DATUM rot is a journal of A/architecture founded and edited by students at Iowa State University.
The publications seeks to manifest and catalogue DATUM’s community of discussion and act as a platform for further inquiry and critique. It is organized around a central theme that DATUM feels has been misrepresented, neglected, or needs further examinations.
DATUM would like to thank Iowa State University Department of Architecture for their continuous support and invigorating enthusiasm for the journal and community.
datumcollective.org / instagram: datum_isu
rot
/rät/ verb
• decay or cause to decay by the action of bacteria and fungi; decompose.
noun
• a process of deterioration; a decline in standards.
In traditional understandings, rot refers to the decomposition of the material world. People have been trying to defeat rot throughout all of time. Embalming rituals for ancient civilizations, formaldehyde for contemporary practices, and cryonics for future revival. What makes rot undesirable? Ecologies thrive on a cycle of rot. Rot in fall means life in spring. Rot gives nutrients. Rot changes form, turning plant to oil, an organic to fuel. DATUM’s understanding of rot operates beyond the scope of the scientific. Investigating the intersection of life and death
and exploring what can become of a decaying society from an architectural perspective. People hold the unique capability to rot intellectually, psychologically, and physically. Society will always find methods for rotting themselves with varying returns. The carcass cultivates thistles or blooms. While rot deconstructs, it gives opportunity to reconstruct. An intrapersonal renaissance, a total molecular disembodiment. Rot operates at all scales, from cell to city. What rots doesn’t result in ruin, but paves the way for a palimpsest. To rot is to be born again.
datum discourse discussions on rot memory, landscape, and the unfolding experience of space and time pricilla djunaedi
req • ui • em izzy, zoë, sierra, elly interview with jason griffiths
heavy pressure: strained nerves rosalyn becicka
will I continue to be as I was?
sierra wroolie
interview with yeni mao
the shed where he worked. the lamp which I live. grace morhardt
everything breathes into me
kristiana tu
national parks: what are we without them?
al green explored my mind
braeden green
spoiled: the misconceptions and realities of indias economic growth
henry bryner
datum discourse
WAI think tank
deservedness and the disintegration of care
meredith petellin
datum discourse discussions on rot
memory, landscape, and the unfolding experience of space and time
pricillia djunaedi
The development of capitalist political economy and the commodification of land fundamentally reshaped landscapes, altering not just their design and use, but also the way they are perceived and represented. However, beyond these material transformations, landscapes also function as sites
of memory—spaces that unfold over time and across perspectives, shaping and being shaped by human experience. This essay explores the relational nature of landscape and memory, drawing connections between historical shifts in land use, artistic and philosophical representations of space and time, and
contemporary encounters with landscape as a dynamic, layered experience.
From Panoramic Views to Sequential Landscapes
Traditional landscape design, particularly in aristocratic estates such as Versailles or Palladian villas, was structured around a singular, controlled view. These sites were designed to be visually consumed in their entirety from a fixed vantage point, reinforcing a static, hierarchical relationship between viewer and landscape. This model of perception, in which nature was framed and ordered to be apprehended in a single, totalizing gaze, corresponds to an earlier epistemological paradigm that viewed space as stable and knowable.
However, as landscapes evolved under capitalist urbanization and industrialization, this mode of perception began to fragment. The rise of urban parks, parkways, and transportation networks introduced a new way of experiencing landscape—not as a single image but as a sequence of unfolding perspectives. Unlike the panoramic view of Versailles,
which offers an immediate and complete grasp of space, landscapes in motion—whether seen from a moving vehicle, a train window, or while walking through a park—reveal themselves over time, turn by turn. This shift in landscape perception parallels a deeper philosophical shift in the understanding of memory and time.
Memory, Time, and the Layered Experience of Landscape
Philosopher Alia Al-Saji’s reading of Bergson and Deleuze offers a compelling framework for understanding this transition. In her essay ‘The Memory of Another Past,’ she addresses how Bergson’s concept of time challenges the notion of a linear, sequential experience of the past, arguing instead for a ‘cone of memory’ in which past, present, and future coexist in layered, overlapping strata. Al-Saji extends this argument, proposing that memory is not a mere retrieval of static images but an ongoing, relational process— an unfolding interaction between past experience and present perception.
This argument resonates deeply with the way we now engage with landscape. A parkway, for example, is not perceived as a fixed, unified entity but as a series of shifting frames that emerge and recede in relation to the movement of the observer. Just as Bergsonian memory cannot be grasped in a singular moment but must be understood as an accumulation of experiential layers, landscapes in motion resist complete capture. They exist in fragments, continually reframed by our changing perspective, each new turn offering an echo of what came before and an anticipation of what lies ahead.
The Capitalist Transformation of Landscape and Its Representations
The rise of capitalist land organization reinforces this fragmented relationship to landscape. The enclosures of common land in 18th and 19th century England, as detailed by Sevilla-Buitrago in Against the Commons, divided oncecommunal lands into bounded parcels optimized for production and private ownership. This restructuring of land imposed new, fragmented ways of
engaging with space, severing traditional communal ties to landscape and enforcing a perspective of land as an abstract, commodified asset rather than a lived environment. In artistic representation, this transition is evident in the contrast between Romantic landscape painting and later urban and industrial depictions. John Constable’s idyllic rural scenes, for instance, evoke a longing for a pre-industrial world— even as his own family profited from industrial development— offering a pastoral vision that stands in tension with the reality of capitalist land transformations. Meanwhile, the landscapes of industrial cities like Manchester were rarely depicted as coherent wholes; instead, they were captured in disjointed urban sketches, for example those by L.S. Lowry, fragmented perspectives that mirrored the lived experience of an industrialized, rapidly changing world.
The Modern Experience of Landscape and Memory
Today, our engagement with nature continues to be shaped by this interplay of fragmentation
and motion. Driving through cities, we do not see landscapes in their entirety but encounter them in glimpses—framed by overpasses, revealed gradually along winding highways, or obscured and re-emerging through shifting urban skylines. This mirrors our contemporary understanding of memory itself: not as a linear sequence but as a dispersed, layered phenomenon where past and present interact dynamically.
Deleuze’s notion of the ‘virtual image’—where each moment resonates with and is inseparable from an underlying web of past experiences—further aligns with the way landscapes unfold in motion. Whether moving through a parkway or navigating an urban space, each spatial encounter is enriched by prior moments, past impressions that subtly inform the present experience. The landscape, much like memory, is never fully present in a single instant; it is an ongoing process of revelation, interaction, and reinterpretation.
Movement, Memory, and Landscape as an Open System
The evolution of landscape perception—from the fixed vistas of aristocratic gardens to the sequential, shifting engagements of urban and industrial spaces— parallels a broader philosophical shift in how we understand time and memory. Both landscape and memory resist static representation; they unfold relationally, shaped by movement and interaction. The capitalist transformation of land further fragmented this relationship, embedding within the landscape itself the logic of division and commodification. Yet, as contemporary experiences of nature suggest, these fragmented perspectives also open new possibilities for understanding space and time as dynamic and interconnected.
Rather than a singular, unified scene, landscape now reveals itself as an open system—an invitation to move, to experience, and to uncover layers of memory that emerge not in isolation but in relation to the shifting, unfolding journey through space and time. invitation to move, to experience, that emerge not in isolation unfolding journey through space
zoë stenseth, sierra wroolie, izzy witten, and elly schuemann
Beginning with the void of the corn bin, the darkness creates an intimacy between the person and the room. To a foreign entity, intimacy is a way to relate to a space. The foreignness of the bin is diminished through developing a comforting and intimate relationship as a means of familiarity. Here, a sense of comfort emerges through the repetition of labor.
Our work is a body of our labor; a performance of finding familiarity. It touches on the tense relationship between Iowa’s natural prairie lands and the colonial capitalist practices that are now Iowa’s reality. The land and the prairie were once one, now made foreigners.
Reintroducing the prairie to the bin, a product of colonial practices, we find rematriation through the drying of plants. Bundled and hung below, the collection generates a new image of the space that is the landscape recovered, preserved, and remade. Humming, deeply rooted in comfort, takes its form in a Meskwaki lullaby, a metaphor for the nurturing Indigenous agricultural approach. Light filters through the prairie plants, reviving them as shadows that animate the space with the reimagined landscape.
Requiem curates the prairie to the bin allowing a moment of humble contemplation of the reimagining of the landscape.
jason griffiths
interview with DATUM had the opportunity to sit down and talk with associate professor at the University of Lincoln Nebraska and founder of the PLAIN DesignBuild architectural collective program at UNL, Jason Griffiths, when he came to Iowa State to speak on his project; “The One Piece at a Time project”. We sat down together in the upper Innovation Center and got his insights on design-build studios in education, and topics of American suburbia, the extractable nature of the Midwest landscape, and the outside perspective of American culture.
datum
jason griffiths
Looking at your studio at Nebraska, there’s something very invaluable in the design build, as someone who has never experienced on ourselves. It seems like there is more of a calling towards students wanting that type of exposure earlier in their education. I know a few of us visited UNL to learn about the design build studio and then left thinking; they actually did that? Can you talk a little bit about this?
Well, first, you guys need to advocate for it. I’m serious about this because I want you to agitate on the part of that culture because we have to fight for it all the time. It doesn’t fit into curriculum. It doesn’t fit into a semester. It’s very difficult to evaluate. It’s very difficult to quantify. You need money. You need resources. I’ve never done anything so conflicted. Just think about the way in which you can design. I mean, this is not a criticism of your other instructors because I know a lot of them and they’re you know? But design build is a beast. And it won’t lie down. And that’s because it’s real. There’s no running away from it. There’s no running away from your responsibilities. It’s the baptism of fire for being a grown-up architect in the right way. I don’t think this is just about getting geared up to become good professionals. It’s thinking like an architect. It’s very different.
datum
jason griffiths
You mentioned that you published a book. I’m curious what was most compelling about the process of publishing a book and getting your work out there in that format? What was most compelling about it?
Finding a language, finding a voice in it. It was coming to some point of a new nuanced expression, a way of writing. I don’t write in a proper academic way. I’ve done a ton of conference papers. This paper suggests... say what you’re going to say and say it. But you know, you have to write from a position of pleasure, eventually. I wrote that book in a way which was much more anecdotal. It was much more conversational.
jason griffiths
jason griffiths
I fell out with academia on it because people think, you know, you’re not really stating a thesis, or what’s the argument that you’re making here, or where are your sources? But, I know all that good stuff. I can inculcate the culture into it, but I have to write it in a way that doesn’t bore the shit out of people. I’m absolutely serious about that, because I love writing about suburbia. I love making the fun out of it. It’s a pleasure to write about it. But I’ve been accused of being a little bit unpatriotic.
It’s funny that you say that critiquing the residential buildings was considered unpatriotic because we think of the American ideal as the nuclear family in this country. However, it’s a bit taboo to most people to say that that’s maybe not the ideal way that we should be living.
That’s absolutely right. And who wants to listen to a middle-aged Brit? I will say also that I had to give that up because academia was expressly saying to me, what is this good for? We’ve got to save the world. We have to be more sustainable. We have to do all of these things.
I would question that, but I got tired. It was an echo chamber. I was fighting losing battle in that respect.
I would maintain the position that if the idea of noir or the idea of dark, revealing something dark and sinister in culture, it is not that you condone it. It’s not like, “oh that’s very dark, or that’s very cynical, that’s very critical, not very optimistic” It’s not that. We have noir. We have horror. We have the macabre as a signal warning against our hubris. Right? You know, People have reviewed “so why couldn’t you be more optimistic?”. Why take a kind of a post-apocalyptic film and say, no, you should make it this and that. But no, it has to be dark. But that critique, that desire to make a critique still exists in my work. Now it’s just a different thing. It’s really to do now with the culture of what lies within, the future of what we grow and how, and the material flows that support growth, and how that is very politically divisive.
datum
It helps to have someone voicing those difficult opinions that are seen here. Do you think it’s easier because you are you didn’t grow up in the American suburbia culture? Some of us just spent a semester in Rome, and we got to see the European life. Seeing how not everybody owns their own little perfect house by their expense, which is totally foreign to some and how a lot of us grew up. So just seeing it on the opposite end, growing up in a country that is fostered around community and living with neighbors directly. Essentially, just living in a city, and then coming here for the first time.
Another way to maybe put it; is it easier to point out the discrepancies of a thing or a system coming from an outside point of view?
jason griffiths
It’s easier and more difficult in a way. Because, I’ve been here for over 20 years, I still feel when I talk to most Americans, they really don’t know what they’re talking about. They really have no idea. For some reason, that seems good enough for everybody.
It allows me to see things or opportunities that other people don’t simply because, they’ve never been forced to look at it from a different angle. Of course, it’s naive of me to say that you should find that kind of thing interesting because, you know, it’s something you’ve known all your life.
That’s always been really difficult for me, being interested having been interested in the coaching and the ordinary, all of that kind of stuff. It has this sheen of exotic, weird American needs. Compulsion to fill a garage full of stuff for the beginning to the end of life.
datum
jason griffiths
We’ve been talking about that at DATUM a little bit too. Where through architecture school, we’ve just gotten a lot more aware of these issues and most of us never would have thought of suburbia before coming to school.
Exactly. Well, I was fascinated by actually living within that world. I’m not a big building science person. I came into it by the circuitous route, but the culture that lies within production of cultivating wood and then building it as many is multifaceted.
I‘m happy doing what I’m doing now because it’s a kind of expression of ordinary processes, which is a different way of looking at the idea of the ordinary. My organization, Plan Design Build, carries a multiple of different meanings. It’s not just great plains of America. It’s plains of wood. The idea of ordinary buildings, plainness, being plain, and a planar kind of construction as well.
datum
jason griffiths
We’re curious to know about your experiences in western Nebraska and the morality of the American landscape rather than, Suburban American landscape. Those who are kind of close to it, but so far a part of it in a different way. Rather than being super urban, they’re completely away. Have you explored that?
Yes, it’s different, isn’t it? It’s farm and ranch. The issue of landscape for me is dealing with the massive system of industrial agriculture in this part of the world. Because, you sit in one of the most fertile regions in the world here, half of the most productive regions. That drives what we call landscape.
That idea that there’s something to be extracted from the landscape is written across this part of the land. It’s inscribed into the grid. It determines the road patterns. The infrastructure is an expression of utility and efficiency. A lot of my work now is trying to trying to intervene within that landscape, to look at the way in which is not natural necessarily, but what is what is outside that system comes into some kind of contrast. That conflicts with it in some ways.
datum
jason griffiths
Can you talk about that sense of loneliness? You’re always trying to get somewhere else when you’re going through Nebraska. It seems very sparse. That landscape is completely different than here. What does it mean to be in a pass-through landscape?
For me, it’s a little bit more complicated than that because I drive out there all the time. There’s something about the abandonment of that landscape, the complete sense of erasure, flatness, the extraordinary canopy of sky, that I find has this weird melancholic beauty to it. I can’t get over it. It just makes you just feel so insignificant in a beautiful way. The industrial landscape as well, that kind of sense of control, an empty void of some sort. Part of what we’re doing at Plains is about trying to place ourselves in positions of the landscape that allows us to look out over it,where we are setting up a window that frames our landscape for two different reasons.
datum
It’s not that I believe that this would happen, but right now we looking are at how there’s so much to extract from this part of the world and we are looking at this as human nature. You try to when you are showing something that’s good, it can be misused. So, when what we’re trying to change, are we looking at that being led to this extraction being misused at some point?
We’re talking about how it is a very mellow landscape very different landscape, but that somewhat keeps people away from the idea of how rich it can be. Or it doesn’t show it as much. But once what we’re showing it, is there a possibility that there can be a lot of organization coming rather than what needs to be there?
jason griffiths
Well, I mean, there’s an argument to say that people from certain kinds of positions that say, countryside isn’t for people, cities are for people. It’s a dichotomy, and I don’t agree with that at all. But it’s also to note how that it’s very impenetrable. You’re asking about a position to see that landscape, to be able to integrate yourself into that landscape. It’s very difficult to do that. It’s very difficult to hop a fence and not feel threatened. It’s very difficult to wander through that landscape in a way that would give you the exposure to it.
The way to counteract that is to try and put trying to, as an architect or a designer, is to try and put us in a position where we can view the issues. An example; outside Dodge City in Kansas, there’s a pullover there, which has a big panoramic information panel. You stand there, you look at the panel, then you look at beyond. It was put there as a celebration of cattle and of farming. It was a genuine point where people pull over and have a look, and you can be marveled by what we have created in this country.
Today, you stand there and look at it, and the sign is a little bit dilapidated. It’s not so good. You’re looking at a horror scene. It is horrific. It stinks. It’s sad. It’s a dark joke, the celebration of that kind of landscape. But, to invert that situation and say, as architects, what we can do is place ourselves, try and find points within the landscape where we can’t look away. That we can see these things, we can be exposed to the issues.
I’m wondering how some you see it; some of you being from different places yourselves?
datum
Yeah, a lot of us had never seen a landscape like this. It was all new, and it was really interesting. But, you notice that it is home to others, just like how home to us is very interesting to someone else. So, it’s a new approach to the landscape. it’s great to dissect that. Because it’s even though it’s one layer, it’s so rich.
jason griffiths I learned quickly that you have to be really unjudgmental wherever you go. You cannot go with a preset idea or that you’re trying to prove a point about something, because you learn nothing in that process. And so, for me, when people go “oh, how do you survive living out there in a landscape like that?” I say, how do you survive with such a bleak view life? I don’t mean that, but it’s the whole idea that there’s nothing to learn from a place like this, or that it’s this mono-cultural place is really limiting.
datum You talked about researching or writing about, what we grow and the material for the future. What do you envision will be the place where we grow things and how we use the land for extraction in the future?
jason griffiths
Of course. Since I got into lumber, in engineered lumber construction, I went from having small budgets to suddenly, I’m working with the lumber industry, and it’s big industry with big money. It’s like, this is a grown-up world. The concrete and steel industry are doing their best to denigrate massive timber buildings. They wouldn’t bother if they didn’t feel threatened by it. It’s a very real thing, the expansion of heavy timber constructions. Now and over the years, it’s been happening and I believe in it.
heavy pressure: strained
nerves
Mocking flesh and cuts with clay and string. Making nerve dendrites out of wire and suspending them with constraints.
What happens when the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak?
When too many late nights have left you dangling and grasping for a sense of comfort.
You seek out support no matter if it is constraining and ripping you apart. A pressure, once welcome and comfortable, now
rosalyn becicka
only digs in deeper with each flail and attempt to escape its twiney grasp.
Threads unravel As Nerves Give Out.
What happens when our layers of us are ripped, stretched and then reassembled with stitching?
Sleep, caffeine, sugar, a warm body, a drink
Whatever it takes to keep us moving.
Our centers cut- barely holding on- yet still one ragged
body. Beholden to the past configuration even when stretched beyond the breaking point.
As we have continued to strain and work to the potential our bodies once held – back when they were seamless and smooth – we twist and mutilate and add only to find that we are rotting amongst our layers.
What happens if we accept the hurt the pressure has done us? If we cease stretching past limits to fill the fames left by others may constraints begin to be hugs again.
will I continue to be as I was? sierra wroolie
Istanbul is a city of memories. A history dominated with historical narratives and epics, but what is reality and what is fiction?
Hagia Sophia
Topkapi Palace
Suleymaniye Complex
They convey power and wealth of the city as a global center. But the city has a façade, hiding the rubble, hiding the rot.
Istanbul, succumbed to the Western gaze? The city confuses itself in the pursuit of modernity. As memories fade, they become hazy and lost. Reality becomes a grey area; Istanbul becomes a melancholic reality.
interview with yeni mao
DATUM had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Yeni Mao, a sculptor from Mexico City. His practice engages in issues of fragmentation through a series of assemblages and architectonic arrangements. The works imply abstracted, unraveled bodies; cyborg constructions of found, fabricated, or sculpted components,using raw materials such as steel, leather, and ceramic. Mao constructs the works himself, citing the act of making and the transformation of materials as a vehicle to both content and form. His works are coded with references to subcultures, countercultures and outsiders; enforced or self-imposed on account of their social, racial, sexual, or transnational status. Mao sees deviance as the basis for his multivalent practice.
DATUM has been exploring rot beyond the scientific understanding of just decomposition, like exploring really how that process of life and death, relates to society, in a spiritual sense or in a material sense. Finding what we know about rot, but it can be seen through a lens of death, decay, renewal or rebirth. Exploring what can come from rot in a positive light or the negative sense. Can you see rot in your own work, your artistic process, or in the final form?
In my practice, I’m thinking a lot about fracturing and decomposition. Decomposition, not in the scientific rotting sort of sense, but the fragmentation of things. What makes things whole and then the way things can build themselves up as well.
A while back, I made a bunch of mobile structures with copper or steel tubes and pieces of leather that sort of all hang in an orthogonal way. In one sense, it looks like a deconstructed animal, but it also looks like a piece of architecture that is disassembling itself and assembling itself in space.
datum was know
During the pandemic, my work took a more personal and spiritual turn. I did a couple projects where I listened to all these stories that my mother had been telling me that I had been dismissing because it was hard to place them within a temporal and political circumstance. I didn’t really know what she was talking about, because I didn’t know where we were, if we were in the 80s or the 50s or last year. I really started to think that this is really important. I was understanding that ancestral knowledge doesn’t mean something very far away from you. It means something very close to you, it’s your aunt and it’s your mother.
yeni mao
One of the stories was about her father, who lived in Malaysia during World War II. The Japanese invaded and they destroyed the town. My family fled to live with the indigenous people for two years. When they came back, they had to reconstruct this town. During the reconstruction, my grandfather disassembled this building piece by piece, he labeled every piece and brought it to another part of the town and then rebuilt it piece by piece. And I thought that movement was poetic and beautiful, I really connected to it. I felt connected to this grandfather who I had never met. I’m kind of the black sheep of the family and he also was a black sheep. I was excited that he was a builder and it also was a metaphor for all these ideas of immigration, what home means, and all this stuff that comes with having a transnational body and a transnational family.
Going back to the idea of rot, which I’m interpreting as decomposition. For me, it’s this deconstruction or reconstruction that almost happens automatically. In the story, my grandfather literally did it, but it’s sort of this thing that we do naturally. Even when we move apartments, we’re disassembling ourselves and then reconstructing ourselves in a different way. In a sense, university is also where you guys are sort of deconstructing who you were in your family life and right now, you’re in this process of reconstructing.
That’s beautiful. As students, we don’t think about us moving our whole life here as an instance of rotting our old life. With change, there comes new outcomes and situations, it’s rot as a rebirth.
When I think of rot, I think it’s an automatic thing that’s out of control. It has this negative sense, but it’s just this process of life. Environmentally, things rot and become fertilizer. That happens in our lives as well. I’ve had to recompose myself many times in my life. It comes naturally, part of you disintegrates and recomposes into another thing. Hopefully, because if not, that means you’re not developing. I think when someone feels psychologically stuck or stuck in their lives, it’s because like they haven’t rotted and recomposed.
yeni mao
mao
Could explain the narrative of this piece? It feels like something that has been impaled and held in place. It’s being taunted with these other spikes. If it were to drop, what were to happen? It would be hit again with another wave of something. What does this means to you?
I love hearing that. There was a certain amount of liberation and freedom when it comes to making visual art, because I think that there is a lot of entry that really sort of asks questions instead of giving solutions. I came up in a very in the late 90s and early 2000s, where it was really about multiculturalism, like the 1993 Whitney biennial. In response, there was a lot of movement in the art world where art had become really didactic and pedagogic. Especially for artists of color, you had to represent in a certain way. You became a vessel for teaching, like your artwork was supposed to be a vessel for teaching. Instead of representing yourself, you have to represent your culture.
I’ve been constantly trying to move away from that in my work. I’ve been trying to move towards poetics. And everything that you said about that work, I appreciate it because, that’s why I’m making artwork is for that sort of like human connection. It’s not for me to tell you what’s up, it’s for us to understand, to have a common language, which is this object.
That artwork that you that you shared was part of a series of eleven sculptures that I made for a solo presentation last year. They were the results of a few years of research into these tunnels in Mexicali, which is the border town between the United States and Mexico. There’s a bunch of tunnels where the Chinese population around the 20th century until about 1930 or 1940. These tunnels are almost shrouded in mystery, there’s a lot of different theories why the Chinese population lived here. I went there a couple times, and every time I went there, the history came more and more obscure. Depending on the gaze, everybody had a different story and a different reason why it was happening, persecution, prohibition, all this different stuff. I started to think, the more I try to discover, the more it became obscure.
yeni mao
I took measurements of the basements that are connected with tunnels. The tunnels are all sealed off, but you can go to these basements, which are like underneath the tee shirt shop or something like that. This series of work was based on these floor plans that I took measurements of. All the plates are the reproductions or reflections of those spaces taken from those measurements and then laser cut out of steel.
I wanted to think about, what do these spaces mean? I was especially affected that they had been like disneyfied in some way? How are these spaces holding these memories or collective memories or histories or legends or myths. How are these being formed by this box in the ground? It’s just a cement block basement, and it holds all of its stuff about race and nationality and persecution and erases all these subjects. It’s really fascinating how this space can just hold that. I think that in general is what I’m dealing a lot in my practice. How the body equates to architecture. In that piece, I used these plates and I was thinking about how they can be assembled, how they can be disassembled, how they can be pierced or welded on, because I’m so familiar with metal work. It was important to me that they were made out of steel plates because it’s something that I could manipulate. That’s purely this sort of material interaction with the works; all those works came out of that practice.
That piece was an investigation of having these two plates and they have this hole pattern in them. How do I make them stay together and how do I make it stand up? Then, how do I suspend an entity within that, which is that piece of rock. It is a volcanic rock, it’s called tezontle in Mexico, and it has a lot of cultural significance in Mexico, but for me, this volcanic rock is really indicative of the Pacific rim and this earthly connection between the Pacific, this Ring of Fire.
Is that one way that location has influenced your work? Did you use that material before you were in Mexico?
I started to use these different sorts of rocks and was thinking about them as gems in some way, like the value of building materials and how the value of material changes or develops depending on a market or depending on a cultural significance. For example, Mexico City was the center of the Aztec empire, and there was this big pyramid in the center. Then the Spanish came and they disassembled it. It was built out of tezontle and they destroyed this pyramid and then took that material and made a cathedral out of it. That is very significant.
To expand a little bit on you said about creating value in objects that may not be seen valuable in other places. You’re creating value with your work, too. How do you think of that, like you’re creating this value in these basic materials like steel and earth?
Yes, I worked for these modernist architects for so long, for me, that was related to minimalism and JUDD and that treatment of materials in an architectural way and not in an art way, it’s not out of marble and bronze.. And ceramics too, which I started doing recently, now has value. For me, it’s interesting that it’s just mud, you know. And also steel, it’s just some elements to put together. A lot of the work is thinking about this line between a primal material and how that changes through the human hand, into craft and then into industrialism. That’s been a really important part of the practice. I make everything myself, I’m trying to understand, go deep into a material. I’m starting to work with some more fine arts materials. I do think like that making certain types of brick is just as important as making certain types of pottery. I think that is just as culturally significant, I think there can be the markers of the maker in that. datum
datum
yeni mao
datum
Do you think working with these primal elements gives them value or does it reflect the current value it already has?
It’s our transformation of materials that gives the value. Some time back, I was using tiles in my work, and of course, tiles are industrial. I had issues finding tiles that aren’t produced anymore. In Mexico, they have a maker’s mark on all the tiles and they’re only produced for a certain time. At that time, it was an industrial project, something you would get at Ikea but it’s actually a craft. There is actually a marker of the factory who made it and who signed it. This sort of piece of mud was imbued with all this other stuff.
How do you frame craft? There’s a lot of discussion on what is considered art, what is considered craft, etc. You’ve talked a lot about craft versus industrial, how you are framing that definition of what craft is?
yeni mao
datum
I think those definitions are breaking down now. For me, with my sort of troubled relationship with the art world and intellectualism within the art world, the reason that I didn’t go get my MFA was because I was interested in what was termed at the time as craft. I wanted to learn how to make stuff. So, I’m not framing it at all. I’m questioning those things a lot. I try to think of my pieces as weird esoteric objects that would be thinking outside of the art world.
You mentioned the definition of art, kind of collapsing, breaking down and sort of rotting. In the cycle of deconstruction, reconstruction, rotting, and rebirth, where do you see that breakdown leading?
yeni mao
Someone told me recently that I treated the materials in my sculptures like an architect. It’s about moments and weight and strength and different parts. So, that question makes me think about the breakdown between what is a craft and what is a fine art, also how there’s a slippage between architecture and fine art.
affair. Even when raccoons and mice fill the walls, there is still the desire to collect things once loved.
Nothing Stops you from being your grandpa’s granddaughter.
I have become a hoarder too. It's hard to admit, but I still find myself fighting the urge to save things that feel important, even when shattered and rusty. Maybe there is a different life in mind for the items in which I have “saved.”
I might leave them be.
Nothing stops you from having an imagination.
The things I left behind in the shed, the stuck to the wall, the mildew permeated, I wonder what will happen to them? It may be a lost fate, something to be bulldozed when the outbuilding finally collapses, but maybe someone likes these things too. A small collector, a dweller who prefers the mess. carved in his lamp.
Nothing stops you from living in a lamp.
everything breathes into me
kristiana tu
//death
Imagine with me
A bird laying still in a grassy field \\ its heart still and eyes unseeing as a thousand insects roam its body
But what is a body if not the sum of its parts? And what are those parts but the sum of their parts? Matter is never created nor destroyed Everything that exists now is but a complex rearrangement of pieces that were anything else before A fleeting mosaic of eternal fragments This still body whose atoms used to be grass and clouds and people and laughter
Deigning to clasp as a bird until they chose to cease
Releasing their hold to redisperse back into the world
So the ants feast using energy they gleaned by eating things which used to be other things
Feathers, bones, eyes, talons, flesh
becoming no more than food
Until such a time as they become food for a bigger beast
Which will become food for a bigger beast
Matter becoming energy changing hands
Energy becoming new life when embodied by Human //life
Cells multiplying in a womb inexplicably filling space replacing the void Matter created by energy
[energy from the food which feasted on food which feasted on the ants which feasted on the bird which dissolved into the earth]
growing and multiplying to become Human to run to eat to speak to love
All the while expending energy which will eventually become other Things just as energy compiled to become Human “Human” being the sum of matter which has existed for millennia
//decay
Someday my body will cease to breathe
cease to use or output energy
Someday i will be laid in a hole in the ground to decompose to feed the ants who will feed the birds who will fill their lungs with air contract them to expel it and sing a song with energy that came from me To release the eternal matter in me back into the universe to someday rearrange into yet Another
It’s no wonder i long for the sea or ache to lay in a meadow letting the sun’s rays beam into me the soil smells strangely like home For it is not I who crave a new experience but my matter nostalgic for a past existence
Death is not oblivion
I am always around
Pieces of me will be scattered throughout the world forever just as they were before they knew me And so it goes for everything
Never created nor destroyed
//rearrange
national parks: what are we without them?
izzy witten
It seems not a day passes without another executive order from President Donald Trump’s federal team of billionaire sociopaths that fundamentally alter ways of life for those living in the U.S. e range these orders have covered is extensive; Dismantling of
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices, attempting to remove birthright citizenship, and unprecedented governmental job cuts. ough almost all have stirred up turmoil, one of the most widely denounced was the order that took a huge swing at
the National Park Service and laid o over 1,000 National Park workers across the U.S.
Perhaps the President’s way of making “America Great Again” is by mercilessly attempting to destroy “America’s Best Idea”. Wallace Stegner lovingly gave the National Parks that title in 1983, but it rings true more now than ever.
Just as peak visitor season hits, hundreds of workers received notice that they were let go. Some had served the parks for years. Both hardworking and dedicated alike, they were let go without prior notice. Now, we are faced with the question: what are the National Parks without the rangers and sta to protect and maintain them?
As this question began to press more on my mind, I had the pleasure of meeting David Dutton, author of “Paid in Sunsets: A Park Ranger’s Story” and a retired Federal Park Ranger. Dutton worked for the National Park Service for 31 years and served in a variety of roles over his time with the organization. I was fortunate enough to get the chance to ask him about this
issue, what Park Rangers do, and what their importance was. Summed up, most Ranger’s goals are “protecting the park from the people, protecting the people from the park, and protecting people from people” in Dutton’s words.
Much like others, the executive order came as a huge shock to Dutton. “I was incredulous! How dare they attempt to demonize a profession I spent half of my life doing? Who the hell were they? ... e fact that the Trump administration targets people like this; highly skilled, highly motivated people; is loudly indicative of their disdain for government employees.” Dutton is right. It’s evident that the current administration not only overlooks the dedication of its employees but also fails to even comprehend the immense responsibility and commitment these rangers carry for the parks and for the country. ese people go through a lot in order to serve the parks we love. e stories from Dutton’s time as a ranger are both inspiring and gut-wrenching. “Where was Elon Musk or Donald Trump when myself and another Ranger did CPR on teenage brothers
that’d been struck by lightning during a horrendous storm and had to convey to their deafmute mother her two sons were gone? Forever. And watching her cry silent tears. I’ll never forget that as long as I live. Where was Elon or Donald Trump when my Senior Ranger pulled three burning children from an alcoholic car collision, on his way home from work one day... e point is that park Rangers are incredibly dedicated people and put themselves in harm’s way far too o en than they’d likely admit. It’s just part of the job”. For many of the rangers, their positions are not just jobs. Not only do they risk danger and face uncertain conditions, but they are the very life of the parks. When that job gets taken from them, they lose their homes, communities, and stability along with it. When asked about what will happen to the parks without their rangers, Dutton says simply; “Get ready for bad things to happen”. Keeping the historical sites and parks in good condition is no easy feat. Without dedicated rangers to protect them, the damage that will be done to the parks can become irreversible. Gra ti, trash, and destruction may become
a more common sight at these locations instead of breathtaking scenery and preserved history. Essentially, there will be an onslaught of unchecked damage and depletion that the dwindling sta can’t combat alone.
e signi cance of these parks and their rangers cannot be overstated and they will continue to be vital in the future. e past is an integral part of our present and future; Drawing lessons and inspiration from it, we live and breathe the past in order to move forward. ese parks are not only a bridge to our collective history, letting us understand where we come from, but are also a testament to the wonder and importance of preserving the natural world. e mission of these parks is twofold: they aim to educate the public about the historical events, cultures, and values that shape us, while also highlighting the essential role that conservation plays in sustaining our future. ese parks foster a deeper appreciation for the delicate balance between human progress and environmental stewardship.
Although many of the positions were already reinstated due
to following court orders, the threat is still very much there. Understa ng and underfunding still put pressure on the NPS, causing Ranger burnout and employees faced with coercion to resign. On a larger scale this order, along with the countless other absurd ones, sets a dangerous precedent. If they’re willing to dismantle one of America’s most iconic and beloved institutions, what’s next? What will they target a er this? Where do we draw the line? It’s a slippery slope toward fascism, and we must put in place and maintain safeguards—both big and small—to protect ourselves from it.
What can you do? Dutton says “GET LOUD!!!!”.
Contact elected representatives, write local outlets, volunteer to help, and protest the injustice. He leaves us with a shout-out to all park rangers. “Men and women who put on a uniform and step into the crowd to bolster the ranks of the in Green Line. You are the unsung heroes!”
e national parks are the marvel of the United States and serve as a protected friend to all, irrevocably tied to us. It is unsure how this will all unfold, but I do know that the decline or destruction of these great historical sites will be a great loss to all. A void in the hearts and minds of you and me alike, like the loss of a friend and self. So, why don’t we leave its protection in the hands of those who dedicate their lives to its protection and those to care for the future generations to come?
al green explored my mind
braeden green
Yellow gold reflected back at me
The emerald bubbling
The black dirt beneath me
Deep green sprouted
It told me it would go on forever
The water started to swirl elliptically instead of circularly
Tadpoles and larva stretched into crude slicks
The inky runoff eddied onto itself staring back
It told me that I would end
spoiled:
the
misconceptions and realities of india’s economic growth
henry bryner
Going on my trip to India, I expected to see people being taken advantage of under a system prioritizing economic growth over individual well-being. I wasn't entirely wrong, but approaching this through my lens narrowed my perspective. The current scale of disparity was brought on when India was forced into economic liberalization after the collapse of the soviet union and the assassination of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Led by Financial Advisor Manmohan Sigh, the new free market economy skyrocketed India's GDP and foreign investments. Today India is hailed as a great success story of modernization. Beneath the surface, social
services have not kept up. Public education, healthcare, and infrastructure feel left behind, unable to support a population of over 1.4 billion. People aren't just being underpaid; they're being under-served by the systems meant to help them.
Today, the government continues to push free-market policies under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Despite the apparent labor exploitation, unreliable infrastructure, and government corruption the communities I encountered displayed incredible levels of unity and resilience. The rich culture varied from city to city yet united under tradition and a profound sense of care that individuals showed for their community and environment. The people aren't the ones failing India, they are the ones holding it together, creating microecosystems and economies of care that exist in contrast to the country's rapid industrialization.
India is often misunderstood, reduced to either a tech powerhouse or a poverty-stricken landscape the truth is far more layered. Its history of socialism after British independence wasn't just bureaucratic
inefficiencies it was an attempt to build something equitable. Today, economic boom has brought undeniable benefits; it has also exacerbated disparities, leaving many behind. The real story of India isn't about GDP or government policy but its people. The nation itself isn't spoiled, the systems that dictate its growth might be.
datum discourse
WAI architecture think tank
Early in the semester, DATUM met to discuss on topics from Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz Garcias Wai Architecture Think Tank article “Cowardice as Architectural Theory”, which brought up issues in architectural theory and it’s complacently towards discrimination and colonial violence. We also had the opportunity to visit the exhibition they hosted in the ISU College of Design Gallery entitled “Machines… and Ideas to Postpone the End of the World”. The exhibition hosted “ideas, structures, and devices of solidarity, curiosity,
imagination, futurism, resistance, embodiment, and storytelling in an effort to challenge the architectures and infrastructures of colonial staging, systematic repression, and technological destruction”.
After our visit, DATUM’s conversation dives into the intersection of architecture, social justice, and the ethical responsibilities of architecture students and professionals. One of the themes brought up was the moral and ethical responsibility architects hold, not only as designers but as agents of social change. As students, it seems that we are encouraged to be aware of how architectural practice affects society and the environment. As designers, neutrality in design, inaction, or silence on social issues often can inadvertently harm marginalized communities. When thinking about entering the workforce, where the focus may shift to client demands and commercial priorities rather than social responsibility, a lot of us have concerns about how to maintain personal values in such an environment.
This leads the conversation
to frustrations with the academic system, noting that while it addresses social and environmental issues, it often lacks tangible, real, solutions. There’s an overall sense of uncertainty about how to move from theory to practical change, with some DATUM students wondering how they can realistically integrate these critical perspectives into their future careers. Theres a sense that architectural education often doesn’t offer direct answers or actionable steps for addressing these problems. For an example, we talk over the performative nature of certain “green” design solutions, like adding a green roof for the sake of looking sustainable without actually addressing deeper concerns.
We worry that many view solutions like that as trendy, rather than having meaningful contributions to sustainability or social equity. The discussion then turned to land ownership, particularly in the context of Indigenous peoples, as this was a large topic in the exhibition and the article. We reflected on how the land some of us or our families own is often tied to histories of colonization, with
current land practices that are part of an ongoing struggle between the rightful ownership of Indigenous land and harmful modern agricultural practices. For an example, we discuss the concept of family farms in the Great Plains. There where farmers, more often than not, think of their land as inherited family property while the history of that land dictates that the land was originally taken from Indigenous peoples. The sentiment is that this tension between these sides is a very complex issue that challenges how architecture and land use should be approached today. We also related the land use issue to a previous symposium about the Land Back movement and the Great Planes Action society, where it was proposed to allow Indigenous groups to demonstrate sustainable farming practices as a means of environmental and cultural restoration to show its vitality.
As the conversation shifts, there is a growing sense of urgency to address these ethical dilemmas in a more practical way. One DATUM member highlights the need for architects to go further than simply understanding
historical narratives and instead incorporate different perspectives into their designs, both acknowledging and addressing past injustices. Another brings up the idea of accountability, noting the importance of holding yourself and others accountable for the impact of their work. For instance, some architects may choose to design prisons without considering the historical context of mass incarceration and the disproportionate impact on marginalized communities.
We concluded with a call for new thinking in architecture—a shift away from superficial design toward a deeper consideration of history, ethics, and social justice. There is an emphasis on the role of architects in pushing these conversations forward, even when they might face resistance in the professional world. Overall, we hope that through these efforts we contribute to creating a more socially conscious practice. We do acknowledge the difficulty of balancing these ideals with the demands of the profession but together have a shared belief that the future of architecture lies in challenging traditional world. Overall, we hope contribute to creating a more do acknowledge the difficulty of demands of the profession but that the future of architecture
practices and embracing a more inclusive, responsible approach to design.
deservedness and the disintegration of care
meredith petellin
If “Liberalism is a mold; it is a fungus upon revolutionary desires and operations” (Gwendolyn) then neutrality in practice, does not exist. It is a cover story for fear, and the truth of it is violence. There is no way to be a productive member of society while maintaining
political indifference. This willful ignorance is dangerous because it removes accountability. The word of “silence is violence” has never rung truer. The evolution of the modern political climate raises questions of the moral consciousness. The destruction of countries and cities and
towns and people. The screen; a slow and continuous process of desensitization. How long will media consumption in the age of information keep the population pacified? This is the Anthropocene.
Who will live? Who will die? Who will care? Liberal politics and an Instagram story solidarity post to ease the consciousness, to let us live in harmony with the evil. Revolution exists separate from liberalism. A true act of rejection, “reason is the truth of the subject and politics is the exercise of reason” (Arendt). Liberalism leaches onto revolution and kills it from within. Is the most revolutionary act to care? The revolutionary act of grief or of joy. If the system in place is desensitization, the result is disintegration. The design of our human sovereign world is intentional. If the ruling class was afraid, it would not be this way. The information we consume has been decided. Thus, we question what is sovereignty? “The exercise of sovereignty, in turn, consists in society’s capacity for self-creation through recourse to institutions inspired by specific social and imaginary significations”
(Mbembe). Futurism crumbles under the wake of indifference.
Existing in the world through media and creating without forethought of consequence is an act of violence. Leaving no room for the understanding of repercussion and the way in which actions effect those around you.
We scroll and we grapple with the weight of who to care about, to watch Palestinian children starve to death, while Instagram advertises resources for California wildfires. While I am here. I am here, and what do I owe. The idea of deservedness arises when we begin to question what we owe each other and how much we should care. Media consumption lulls us into comfort and halts progression. If consumption is never radical. How do we change? Every soul deserves comfort how do we decide who will have it? Consumption is never radical. We are watching, not acting. If we know “the revolution will not be televised” (Scott-Heron) why do we continue to sit and watch? To wait for someone else to act to wait for someone else to say something that we can then repost on Instagram. The
revolution will fall into my lap. We are watching destruction in slow motion, a car crash that we will give our thoughts and prayers to. We watched the world say their hearts bleed for Palestine. We saw it. We are afraid to suffer but find no discomfort in watching it happen to others. We are so afraid. Afraid to act.
Afraid of what others might think. Afraid of Revolution. Consumption is never radical and yet here we are. Morality is not a constant, with the existence of genocide, it does not matter if we think something is wrong, others don’t. Imperial systems
and colonization would not exist if morality was universal. We would not have to watch people starve and we would not have to fight for our rights. It does not matter what our morals tell us. Their morals say it’s okay. In a world of subjectivity it is necessary to deviate, radicalism is necessary.
Artists. Painters, Sculptures, Poets, Architects, Photographers, Novelists, Musicians… In an essay written by Ismatu Gwendolyn titled The Role of the Artist is to Load the Gun. She states, “One of the greatest powers held in the human sovereign world is the power to create and destroy: to make, shape and reshape the world and what we know to be true.” This closely follows the idea stated by Achille Mbembe “to create, is first and foremost, to create time”. Artists have the power to create. To create change and revolution. Art making does not exist outside of politics; it is not a separate entity but the shape of the culture. The role of the artist is to load the gun. To make art within the political sphere, and to spark revolution. The power to decide direction and alter the timeline. The power to
communicate “we cannot remain indifferent to the intellectual conditions under which creative activity takes place, nor should we fail to pay all respect to those particular laws which govern intellectual creation” (Mbembe) With this world making power, why are we not seeing progress? Again, I state, we are watching destruction in slow motion. Social media is rotting the culture from within. More visibility does not always equal more care. How do we care for everyone all at once. Who deserves it? Do I deserve it. We care for those in California who lost their homes. But do we care the same for Palestine, or Congo, or Sudan. We see their struggle. And we see no change. All eyes on Rafah they said. I open my moth and no scream comes out. The constituency is kept at bay through policy making and poverty. It’s too uncomfortable to watch people suffer so we scroll. The plan of legislators was always clear. While we scroll on TikTok on disintegrate our attention spans. The drug calms us as we watch death on the other side of the world.
The other side of the world. The Western Perspective.
The New World. The First World. The Global North
The United States of America continues its war on information. If it is happening to them, it has already happened or is already happening to you. Suffering will find us in the end. If we watch it
happen, it is already too late. We have to care. Liberalism leaches onto revolution and kills it from within. The most revolutionary act is to care. To act in grief or in joy. If the system in place is desensitization, the result is disintegration. Disintegration
of morality, and culture, and the future. Art begs us to care. To load the gun. To exercise sovereignty. Our power is in currency. Currency shapes our world whether we like it out not. The world is in our image. What do you want it to look like? Am I responsible for the life of someone else, someone across the world from me? Suffering is universal. Death is guaranteed. The age of information begs us to care. To not scroll past, but to abide by the connection of humanity.
But silence is violence We must speak We must do
We must be true
To ourselves
To our fight
But mostly, ourselves. (Ghniam)
on my hands. Blood on my neutral. Through bombs and
There is blood in my eye. Blood on my hands. Blood on my screen. Existence has never been neutral. Through bombs and bullets, someone suffering brings profit. We will die watching a live stream of war or we will feel our feet on the ground. To be with humanity. Away from extraction. Departure from the empire.
special thanks
We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who has made a contribution. Large and small.
Cameron Campbell Cruz Garcia
Firat Erdim
Jason Griffiths
Nathalie Frankowski
Pricillia Djunaedi
Peter Zuroweste
Yeni Mao
DATUM is a medium for critical academic discourse through the exchange of bold design and progressive ideas. As a student-run publication, we are grateful to print local at Heuss Printing Inc. and thankful to the Iowa State Student Organizations for their continual support. We would also like to thank previous donors for providing the funds to get us to where we are today. Donors have no influence on, or involvement with the work selected for the publication.
