Lecture Series curated by Vera Sacchetti
Fall 2021
Online, HEAD — Genève
Nocturnal Perspectives is a lecture series delving into night imagery and imaginaries, issues of nocturnal governance, and nightclub culture. The lineup includes contributions from Elliot Woods, Alessia Cibin, and Catharine Rossi, among others.
Night Governance
December 8, 2021
A lecture by Alessia Cibin
In this lecture, Alessia Cibin examines the governance of urban nights in global cities, exploring the impacts of nightlife in entertainment precincts. She addresses questions about the groups interested in and affected by nightlife, their influence on night-time policies, and the conflicts that arise. The cases of Zurich and Sydney are discussed within the context of the global and local dynamics.
Alessia Cibin, a doctoral fellow at the University of Technology Sydney, focuses on a research project about night-time economy policies in Sydney before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is also an expert member of STADTNACHACHT, a think tank on urban development and the night-time economy. Cibin holds an MS and BSc in Urban Planning and Policy from the Università Iuav di Venezia. Her master thesis in 2015 explored the role of night-ambassadors in the governance of nightlife neighborhood conflicts in Zurich. During her studies, she served as an elected representative in the Italian local government from 2009 to 2019.
Images that Change the Way We See
December 8, 2021
A lecture by Elliot Woods
In this lecture, Elliot Woods explores the work of the South Korean duo Kimchi and Chips, emphasizing the role of artworks and images in altering our perception of the everyday world. Their creations involve large-scale mechanical, optical, and computational installations that redirect sunlight and create images in the air.
Elliot Woods, a digital media artist from Manchester, UK, examines alternative futures between humans and visual design technologies, such as cameras, projectors, and computation. Co-founding Kimchi and Chips with artist Mimi Son, Woods applies his background in physics to produce tangible phenomena from abstract domains in their experimental art studio based in Seoul.
Designing Club Culture
November 3, 2021
A Lecture by Catharine Rossi
In this lecture, Catharine Rossi reflects on her experiences curating exhibitions on the design of club culture. She discusses projects such as Space Electronic: Then and Now for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, Radical Disco at the ICA in London, and the co-curated touring exhibition Night Fever: Designing Club Culture 1960 to Today, which opened at Vitra Design Museum in 2018 and is currently at V&A Dundee (Scotland). The talk emphasizes the curatorial challenges of researching this subcultural, nocturnal theme, considered a "non-existent" form of architecture, and explores attempts to exhibit issues of atmosphere, experience, and the senses in exhibitions on this subject.
Catharine Rossi, a design historian at Kingston School of Art, has research interests ranging from post-war Italian design to the relationship between design and craft, and the design history of nightclubs. She published Designing Craft in Italy: from Postwar to Postmodernism (MUP) in 2015 and is the co-editor with Alex Coles of the forthcoming book Post-Craft (Sternberg Press, 2022). Her curatorial projects include Space Electronic: Then and Now for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale and the co-curation of Night Fever: Designing Club Culture 1960 to Today, a touring exhibition that opened at Vitra Design Museum in 2018 and is currently at V&A Dundee (Scotland).
Nocturnal Perspectives
Lecture Series, Fall 2021
Curator: Vera Sacchetti, HEAD — Genève
