Since I’ve been accused of being a little obscure about what I do for work I thought I'd put it down for the record: I am a PhD Candidate at EPFL and one of the founding researchers of SINLAB. My post here is to last the duration of a standard European PhD (which is 3-4 years, unlike the 6-25 that is more usual in the US).
So until 2015 or so that means two things:
1. I am enrolled as a PhD candidate in EDAR, which is the Architecture department at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). EPFL is a federal technical school that has been compared to MIT. There are many mostly cultural reasons that I think this comparison is faulty, but it’s true in the sense that both are largish, well funded institutions with a decidedly technical/engineering focus.
Both institutions also feature neat campus architecture. The above photo I took under the "Rolex Learning Center" (also affectionately known as the Swiss Cheese building) a fantastic structure designed by the Japanese team SANAA. This building actually has internal terrain - it is esentially a single floor but occupies several stories in vertical space, resulting in rolling grey-carpeted hills and a series of internal vistas. It's like an exercise in the refuge and prospect and is a fun space to work in (it contains the library). The library features the first mass-RFID checkout system I've yet encountered in the wild. You pile everything on a table and touch a screen and: done. Instant checkout.
So what is an architecture PhD? It’s not a professional degree and I won’t be an architect. Arguably it is yet another useless degree to compliment my BFA and my Masters of Media Arts and Sciences.
Snark aside, the accreditation is a means to an end. I enjoy teaching at the college level, and I’ve found it difficult to get decent teaching gigs without a terminal degree. In addition, my position here lets me take the time I’d like to explore some interesting ideas, in particular theoretical ones, that I wouldn’t have the time or support to explore otherwise.
This is admittedly painting with a large brush, but Europe seems less frightened of a good theory than the US. My experience at home is that I frequently encounter a near allergic reaction to source material that isn’t quantitative (who could forget the MIT Media Lab thesis prep course that informed us not to get “too theoretical or historical” because that’s “just whimsical.”).
2. I am also one of the founding researchers at SINLAB, a research lab physically located in the Swiss theatre school (confusingly named HETSR HES-SO but called La Manufacture). Manufacture is a very cool facility, located in a converted factory building in the Lausanne neighborhood of Malley. The school consists of a series of theaters and modernist classrooms with a lovely sun-filled cafe area furnished with antique tables. We occupy one corner of the building, with a roughly 500ft2 black-box theatre setup and research space where we can do studio type work.
Interacting with the theater school directly has proving frustratingly difficult. The language barrier is surely one factor, but the real problem is that there is no tradition of research in theater schools here. In fact, part of our presence was dictated by law - a change in Swiss funding that mandated a research program in undergraduate programs. So on a good day we are considered peripherally interesting, and on a bad day we are regarded as a waste of good rehearsal space.
In spite of growing pains and the usual politics, this is a great place to be. I am working on organizing a lecture series, and we have a limited but usable budget for producing artworks. In addition, SINLAB has a regular visiting artist program which gives us an opportunity to interact with the greater arts community. I get to make stuff!
At the moment I am working on two projects, A group project around an interactive surface called [WALL] and SinK, which is a general purpose tool for interfacing with the Microsoft Kinect.
Stay tuned for more projects and lot of theoretical barking!
(PS drop me a note if you are interested in a professional visit and I don't know that yet)
