Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design

The question Are We Human? is both urgent and ancient. Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley offer a multi-layered exploration of the intimate relationship between human and design and rethink the philosophy of design in a multi-dimensional exploration from the very first tools and ornaments to the constant buzz of social media. The average day involves the experience of thousands of layers of design that reach to outside space but also reach deep into our bodies and brains. Even the planet itself has been completely encrusted by design as a geological layer. There is no longer an outside to the world of design.

Colomina’s and Wigley’s field notes offer an archaeology of the way design has gone viral and is now bigger than the world. They range across the last few hundred thousand years and the last few seconds to scrutinize the uniquely plastic relation between brain and artifact. A vivid portrait emerges.

Design is what makes the human. It becomes the way humans ask questions and thereby continuously redesign themselves.

Learn more

Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design

Author

Beatriz Colomina, Mark Wigley

Publisher

Lars Müller Publishers

Format

Paperback

Pages

288

Size

7 x 4.5 Inches

ISBN

9783037785119

About the author

Beatriz Colomina is the Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture and the founding director of the Media and Modernity program at Princeton University. She has written extensively on questions of architecture, art, sexuality and media. Her books include “Sexuality and Space” (1992), “Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media” (1994), “Domesticity at War” (2007), “Clip/Stamp/Fold” (2010), “Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design” (2016), with Mark Wigley, “X-Ray Architecture” (2019) and “Radical Pedagogies” (2022).

Mark Wigley (*1956) is a Professor and Dean Emeritus at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. As an architectural theorist and historian, Wigley explores the intersection of architecture, art, philosophy, culture, and technology. His publications include “Buckminster Fuller Inc.: Architecture in the Age of Radio” (2016), “Cutting Matta-Clark: The Anarchitecture Investigation” (2018) and “Are We Human: Notes on an Archaeology of Design” that he published together with Beatriz Colomina in association with their curation of the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial. Wigley was born in New Zealand, where trained as an architect, and lives in New York.