Contextualizing :digital fabrication methods, devices, and emergent material formations This master course framework aims at identifying project-specifi c, theoretical key concepts that lure behind individual approaches and scrutinize and clarify their critical agenda within the projects’ specifi c cultural milieus of to-be-defi ned social and environmental contexts. Our group will address projects that have constructed their conceptual framework around the subject of digital production. It is open to any students interested in that subject, or those who have decided to extend their research within the (FAB)BOTS Digital Tectonics Research Studio. The intention of the course is to contextualize and instrumentalize fabrication work on two levels: a) to critically refl ect on it from within theoretical notions of architectural and cultural discourse, and b) to actualize it within concrete geographical, social, political, and economic environments. Digital design and fabrication tools emerged in the 1990’s and was paralleled with the introduction of Deleuze-Guattarian philosophy in Anglo-Saxon circles of architectural theory. Common to both is that they mark a paradigm shift from essentialist thought (based on notions of diff erence in relation to absolute concepts) to a thinking that embraces an understanding of diff erence grounded within itself, within its own logic of diff erentiation. Yet while Deleuzian ontology of becoming emerged out of a tradition of political critique and activism, its typical appropriation in architectural circles in what could be called the pre-crisis years of late 1990’s and early 2000’s mostly stripped off its socio-political content and focused entirely on issues supporting productive technique rather than critical agenda. Within today’s post-crisis context, it seems timely to re-contextualize the fascinating cutting-edge advancements of digital fabrication within a culturally grounded critical and theoretical agenda. For this, a theoretical framework with texts by Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Sanford Kwinter, Manuel De Landa, Bruno Latour and Peter Sloterdijk will be introduced to, discussed with the participants, and instrumentalized for the development of the individual thesis work. Team: Olaf Gipser