Are we connected ?

Are we really connected ?

The knights of digital technologies try to convince us that indeed, we are very, very connected. That we are all REALLY united, for once and for all.

But are we ?

Then why is Franz Kafka so popular on TikTok on the year of his centennial after his death ?

The writer felt metamorphosed into an insect, in his well known novel.

It was a powerful metaphor for the feeling of alienation he couldn’t escape.

Did / do we eliminate alienation through our digital technologies ?

Kafka’s “success” on TikTok seems to say that we didn’t.

So let’s see: how could we address the issue of alienation, in architecture ? And what about digital alienation ?

Could we express it through architecture ?

Let’s try.

Let’s scream out our soul, its deeply seated loneliness, beyond the illusions entrusted to us by the ubiquitous mobile phone.

It became an icon, in everybody’s hand… the mobile phone… an icon we look at incessantly, as if salvation would certainly come from its polished screen.

But does it ?

It doesn’t.

We are as alone as ever, even if we have millions of “followers” and we receive an equally high number of “like”-uri.

At the end of the day we go to sleep very alone, even if the seductive phone is under the pillow.

DESIGN THE HOUSE OF ALIENATION

THE HOUSE OF (DIGITAL) ALIENATION.

Now, that there are 100 years since Kafka, the existentialist insect, died.

Design a house for a troubled insect.

YOU (or US – all of us).

Please send your work on two sheets A1, digitally, to info@icarch.us. The deadline is October 1st, 2024. Please register before September 1st, 2024. There will be a registration fee of 50$ payable through our website. We will publish the best works received. If you have any question, please contact us.

There will be three prizes: 1st prize: 1,500$, 2nd prize: 1,000$ and 3rd prize: 500$. The sole judge of this competition: Ioan Dan Coma, the initiator of the competition and the author of the invitational text.

Thank you,

.

I C A R C H

www.icarch.us

info@icarch.us