Philippe Rekacewicz
Born in 1960, Philippe Rekacewicz is double national French and American. He is Geographer, cartographer and journalist. After the completion of his study in geography at University of Paris la Sorbone, he becomes in 1988 a permanent collaborator of the international newspaper Le Monde diplomatique in Paris (today 70 editions in more than 30 languages) ? From 1996 to 2006, he was also heading the cartographic unit of a relocated office of UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) in Norway (UNEP/GRID-Arendal).

He follows particularly issues such as demography, refugees and displaced persons, migration and statelessness persons, as well as environmental questions. More broadly, geopolitics and geostrategy. Philippe Rekacewicz leads also number of other project which bring together cartography, art and politics, especially studying how communities, political or economical powers produce the cartographic vision of the territories on which they operate, And how they can manipulate an lies with maps

Since 2006, he also teaches regularly at the University of Bologna (Italy) in the department of historical studies and geography). He has since 1988, published more than 2000 original thematic maps, 20 atlases and written number of articles. He also participates to number of exhibit linking cartography to art in Austria, Sweden, Spain and France.

About the Lecture Series "Materialising Ideas in an Age of Digital Production""

What am I doing here?" the British writer Bruce Chatwin asked in the title of a collection of essays in 1989. "What are we doing here?" is our take on Chatwin’s simple yet fundamental question in order to reflectively discuss methods of production in architecture.

This year’s series of lectures at the IKA (Institute for Art and Architecture) will explore the influence, significance and changing potential of digital media in the process of materialising ideas. It will seek to define the nature and extent of the productive disruption and acceleration caused by digital media, and to investigate the validity of the structure of ideas and materialisation.

Various viewpoints will be explored from different distances and in diverse contexts. Historical, sociological, technological, artistic and productive perspectives will be combined to debate a phenomenon that we feel to be one of recent decades by its very nature.

The series will feature five lectures each in the fall semester and the spring semester. In addition, the lecture series will include a conference on the topic at the beginning of the spring semester.