Conceptions of site in both artistic and architectural practice have changed considerably in recent years. In the history of site-oriented art, the definition of site has tended to shift from a concern with the physical or material (as in, for example, the work of Richard Serra or Robert Smithson) to the institutional, ethnographic, or discursive (as in, for instance, the work of Hans Haacke, Daniel Buren or Mark Dion). Site has thus tended to be seen increasingly in terms of relationships, articulations, or even itineraries, so that art work takes place between sites or as a form of social interaction. Equally in architecture the understanding of site has been problematic: the interest in displacement and the determination of designers like Rem Koolhaas to work in the context of a globalised world and of digitised technologies has resulted in a very different understanding of site and place than those put forward by architects of an earlier generation. The focus of this research symposium is thus on sites, locations, or places whose identities as such may be liminal, temporal, virtual or otherwise displaced or dislocated.

Organised by:

• Charles Neale (Architecture)
• Dominic Rahtz (Art)