On 11 May, the BK Talks ‘Copy right! Reproducing, replicating, emulating… to evolve’ will take place.
Reproducing, replicating, emulating…to evolve
When browsing the past and present of design production, it is easy to encounter a whole history of copycats and precedents, where everything seems collaged out of everything else. Academia, itself, depends on a running discourse of references.
Artificial intelligence and biomimicry are extolled as they burst into the realms of technology and design today, yet both are rooted in emulating. Our changing values for circular economy, sustainability, and repair cause one to wonder whether the traditional designer’s obsession with being original is simply becoming obsolete.
On May 11th, the BK Talks ‘Copy Right!’, will present different views on how the past, the present and even the future are a vast archive on which we can and must build. For design to evolve, re- actions like re-framing, re-moving, re-using, re-locating, re-membering, re-plicating, re-producing, need to be re-examined and potentially re-liberated from our morality and law. As much as some reproductions may seem hyperbolic or opportunistic, isn’t copying an inevitable step towards ‘originality’?
Society depends on countless copycats, within and beyond the realms of architecture and urbanism: data, objects, products, materials, traditions, languages, natural sites, cultural landscapes, or geological formation all depend on copying for survival.
The panel will discuss, among other questions, whether we should include a more honest and critical reflection of copying in
