Benjamin H. Bratton is Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego

University of California, San Diego

The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...

 and Director of The Center for Design and Geopolitics think-tank at Calit2

Calit2

The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology is an academic research institution jointly run by the University of California, San Diego and University of California, Irvine ....

, The California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology. He is an American sociologist, architectural

Architectural theory

Architectural theory is the act of thinking, discussing, or most importantly writing about architecture. Architectural theory is taught in most architecture schools and is practiced by the world's leading architects. Some forms that architecture theory takes are the lecture or dialogue, the...

 and design theorist

Design theory

Design theory can refer to any theory relating to design in general.Design theory may also refer to:*Engineering and industrial design**C-K theory*Design science**C-K theory*Mathematics**Combinatorial design**Block design**Symmetric design...

, known for a mix of philosophical and aesthetic research, organizational planning and strategy, and for his writing on the cultural implications of computing and globalization.

Biography

Bratton was born in Los Angeles, California in 1968, and holds a PhD. in the Sociology of Technology from the University of California, Santa Barbara

University of California, Santa Barbara

The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...

. Before moving to University of California, San Diego

University of California, San Diego

The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...

, Bratton taught at the Southern California Institute of Architecture

Southern California Institute of Architecture

The Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles , California, is an independent, nonprofit school offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture. It offers community design and outreach programs, and free public access to frequent exhibitions and lectures by leading...

 in Los Angeles from 2001-10, where taught in the XLab program with digital architect, Hernan Diaz-Alonso. He taught in the Department of Design | Media Arts at UCLA from 2003-2008. He was previously Director of the Advanced Strategies Group at Yahoo!

Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...

. He has also worked with Imaginary Forces, and Razorfish

Razorfish

-Fish:A common name used for three unrelated groups of fishes:* The genera Aeoliscus and Centriscus of the family Centriscidae, also known as shrimpfishes* The genus Xyrichtys of the family Labridae* The species Aeoliscus strigatus-Bivalve:...

, among others.

Publications

Among his most recent work, his article "On Geoscapes & Google Caliphate: Except #Mumbai" examines the correspondence of political theology and planetary computation as modes of political geography. His lecture, "Surviving the Interface: the Envelopes, Membranes and Borders of Deep Cosmopolitics" considers the emergence of new forms of sovereignty derived from shared digital and urban infrastructures, and the challenges they pose to conventional understandings of architectural partitions and national borders. (citation lecture video) In his article, "iPhone City (v.2005)" Bratton was early to demonstrate the impact that cinematic user interfaces for mobile social media would have on urban design.

His current work develops a political theory of planetary-scale computation and draws from disparate sources, from Paul Virilio, Michel Serres, and Carl Schmitt, to Alan Turing

Alan Turing

Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a...

, Google Earth

Google Earth

Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite...

, and IPv6.

External links

• Bratton.info. - Benjamin H. Bratton's personal website

• D:GP The Center for Design and Geopolitics

• Bratton's page at the Department of Visual Arts, UCSD

• "Accidental Geopolitics"-Interview - Bratton speaking at The Guardian Activate Summit 2011 in New York (28 April 2011).

• "The Program is Not on The Floor" at Southern California Institute of Architecture (28 February 2011).

• "Surviving the Interface" full transcript -

• video at University of Michigan (17 November 2010).

• "Ambivalence and/or Utopia" at University of Michigan Taubman School of Architecture (20 March 2010).

• "Peak Oil Apophenia" at Parsons/ The New School (12 March 2011).

• Bratton Speaking at Postopolis!LA reported by City of Sound (11 April 2009).

• "On Geoscapes & Google Caliphate: Except #Mumbai" in Theory, Culture & Society - SAGE Journals Online.

• "The Digital Civil Society in a Multipolar World" - Carnegie Moscow Center (18 October 2010).