Uploaded November 2024 | Updated September 2026, 12 hours ago
The earliest duck decoys, found in Ancient Egypt, were often live herons bound to ships, their presence tempting wild waterfowl to killing distance. Birds today are suspicious of their lifeless decoy counterparts, so modern versions have begun to use sensors to mimic natural movement, blurring the artificial and real. If sensors in a decoy help it mimic kin, in turn luring an animal to its death, what might it mean for an environment to use sensors in an attempt to mimic its “natural” state?
RealTimeNature brings together a diverse group of thinkers to discuss the promises and perils of environmental simulation, remote sensing, and real-time synchronizations. In the context of the current “ontological turn,” which responds to the ecological crisis resulting from modernity, RealTimeNature takes into account the philosopher Yuk Hui’s observation that the focus on nature and the non-human in this movement often overlooks questions related to technology.
Through a set of public dialogs and keynote lectures, RealTimeNature poses these questions: What happens when we consider technology as a universal fix, and how does this impact our understanding of space and time? Can we reimagine technology not as a universal concept, but as a diverse multitude?
Daniel Barber is Professor and Chair of Architecture Theory and History at TU Eindhoven. He is an architectural historian researching the relationship between the design fields and the emergence of global environmental culture across the 20th century. Daniel received a PhD in Architecture History and Theory from Columbia University, and a Master of Environmental Design from Yale University. He currently holds a Fellowship for Advanced Researchers from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which he is spending in residence at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, Germany, and at the Max Planck Institute for the study of the Human Sciences in Berlin, over the summer until 2022. In March 2017 he was be a Visiting Fellow at the Sydney Environmental Institute, University of Sydney, Australia; in 2015-2016 he was the Thomas A. and Currie C. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities at the Princeton Environmental Institute, hosted by the Princeton School of Architecture. He has also held a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Harvard University Center for the Environment and Graduate School of Design, and has been a visiting professor at Oberlin College, Barnard College, and the University of Auckland, New Zealand. In February 2015 he was the Terra Foundation for American Art Visiting Professor at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
0:00 Introduction by Charles Waldheim
3:31 Keynote Presentation by Daniel Barber
45:31 Q+A
The earliest duck decoys, found in Ancient Egypt, were often live herons bound to ships, their presence tempting wild waterfowl to killing distance. Birds today are suspicious of their lifeless decoy counterparts, so modern versions have begun to use sensors to mimic natural movement, blurring the artificial and real. If sensors in a decoy help it mimic kin, in turn luring an animal to its death, what might it mean for an environment to use sensors in an attempt to mimic its “natural” state?
RealTimeNature brings together a diverse group of thinkers to discuss the promises and perils of environmental simulation, remote sensing, and real-time synchronizations. In the context of the current “ontological turn,” which responds to the ecological crisis resulting from modernity, RealTimeNature takes into account the philosopher Yuk Hui’s observation that the focus on nature and the non-human in this movement often overlooks questions related to technology.
Through a set of public dialogs and keynote lectures, RealTimeNature poses these questions: What happens when we consider technology as a universal fix, and how does this impact our understanding of space and time? Can we reimagine technology not as a universal concept, but as a diverse multitude?
Daniel Barber is Professor and Chair of Architecture Theory and History at TU Eindhoven. He is an architectural historian researching the relationship between the design fields and the emergence of global environmental culture across the 20th century. Daniel received a PhD in Architecture History and Theory from Columbia University, and a Master of Environmental Design from Yale University. He currently holds a Fellowship for Advanced Researchers from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which he is spending in residence at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, Germany, and at the Max Planck Institute for the study of the Human Sciences in Berlin, over the summer until 2022. In March 2017 he was be a Visiting Fellow at the Sydney Environmental Institute, University of Sydney, Australia; in 2015-2016 he was the Thomas A. and Currie C. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities at the Princeton Environmental Institute, hosted by the Princeton School of Architecture. He has also held a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Harvard University Center for the Environment and Graduate School of Design, and has been a visiting professor at Oberlin College, Barnard College, and the University of Auckland, New Zealand. In February 2015 he was the Terra Foundation for American Art Visiting Professor at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
0:00 Introduction by Charles Waldheim
3:31 Keynote Presentation by Daniel Barber
45:31 Q+A
