Esther Leslie
Professor of Political Aesthetics, Birkbeck, University of London

Devices are designed to make human life easier. They work for us, but we work for them, and never more so than now, when they and we are never really “off.” This lecture explores the origins of the device—from its first emergence as a name for apportioned property to its dominance in and of the present, when the device captures our gestures and hears all our words. Read more.

This symposium engages with the history and legacy of the Bauhaus as a school of craft and design within the context of design reform during the modern period. How did the products designed at the Bauhaus relate to patterns of taste and consumption in Germany, and how did they perform in the marketplace? What vision of the built environment (what Gropius called “the great Gesamtkunstwerk”) did the Bauhäusler seek to fulfill—or to challenge? The Bauhaus was an extraordinary institution with far-reaching influence. Yet at the heart of its mission was the desire to engage with popular taste in architecture and design. We will consider the extent of its success. Read more.