Curry Hackett: So That You All Won’t Forget

This lecture is part of the Fall 2024 Architecture Lecture + Event Series. The lecture is open to the public; workshops are for the MAPP Community only.

KEYNOTE LECTURE + SYMPOSIUM  - 11/13  |  2 - 6 p.m.  |  Auditorium 

Speaker:

Curry Hackett, 
Founder, Wayside Studio

About the lecture:

"So That You All Won't Forget" explores the roles of memory, imagination, and kinship in image-making and place-keeping. It also opens a dialogue on how AI tools can be harnessed to generate new knowledge, especially for historically misunderstood communities. This talk will detail my experiences with these tools over the past year, focusing on how I have integrated machine learning to create impacts across digital, public, and built environments.

By weaving together these diverse strands of knowledge and innovation, the talk presents a reevaluation of how machine learning can be leveraged to foster new approaches in archival practice, architectural representation, design education, and ecological stewardship.

About the speaker:

Curry J. Hackett is an multimedia artist, designer, and educator. His practice, Wayside, looks to undertold histories to inspire meaningful public works and critical research. Recently, Curry has been experimenting with artificial intelligence tools, with which he braids Black aesthetics, kinships with nature, and pop culture to imagine surreal scenes of Black joy. This work has been featured widely, most notably Bloomberg, Oculus, and Architect Magazine, and exhibited in a group show at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville and as a public art installation in Brooklyn, NY. His ongoing research and exhibition series, titled Drylongso, explores relationships between Blackness, "Southernness", geography, and land. This project has received funding the Graham Foundation, Journal of Architectural Education, Washington Project for the Arts, and Harvard GSD's Druker Prize Traveling Fellowship.