Night White Skies

Today's conversation is with Jeffrey Nesbit and Charles Waldheim about their book Technical Lands. It was great to have both Jeffrey and Charles back on the program. They've both been on here separately but today we're discussing their new edited book 'Technical Lands: A Critical Primer'. As they state in the book, designating land as technical is a political act and doing so entails dividing, marginalizing, and rendering portions of the Earth inaccessible. This is land that is often invisible and remote. The range of contributing authors includes architectural historians, landscape architects, anthropologists, sociologists as well as cultural and political geographers. This 'deep bench' of disciplinary practices is needed to better understand and draw out how technical lands are defined and maybe even more importantly, demonstrate why it's necessary to bring them to the foreground of our conversations. Hope you enjoy the episode and until next time... take care. Technical Lands: A Critical Primer Other episodes linked to the topic include Ep 072 Jane Hutton, 'Reciprocal Landscapes' , Ep 097 Michael Jakob, 'Faux Mountains', Ep 056 Bradley Cantrell, 'AI and Wildness' and many others. Try the websites 'search' function to find more related episodes. You can find all episodes at www.NightWhiteSkies.com Thoughts or suggestions, email me at NWS@seanlally.net Instagram

Sometimes it's only through repetition and time that insight into your actions are revealed. This might come about because aspects of those actions aren't always fully intentional. When it comes to Night White Skies, I firmly believe to be routed in architecture, but I've heard it described by others as often drifting beyond this topic. But what I've come to appreciate more and more over time is the importance of a 'hunch'. The idea that experience over time offers you the ability to see patterns and outcomes enough times that when an opportunity presents itself, you can see value within. A 'hunch' that pivoting in an unexpected direction can offer insight and opportunity. And so, when Night White Skies 'drifts' beyond architecture explicitly, I like to think it's because I'm playing a 'hunch'. This extended introduction has now of course put unnecessary attention on my guest today, so I apologize for that. But Christopher Schaberg has been on this program before so I already knew this would be a rewarding conversation. The title of Chris's latest book is 'Adventure, an Argument for Limits', and it's this title, 'Adventure' that drew my attention and what I wanted to explore more regarding architecture. Do we need more adventure in architecture and what exactly would that entail? To go on an adventure requires risks, setbacks, you might even get lost. But in return you end up somewhere physically, ideologically or emotionally elsewhere? You have changed. In this case, architecture has changed. So, what was my hunch here today? I'm not sure if it's due to architecture's disciplinary training and education or its position in various industries but architecture relies heavily on presenting ideas as the correct one! As inevitable, as the obvious solution. When thinking of the plethora of pressures facing humanity today, the architect continues the showmanship of presenting right answers and declaring which are the rights paths to follow. And I of course understand the economic reasoning for why this is at least partially necessary. No client wants to spend millions of dollars to deliver a project that 'might' work. With the shear complexity of issues today related to climate, social justice, healthcare, communication technologies, how can we so consistently claim to have right answers and paths to follow? On an adventure, it's the mishaps, wrong turns, and reflection that help us reorient not only where we thought we wanted to go but our understanding of where we started. What I find unique about adventures is how you talk about them. The way in which you retell an adventure to others, sharing experiences and knowledge learned. You include others in your adventure simply by retelling them. Adventures are somehow collective. But it increasingly feels as if architects desire to lay claim to territory as some form of demonstration of disciplinary or personal control has instead splintered the discipline into a thousand fiefdoms with no kingdom to speak of. Laying claim to territory has impinged on the ability to wander. Wandering with purpose would be nice. It always seems like a good idea to go on an adventure, but for architecture now, it seems like it might actually be necessary. Christopher Schaberg is Director of Public Scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis, and the author of nine books, including The End of Airports, Pedagogy of the Depressed, Fly-Fishing, and most recently Adventure: An Argument for Limits. Schaberg is also a founding co-editor of Object Lessons, a book series dedicated to the hidden lives of ordinary things. 'Adventure: An Argument for Limits' Other episodes linked to the topic include Ep 069 Christopher Schaberg 'Searching for the Anthropocene' Ep 100 Fred Scharmen 'Space Forces' and many others. Try the websites 'search' function to find more related episodes. You can find all episodes at www.NightWhiteSkies.com Thoughts or suggestions, email me at NWS@seanlally.net Instagram

Today's conversation is with Aleksandra Jaeschke about her book 'The Greening of America's Building Codes, Promises and Paradoxes'. There are realities we live with that are so ingrained in all aspects of our lives that we rarely think to question their origins. They are either intertwined with base economic standards or current laws and regulations and so to imagine an alternative would require not simple tweaks and updates but a fundamental restructuring of the whole system, and that's just not something many have time or even the inclination to pursue. I often think of that Fredric Jameson or Slavoj Zizek quote that 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Capitalism.' Capitalism and climate change are so intertwined that it should come as no surprise that our relationship to nature and the environment has been shaped by an economic model of growth beyond all else. More specifically, the ways in which many in America (and I say America because this is where today's topic will be based) ...the way in which we are presented solutions and options for bettering our relationship to nature are through the purchase of better commodities. We are not incentivized to live with less or change our lifestyles, we're instructed through building codes, tax right offs and promises of energy cost savings to buy technologies for our homes and garages that will save us energy and money under the guise that this will also make a better planet. Our relationship with the environment is reminiscent of the old approach of purchasing indulgences that free us of guilt and consequences for our actions. Buy a few solar panels and continue with life as before. We can simply purchase technologies (electrical panels, EV cars etc.) that simply clip onto our existing lifestyles, no other compromises required and most importantly, no need to look further into why our lifestyles and views are shaped as they are in the first place. Aleksandra's book looks at the building codes put in place for domestic homes in California over the last 100 years and how these have shaped our relationship to the environment. When reading this book, it also indirectly draws attention to how such codes and politics have informed our perspectives and roles to climate change. Aleksandra Jaeschke is an architect and an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Sustainable Design at The University of Texas at Austin. Born and raised in Poland, she holds a Doctor of Design degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and an AA Diploma from the Architectural Association in London. Her book entitled The Greening of America's Building Codes: Promises and Paradoxes was published by Princeton Architectural Press in December 2022. Aleksandra Jaeschke's The Greening of America's Building Codes Other episodes linked to the topic include Ep 008 Gretchen Bakke 'The Grid' , Ep 049 Kiel Moe's Empire, State and Building and many others. Try the websites 'search' function to find more related episodes. You can find all episodes at www.NightWhiteSkies.com Thoughts or suggestions, email me at NWS@seanlally.net Instagram

Today's conversation is with Jeffrey Nesbit about his book 'Nature of Enclosure'. So much of our architectural education and practice is reliant on the idea of control. Take representation for example. Without being able to quantify information about a site, materials or even people, how can we be expected to make decisions about what we ultimately build. If you can't quantify it in a representation of some sort, how can you be expected to design with it. How can you be expected to make creative and informed choices? I'm confident in saying that's the prevailing opinion. If we play this forward, there's the assumption that if an architect or landscape architect knows enough to represent it in drawing, diagram or statistics, then we can also reasonably understand the implications of those decisions. But that simply isn't the case. Either because we willfully exclude information (representations are of course by nature a kind of filter) or because our understanding of the information at hand was inherently lacking without our knowing. In this edited book by Jeffrey Nesbit called 'Nature Enclosed', he and the contributors cover many scales and facets of what enclosure has meant over the past several centuries. What I found the most interesting about the book is often the look back at the original assumptions when decisions were initially made about enclosing nature (either from us or for us). Doing so highlights just how much more influential these decisions were not only on changing the makeup of nature, but our perspectives and expectations of nature. Beyond that, such conversations help to demonstrate how we seem to continually reframe our own bodies through our changing expectations. Reframing is an ongoing practice and not one that will come exclusively through the control we exert on nature but in being reminded just how mailable we as humans are. Demonstrating control seems increasingly less likely to be the answer moving forward. But stretching and exploring our expectations and where we place value might be. Jeffrey S. Nesbit is an architect, urbanist, and founding director of the research group Grounding Design. Nesbit's research focuses on processes of urbanization, infrastructure, and the evolution of "technical lands." Currently, his research examines the 20th-century American spaceport complex at the intersection of architecture, infrastructure, and aerospace history. Nesbit has published several journal articles, book chapters, and is editor of Nature of Enclosure (Actar, 2022), co-editor of Technical Lands: A Critical Primer (Jovis, 2023), New Geographies 11 Extraterrestrial (Actar, 2019), Nesbit is Assistant Professor in History and Theory of Architecture and Urbanism at Temple University. Jeffrrey S. Nesbit's Nature of Enclosure Other episodes linked to the topic include Ep 87 Margret Grebowicz and many others. Try the websites 'search' function to find more related episodes. You can find all episodes at www.NightWhiteSkies.com Thoughts or suggestions, email me at NWS@seanlally.net Instagram

Today's conversation is about the potential impact of new tools for video games on architecture. As architects, we have no shortage of external pressures we need to be aware of and engage. From climate change to new forms of communication technologies and social justice to name only three ...the list is long and at times overwhelming to think about. Many of these issues that we're looking to better understand are not new, but how we tackle them today and intertwine a few of them together probably should be. So, it would make good sense for architecture to keep an eye out for tools and techniques that might allow us to engage such pressures in novel ways. One of them that interests me in particular is video games. I've discussed this with guests in the past including author Aubrey Anable and curator Boris Magrini, but today is with film director Sava Zivkovic. Zivkovic doesn't use the software to make video games but instead movie films and this is because of the efficiency of the software with its real-time rendering. Tools that offer efficiency to a process often have a negative connotation for creativity. But in the case of the gaming software we're seeing today, I think it's opening the doors for something altogether novel for the architect. And that's social interaction with design. You might call this a storyline, an interface between people and space. I'm not sure. But today is a conversation with how a director is using these tools and it will be up to the architect to see how far we can push these opportunities. Sava Zivkovic is a director based in Belgrade, Serbia. His directing work includes critically acclaimed and award-winning short films like IRRADIATION, HUXLEY, FREIGHT, and IFCC. As a director for Axis Studios, he has created game cinematics for Dead Island 2, Diablo Immortal, Outriders, Solium Infernum, Destiny 2 and Gears of War 5. Book Title as a link by person's name You can find all episodes at www.NightWhiteSkies.com Other episodes linked to the topic include Ep 84 Aubrey Anable and Ep 88 Boris Magrini Thoughts or suggestions, email me at NWS@seanlally.net Instagram

Today is a conversation with Michael Jakob and we're talking about his writing on Faux Mountains. These are the mounds, piles, and hills that are linked not only to architecture and landscape architecture but Land Art, Urban Design and beyond. With such a long history, this shape has been a construct that has been around for thousands of years yet continues to evolve in its cultural significance. Michael has a new book out now with the same name so be sure to have a look for that. BOOK www.NightWhiteSkies.com www.SeanLally.net

Amy Brady is the author of Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks–a Cool History of a Hot Commodity. She is also the executive director of Orion magazine, a contributing editor for Scientific American, and coeditor of The World as We Knew It: Dispatches from a Changing Climate. Brady has made appearances on the BBC, NPR, and PBS. She holds a PhD in literature and American studies and has won writing and research awards from the National Science Foundation, the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference, and the Library of Congress. www.NightWhiteSkies.com www.SeanLally.net

My conversation this week is with Astrophysicist Adam Frank is a leading expert on the final stages of evolution for stars like the sun, and his computational research group at the University of Rochester has developed advanced supercomputer tools for studying how stars form and how they die. Today we're discussing his book, 'Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth'. *** Night White Skies is a program about our design futures as both the environment and our human bodies are now open for design. www.seanlally.net Thanks to Richard Devine for Sample permission:

Henry Greely is Professor of Law at Stanford University and Professor by courtesy of Genetics, Stanford School of Medicine; Director, Center for Law and the Biosciences; Director, Stanford Program in Neuroscience and Society; and Chair, Steering Committee of the Center for Biomedical Ethics. *** Night White Skies is a program about our design futures as both the environment and our human bodies are now open for design. www.seanlally.net Thanks to Richard Devine for Sample permission:

Today is a conversation about science fiction with Sherryl Vint. Sherryl is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside, where she directs the Speculative Fictions and Cultures of Science program. *** Night White Skies is a program about our design futures as both the environment and our human bodies are now open for design. www.SeanLally.net Substack Instagram Thanks to Richard Devine for the use of several sample permission.

Margret Grebowicz is an environmental philosopher living in upstate New York. She is the author of four books--Mountains and Desire: Climbing vs. the End of the World, Whale Song, The National Park to Come, Why Internet Porn Matters--and is currently finishing a new short book, Rescue Me: On Dog Abundance and Social Scarcity. *** Night White Skies is a program about our design futures as both the environment and our human bodies are now open for design. www.SeanLally.net Substack Instagram Thanks to Richard Devine for sample permission.

This week is a conversation with Jackie Higgins. Jackie is a television documentary director and writer, who read zoology at Oxford University, as a student of Richard Dawkins. She made wildlife films for a decade, for BBC as well as for Channel 4, National Geographic and The Discovery Channel. She then joined the BBC's science department, researching and writing, directing and producing programs such as Tomorrow's World and Horizon. Today we're talking about her book 'Sentient'. Music samples used. Richard Devine, 'Etch n Sketch' Cinematic Laboratory, 'Eurotrack Starter Kits ep. 01