Enacting Gregory Bateson's Ecological Aesthetics in Architecture and Design

社会和生态转型要求设计和建筑领域发展新的、更具开拓性的思维和行为方式，以更好地解决生态问题。这个项目考察了人类学家和控制学家格雷戈里·贝特森(Gregory Bateson，1904-1980)的工作如何能够为驾驭这一挑战提供一种替代的行动框架。该项目借鉴了贝特森后来工作中所关注的问题：在设计和建筑的背景下，什么形式的思维和行为可以应对环境危机的特殊复杂性，在丰富的生态思想和具体情况的实际挑战之间架起桥梁？早在20世纪60年代，贝特森就提出，环境危机是由更广泛的思想危机和由此产生的组织形式造成的。贝特森批评了零敲碎打的环境行动方法，这种方法至今仍在引起共鸣。通过只解决那些可识别和可解决的“问题”，人们只对生态系统的某些部分采取行动，产生不可预测的后果，并在整个生态系统中产生反响。根据他们的人类学工作，贝特森指出了支持更全面的生态系统参与的各种美学实践。与主要通过技术视角看待环境问题不同，生态美学的这一理念为创造性学科在为应对环境危机做出实质性贡献方面开辟了新的可能性(也带来了挑战)。虽然贝特森的作品与建筑和设计的背景有许多共鸣，但让贝特森的想法参与其中不可避免地是复杂的。动员贝特森的工作不仅仅是更好地阐明其概念--这些想法需要付诸实施，而不仅仅是解释。在后来的工作中，贝特森试图解决他们的想法过于复杂的特点，以更开放的方式对实际情况进行修改，通常是通过形式和内容相交的对话形式。从贝特森作品的这些方面出发，该项目在不同的实践背景下探索、发展和批评贝特森的思想。其中包括：(1)丰富城市生态系统的原型装置；(2)跨生态领域的贝特森概念的沟通设计地图；(3)与前理性认识形式相结合的讲故事，以推测替代技术的未来；以及(4)对话参与的新模式的发展。通过这些活动，团队将合作制作可访问的资源，如地图、插图和游戏，以支持学生、教师、研究人员和设计和建筑从业者对贝特森思想的新形式的参与。

Social and ecological transformation requires design and architecture fields to develop new, more expansive, ways of thinking and acting that better engage questions of ecology. This project examines how the work of anthropologist and cybernetician Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) might contribute an alternative frame of action to navigate this challenge. Drawing on the concerns of Bateson's later work, the project asks: What forms of thinking and acting can work through the particular complexities of environmental crises in the contexts of design and architecture, bridging between rich ecological ideas and the practical challenges of concrete situations?As early as the 1960s, Bateson argued that the environmental crisis resulted from a broader crisis of ideas and the forms of organisation that resulted from this. Bateson criticised piecemeal approaches to environmental action in ways that continue to resonate today. By addressing only those 'problems' that are identifiable and solvable, one acts only on parts of an ecosystem, with unpredictable consequences that reverberate through the whole. Drawing on their anthropological work, Bateson pointed to various aesthetic practices that support fuller ecosystemic engagements. This idea of an 'ecological aesthetics' opens up new possibilities (as well as challenges) for creative disciplines in contributing substantial responses to environmental crises, in contrast to where environmental concerns are seen primarily through the lens of technology. While there are a number of resonances between Bateson's work and the contexts of architecture and design, engaging Bateson's ideas is inevitably complex. Mobilising Bateson's work is not simply a matter of better articulating its concepts - these are ideas that need to be enacted not just explained. In later work, Bateson attempted to address the overly complex character of their ideas, reworking them in ways that were more open to practical contexts, often through forms of dialogue where form and content intersect. Taking its point of departure from these aspects of Bateson's work, the project explores, develops, and critiques Bateson's ideas in varied contexts of practice. These include: (1) a prototype installation for enriching urban eco-systems; (2) communication design mapping of Bateson's concepts across ecological domains; (3) storytelling that engages with pre-rational forms of knowing to speculate on alternative technology futures; and (4) the development of new modes of dialogical engagement. Coming out of these activities, the team will work collaboratively to produce accessible resources such as maps, illustrations, and games that can support new forms of engagement with Bateson's ideas amongst students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners in design and architecture.