Robert Kirkbride (Associate Professor, Parsons) and Shannon Mattern (Assistant Professor, NSGS) hosted a colloquium and 24-hour student workshop focusing on imminent threats to local, regional, and global infrastructure. Part of a weekend-long event, which simulated the urgency of a global catastrophe featuring an intensive Faculty Colloquium, the performance of a human shipwreck, the Aronson Gallery held a 24-hour student slam focusing on imminent threats to local, regional and global infrastructure. Fueled by “booster shot” presentations and a panel discussion with faculty across The New School, twenty-eight New School students worked in three teams from Saturday straight through to Sunday, producing Recipes for Disaster – scenarios that prevent, respond to, or accelerate infrastructure collapse. The results of their intensive collaboration were then exhibited in the gallery.

Catastrophe Slam was an appetizer to Intersections: Fuel + Ornament, a new university-wide undergraduate course offered in fall 2009, which featured a chain of interdisciplinary slams with students and faculty from across The New School. Supported by a Provost’s Faculty Development Fund.