Plural Machine

Title slide of my presentation. Image of the doomed Birmingham Central Library, June 2015. Photo by A.M. Last week I spoke at the Nonument Symposium in Ljubljana, focussing on the way that 'Brutalism' is used and abused in contemporary culture. The renewed cult popularity of Brutalism is a phenomenon I've been observing with a mixture of fascination, enjoyment, ambivalence and disgust for some time and the lecture had a packed agenda. It was an attempt to try and decode the various agendas and interests circling around Brutalism and to track them. I analysed a range of examples, from internet culture to contemporary design to industrial music to science-fiction.  Brutalism as a (life)style or even an attitude is arguably more 'sexy' and, for some, virtuous than ever, yet many of its most iconic structures are now being demolished or de-brutalised through cladding - a term now synonymous with the horror of the Grenfell Tower fire. Image of the doomed Birmi...

Istanbul Brutalism. Photo by Alexei Monroe. Architectures against Strategy is a new base for my expanding work around architecture. The page will initially be more focused on architectural photographs and links but I'll also be developing some of the concepts presented at my recent talk in Maribor dealing with monumental London architecture as an ambivalent setting for the unfolding of cultural and political forces. This in turn was a sequel to my Tate Modern presentation discussing monumentalism and the work of the NSK architecture section Graditelji (The Builders).

Demolition of  the Island Block, October 2006. Photo c. Alexei Monroe On December 1 st I'll be taking part in an event in Maribor entitled A conversation about the formation of national iconographies and their framing . This is a closing event for a complex and challenging exhibition by the artist Jasmina Cibic.   My talk, Unacceptable Faces of Monumentalism?, is an interpretation of competing utopian and dystopian tendencies in London architecture, culture and politics. It's an experimental approach to analysing architecture, a subject I'm increasingly interested in. It's also a conceptual sequel to my Tate Modern presentation in April. Here's a sonic cue, Shockwork by Test Dept...