Books by Craig Johnson
Entering the 21st century, the postmodern succession has given way to a doom-laden, apolitical or... more Entering the 21st century, the postmodern succession has given way to a doom-laden, apolitical orthodoxy. This book offers suggestive readings of “the contemporary” in light of high modernity, postwar modernity, and postmodernity, as framed by the influential institutions of modern art and the spectacles of millennial architecture. Modernity without a Project critiques and connects historical avant-garde currents as they are institutionally expressed or captured, and scrutinizes the remake of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Minoru Yamasaki’s vanished Utopias, the “anarchitecture” of Lebbeus Woods, recent work of Rem Koolhaas, delirious developments in Dubai, and the unexpected contribution to architectural debate by the late Hugo Chavez.
Papers by Craig Johnson
End-Game: Apocalyptic Video Games, Contemporary Society, and Digital Media Culture, edited by Lorenzo DiTommaso, James Crossley, Alastair Lockhart and Rachel Wagner, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter., 2024
The modernist belief in a progressive increase in productive forces and energies has congealed in... more The modernist belief in a progressive increase in productive forces and energies has congealed into a static view of the future as dystopia.
In the theorization of Utopia in critical theory two paths of development have been widely acknow... more In the theorization of Utopia in critical theory two paths of development have been widely acknowledged. On the one hand there is the Utopian plan, or project, identified by Fredric Jameson (among others) as a sweeping design that claims to solve and negate a social and political situation, in favour of an actually built, and better one. On the other hand, we find the Utopian impulse, a markedly different affair, having to do not with building a brand new society or revolution, but with a displaced, striving desire or "wish" to be something else under limited conditions, and a hint at a different future or unresolved present, an idea Jameson borrows from Ernst Bloch. This paper is invested in both varieties, from the already complicated and complicating perspective of architecture.
Media, Culture & Society, 2021
The last decade has seen the rise of data capture culture. This culture has been most visible, an... more The last decade has seen the rise of data capture culture. This culture has been most visible, and widely analysed, within the realm of social media; but it is not unique to that form. This article reconceptualises video games as apparatuses for data capture. We situate games within a broader economic and cultural shift towards a new 'accelerated' form of neoliberalism where individual choice and agency are pre-filtered and personalised by algorithms based on user data history. Through a survey of the changing role of data in video gaming, this article critically maps a new paradigm for a reimagined games industry driven by a logic of data capture. Gaming promises a unique opportunity for data capture capitalists to mine and commodify player preferences, behaviours and instinctual responses. Arguing that play is a process of uncovering hidden logics, we offer a framework for resisting the data capture hegemony. This is not simply a discussion of gaming, rather this is an attempt to outline the conditions of possibility for a critique of globalised digital culture in which populations are profiled, processed and punished by hidden algorithms of the market that are optimised to construct and reward accelerated performances of neoliberal subjectivity.
Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, 2017
Dystopian settings dominate the video game landscape. Social collapse and totalitarian repression... more Dystopian settings dominate the video game landscape. Social collapse and totalitarian repression are amongst the favorite scenarios depicted in this medium. In this article, we offer a reading of these dystopian visions, not just as an aesthetic choice or gameplay trend, but as reflective of a " political unconscious " latent in these games. These games are products of a very particular set of political, cultural and historic contexts, and embody key contemporary fears and apprehensions. To trace this we focus on how the space of the city has come to be a key signifier and site of dystopian anxiety.
Architecture, Disciplinarity and the Arts, John Macarthur and Andrew Leach, eds, Ghent: A&S, 2008.
Architecture is a formal rendering of power in both actual constructed space and within economies... more Architecture is a formal rendering of power in both actual constructed space and within economies of image. CCTV is not an exception among instances of spectacle architecture; it gives form to an otherwise diffuse and centreless totality.
Architectural Theory Review
In 2006 Hugo Chavez said: “Let’s be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, col... more In 2006 Hugo Chavez said: “Let’s be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It’s worthless...maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We’ve proposed Venezuela.” This is a challenge to architects.
Colloquy
Architecture may be the strongest site for imagining the future, because the discipline of buildi... more Architecture may be the strongest site for imagining the future, because the discipline of building, the raw material act of construction and the consequent unavoidable configurations
of social space, are always focused on the world to come, as opposed to a mere literary or SF speculation. Architecture makes mistakes that are to be lived.
ATR 12 (2007) by Craig Johnson
Architectural Theory Review, 2007
Can we rethink the system in the act of rethinking architecture? In his September 2006 address to... more Can we rethink the system in the act of rethinking architecture? In his September 2006 address to the United Nations, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez plugged Noam Chomsky's book Hegemony or Survival, referred to US President George Bush as "the devil," and made a call to relocate the UN Headquarters from New York to Venezuela (Caracas we may assume). Readers have responded to the plug, with Chomsky's book arriving within days at number one and number five on the Amazon and New York Times bestseller lists respectively. Media and debate in both pro-and anti-Chavez sources have focused largely on the namecalling aspect of the speech, which is arguably its least interesting aspect (and that's saying something). For Chomsky, the major concern over the UN is that it has become, in words he takes from Francis Fukuyama, "an instrument of American unilateralism." But Chavez's call to relocate means more than contesting this claim. This short article presents what the call may mean for architecture, using Lebbeus Woods' definition of the discipline as the "instrument for the invention of knowledge through action; the invention of invention."
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Books by Craig Johnson
Papers by Craig Johnson
of social space, are always focused on the world to come, as opposed to a mere literary or SF speculation. Architecture makes mistakes that are to be lived.
ATR 12 (2007) by Craig Johnson
of social space, are always focused on the world to come, as opposed to a mere literary or SF speculation. Architecture makes mistakes that are to be lived.