hybrid and transdisciplinary entanglements of post-digitality and neo-Baroque.
Person responsible: dr hab. Zofia Kolbuszewska, prof. UWr (IFA), zofia.kolbuszewska@uwr.edu.pl
Dr. Víctor Pueyo Zoco will give a lecture titled „The Politics of the Baroque: Sovereignty and Monstrosity in the Late Habsburg Empire” on May 9, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. at the Oratorium Marianum (in-person lecture).
About the lecture
Why is the Baroque obsessed with monstrosity? How can Baroque monsters help us map out the coordinates of the present? Drawing on a collection of exceptional bodies and curiosities taken from a wide range of sixteenth to eighteenth-century sources (bestiaries, poetry, relations of events, miscellanea), I will show how the Baroque body politic laid the foundations for our current, “modern” social formations, creating the conditions for a new social contract and shaping our political imagination at the level of ordinary life. In so doing, I will challenge some of the most common assumptions regarding the Baroque (its concern with purely aesthetic form, its universal nature, or its unconditional alignment with the conservative agenda of the Counter-reformation) to present an updated outlook on what the Baroque was and on what it could still be.
Bio
Dr. Víctor M. Pueyo Zoco is a renowned scholar of Spanish literature and cultural studies, specialising in the Baroque period and Ibero-American culture. He defended his doctoral thesis at Stony Brook University. Currently, he is an assistant professor at Temple University. It is noteworthy that he had studied at many prestigious universities in the USA as well as in Europe, such as the University of Salamanca.
His academic achievement includes two monographs: Cuerpos plegables: anatomías de la excepción en España y en América Latina (siglos XVI-XVIII) (2016) oraz Góngora: hacia una poética histórica (2013). He published his research papers in such journals as Hispanic Review, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies and Studi Ispanici. As a reviewer, he collaborates with many academic publishing houses, like the University of Toronto Press. He is a member of international scholar societies such as the Modern Language Association and the Renaissance Society of America. He had lectured at some of the prominent centres of Spanish studies, e.g. Princeton, Dartmouth College, and Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Person responsible: dr Aleksander Trojanowski (IFR) aleksander.trojanowski2@uwr.edu.pl
We warmly invite you to take part in these events!
Translated by Julia Prażuch (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
Date of publication: 28.04.2025
Added by: M.K.
