IS Public Lecture: Professor Peter McNeil

Queer Space - Privacy & Posturing:
Peter McNeil explores the queer space not in the societal sense but as a strange concoction of ideas. He talks about bringing together different skills from different disciplines to achieve these spaces as well as exploring how in the old society, the wealthy gain more freedom than the working class.
Throughout his lecture, he talks about a lot of different things, possibly to illustrate his topic in the most literal sense. He mixes many subjects to convey the term "Queer" from home decoration to an analysis of the Duchess of Winsor.
He quotes: "Queer describes a horizon of possibility whose precise extent and heterogeneous scope allows principles to be limited."

"To practise a stylistics of the self ultimately means to cultivate that part of oneself that leads beyond oneself"
- David Halperin, Saint Foucault

Peter McNeil then talks about looking at different cultures and times to gain "new ideas". He says that he "likes moving through time. " 

During McNeil's lecture, I was able to absorb many different ideas. He showed us the importance of revisiting the past and appropriating old ideas. He also emphasized the importance of an open mind and that through the use of different skills, a different result can be achieved.

IS Public Lecture: Tom Rivard

Performance Urbanism:
Rivard's lecture explores narrative and fiction as instruments of civic engagement. He draws comparisons between commuting and the act of "reading the city". His lecture helped me understand the perspective shift and marginal differences of the make of the city.
For example, he talks about advertising vs. communication which explores how a commuter travels in the city. A commuter will hardly ever communicate or interact with another commuter. However, through advertising in the forms of posters, signs, shopfronts, the city is able to communicate with the commuter through these mediums, thus the act of "reading the city".
He then points out however that the city than loses its vitality as all interactions are sterile and muted. He spoke of the surreal territory of "the library" and how the silence of the space does not reflect the amount of "communication" (between readers and books) that happens.

IS Public Lecture: Simeon King

Public & Private - Printing & Sorting
Simeon King's lecture primarily explored the idea of the public domain. He talked about finding scale in the city and how miniscule the human self is compared to larger picture.
His believes that as a person travels through the city, mapping and sorting information  becomes something that we are not consciously aware of and that we, as humans are constantly looking and deciphering the information we take in around us.
As a spatial designer, this idea is important as the space we build for the greater community can very well become a part of the public domain and the spatial qualities we create should always relate to how we want others to interact. Only when this is achieved, can we achieve a sense of urban vitality.