Yael Eylat Van-Essen PhD – Curator / Researcher

Mapping, Sensing and Hacking Rethinking Architecture in the Era of the Anthropocene

In his book Ontopolitics in the Anthropocene: An Introduction to Mapping, Sensing and Hacking, David Chandler (2018) suggests referring to the Anthropocene debate as a reflection of a shift from modernist assumptions of ‘command and control’ and from the top-down, towards discursive framings of contingency, complexity, non-linearity and entanglement. He claims that, with this affirmative shift, the realisation that the Anthropocene cannot be secured, governed or engaged within traditional ways, should emerge. This paper suggests rethinking the role of architecture in the Anthropocene era with the challenges that it poses, through the new set of ontopolitical assumptions which inform contemporary social and political thought. It will explore how the three principles of map- ping, sensing and hacking, discussed by Chandler in the context of governance, can be applied to the architectural domain and stimulate novel processes for architectural interventions. In order to show how architecture can activate a new relationship between human beings and their environment, based on these three typologies, the following paper will explore the relationship between ecological thinking and architecture in the Israeli context, in light of the unique history of the land which, since the establishment of the state in 1948, has been going through a comprehensive process of “re-design”.