Whatever Happened to Picking Fights?

'As an alternative to a critical mode of disciplinarity, current efforts have come to fetishise technique under the various rubrics including 'research', 'expertise' and 'design intelligence'. A fully projective practice, however, will have to move off the faith in social or techno-sciences that an exotic site or a new technology appear to provide. Architecture isn't rocket (or any other) science. It's just politics.'Robert Somol is Baumer Visiting Professor at Ohio State University. His publications include Autonomy and Ideology: Positioning an Avant-Garde in America and Diagram Diaries with Peter Eisenman.Lecture given in G.01 Morwell Street.