Artificial Light:
A Narrative Inquiry into the Nature of Abstraction, Immediacy, and other Architectural Fictions
Keith Mitnick

Author Keith Mitnick's first glimpse of an architectural drawing came through the underside of a glass kitchen table. Overcome by the sight of blueprints created for an addition to the family's tract house, the young boy spontaneously vomited on his father's shoes. Now an architectural professional and educator, Mitnick finds himself thinking and writing theoretically about moments like these, when architecture makes itself felt, immediately and palpably. Balanced precariously between practice and theory, Mitnick refuses to put contemplation over experience—architectural thinking over making. Unconvinced by those who proclaim the death of theory, Mitnick maintains that architectural discourse need not disappear entirely; it need only change shape and break free from the tired, poststructuralist narratives with which it has become associated in the past couple of decades.

Artificial Light suggests an alternative type of critical theory consisting of personal and fictitious anecdotes, real and fake photographs, and mini-essays that addresses prevalent themes in architecture such as immediacy, affect, abstraction, atmosphere, realness, and banality. With a narrative style reminiscent of other unconventional writers on design such as Paul Shepheard, Roger Connah, and Rebecca Solnit, Artificial Light is the beautifully written and visually engaging debut of a dynamic new voice in the world of architectural criticism.


Keith Mitnick is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Michigan, where he teaches graduate-level studios and seminars in architectural criticism, and a founding principal of Mitnick Roddier Hicks. A graduate of Anticoch College and the University of California, Berkeley, Mitnick has won various competitions, including the Young Architects Forum competition, Architectural Records' Design Vanguard competition, and the 2007 Chaumont-sur-Loire competition, and has lectured and exhibited internationally. Mitnick edited and contributed an essay to Diller Scofidio: Eyebeam Atelier of New Media & Technology (MAP/DAP, 2003). www.sitemaker.umich.edu/kmitnick/home
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Editorial Reviews

Abitare:
"Beautifully written and illustrated with stunning photographs, Keith Mitnicks debut feature Artificial Light successfully weaves together the narratives of architectural criticism and great storytelling. Offering new perspectives on architecture through the lens of autobiographical notes that seem to fathom the fine distinction between authenticity and artificiality, this little book is a fresh take on critical theory, addressing issues of experience, atmosphere, myth, abstraction, or immediacy, without falling into ideological traps." (May, 2009)

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