The internet gets blamed for a lot of things, our current crisis of criticism being just one of its victims. The explosion of free content, the rise of unpaid bloggers, a diffuse democracy of likes and retweets, has surely weakened the authority of traditional critics. But in this new landscape Mimi Zeiger sees a host of new possibilities for architectural debate. Explaining her notion of ‘collective criticism’, she shows how platforms like Twitter can help build momentum on critical issues that often fall through the cracks of the pressroom floor.
“In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Now books are written by the public and read by nobody.”—Oscar Wilde
The popularity of the aphorism, a short, memorable, often pithy statement, goes hand in hand with the invention of printing. Throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, aphorisms and maxims were published globally in thick, bound collections. Although print remains precarious in a digital age, the aphoristic statement lives on.
For the Book Launch Cabaret at Storefront for Art and Architecture to celebrate Studio-X’s release, The Studio-X NY Guide to Liberating New Forms of Conversation (GSAPP Books, 2010), edited by Gavin Browning, Mimi Zeiger presented Maximum Maxim MMX a zine maximized with maxims germane to architecture and publishing.
Traveling the world as part of Archizines.