Critical Futures
Tuesday 8 March 2011
On March 8, 2011, Domus held its third international symposium on the status of contemporary criticism, Critical Futures, at New York's Storefront for Art + Architecture. Domus editor Joseph Grima led panelists Mimi Zeiger (loudpaper), Alexandra Lange (Design Observer), Shannon Mattern (Words in Space), Roberto Zancan, and Storefront director Eva Franch i Gilabert took up the issues that are shaping critical practice today.

With the initial premise that everyone online is a critic, the panel addressed the ubiquity of online media that has forever altered criticism's aims and methods. The concurrent plunge in print media budgets has ensured that fewer critics ever conduct site visits. The very nature of the information that critics ever have to proceed from—press releases and artful renderings—conditions any critical response. As Grima noted, gone are the days when a print publication could publish a report on a new project and not be obligated to review it favorably.

The event took place at Storefront for Art and Architecture, a non-profit gallery and events space in SoHo, New York.

Participants:
Eva Franch i Gilabert – Director, Storefront for Art and Architecture
Alexandra Lange – journalist and critic, Design Observer
Shannon Mattern – Department of Media Studies & Film, The New School
Roberto Zancan
Mimi Zeiger – writer and blogger
Moderated by Joseph Grima – Editor, Domus