James Taylor-Foster
Selected writing 2015 – 2023
  • About
  • Category
  • Title
  • Publication
  • Year
  • Writing
  • Wang & Söderström: Royal Chambers
  • 2023
James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
Selected writing 2015 – 2023
  • Wang & Söderström: Royal Chambers
Fig 1. Royal Chambers by Wang & Söderström (Wang & Söderström, 2023)


A 2022 census of ants puts the total population at twenty quadrillion – a twenty with fifteen zeros. That’s around two and a half million, give or take, for every human. These biomes, like cities, are networks of incredible sophistication.

A royal chamber, the prime cell of an ant colony in which a queen expends a life in continual creation, advocates for the notion of home as something more than four walls and a roof. Homes can be understood at manifold scales; they are around and within us. Our bodies, microbiomes of viruses, proteins, bacteria, archaea, and fungi, are one scale. The data-driven networks that we embed ourselves in and are dependent on, another. Earth is a home of a scale too challenging to comprehend in its rich and intertwined fullness. Between the visceral present, clear as mud, and the future – often clearer than we give it credit for – this project unfolds the idea of home as a multifaceted ecosystem.

If the cocoon of the caddisfly larva, the mound of an ant colony, and the beaver’s lodge are each a creation of creatures who modify their surroundings by design, then the aeroplane, the clock, and the internet are creations that similarly modify our surroundings in turn. From the simplest objects to the most sophisticated in our world, all technology—made by humanity or otherwise—is a part of nature. By way of sculpture, interactive installation, and visual media, Wang & Söderström investigate our relationship to digital and environmental development through an assembly of five works. Together they describe an entanglement of shifting power structures and perspectives in a rapidly changing ‘phygital’ world.

The ecology of technology, perhaps the most powerful force on our planet, calls for speculative perspectives that revaluate our role as custodians of something infinitely more intricate than ourselves. Royal Chambers posits an expanded idea of home, of care and connection from micro to macro, to shine light on a more integrated, nuanced notion of life and living.



Fig 2. Royal Chambers by Wang & Söderström (Wang & Söderström, 2023)

Fig 3. Spreads of Royal Chambers by Wang & Söderström (Wang & Söderström, 2023)


Extract from the book Royal Chambers: Home as Host, Host as Home by Wang & Söderström, for which a corresponding exhibition was on display at inter.pblc, Copenhagen, between November 4 and November 29, 2022.
ISBN: 978-91-89270-42-8
240pp, 200×280mm
March 2023
Essays Jazmin Morris, Magdalena Rozenberg, Oscar Salguero, Yasaman Sheri and David Zilber Publisher Arvinius + Orfeus Graphic design Kiosk Studio

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James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
  • CuratorialI.
  • ProjectsII.
  • PublicationsIII.
  • SpeakingIV.
  • WritingV.
I.Curatorial
  • ✶ WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD, London2022
  • ✶ Mira Bergh × Josefin Zachrisson: Utomhusverket2022
  • ✶ The Limits of Our World: LARP and Design2022
  • ✶ Solicited: Proposals2021
  • ✶ Studio Ossidiana: Utomhusverket2021
  • WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD, Stockholm2020
  • Architecture Projects: Skeppsbron + Brunnsparken2019
  • Cruising Pavilion: Architecture, Gay Sex, Cruising Culture2019
  • The Craft of Swedish Videogame Design2019
  • Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson; Sigurd Lewerentz – Freestanding2018
  • Space Popular: Value in the Virtual2018
  • You Are Not Alone2017
  • In Therapy2016
  • Keeping Up Appearances2015
II.Projects
  • ASMR, An Exhibition Trailer2022
  • Watch & Chill 2.0: Streaming Senses2022
  • ASMRology2021
  • Plug-in Poesi2020
  • Interdependence: Stockholm and pandemia2020
  • Future Architecture Rooms2020
  • SOFT GOSSIP2020
  • Mukbang Veneziano2020
  • Körper2019
  • Architecture on Display2018
  • Boxen at ArkDes2018
  • The Stones of Venice: A Kimono2017
  • Misunderstandings (A Reliquary)2016
III.Publications
  • ✶ softspot2021
  • Living on Water2017
  • Elemental Living2016
  • People, Place, Purpose2015
IV.Speaking
  • ✶ Scaffold #612022
  • Salons, The New Architecture School2022
  • ✶ Protagonist of the Erotic: A Bed2022
  • OAT Academy, Curating Architecture2022
  • ✶ Protagonist of the Erotic: An Island2021
  • A Future for Exhibitions2021
  • Future Architecture CEx2020 Focus Talks2020
  • Modevisningar är den flyktigaste formen av arkitektur2018
  • Exhibition Models2017
V.Writing
  • Wang & Söderström: Royal Chambers2023
  • Studio Ossidiana on the Sentimental Scale of the City2022
  • A Strange Sort of Weight2021
  • What’s Mine Is Theirs: an interview with Max Lamb2020
  • ✶ Screen Glow Sedation2020
  • No Time to Stand and Stare2020
  • On Norra Tornen2020
  • ✶ Don’t Fear a Snowflake2020
  • In Riga, A Conference On Architecture and Migration2019
  • On Practical Futurology2019
  • Foreword: On the Manifesto2019
  • Making Believe with Charlap Hyman & Herrero2019
  • ✶ To Speak As If In Capital Letters2019
  • Baltoscandia: A Complex Utopia2018
  • ✶ Virgil Abloh, Editor in Brief2018
  • A Weak Monument2018
  • Sigurd Lewerentz: Villa Edstrand2018
  • On the Cruising Pavilion2018
  • A Diary of Virgil Abloh’s First Louis Vuitton Show2018
  • ✶ The Boat is Leaking. The Captain Lied.2018
  • Concrete Mountain2017
  • ✶ On Liquid Modernity2017
  • ✶ #003399, #FFCC00; The Meaning of a Flag2017
  • Pillars of Society: “Jantelagen”2017
  • Exhibiting the Postmodern2017
  • Future Architecture and the Idea of Europe2017
  • Domains of Influence2017
  • Ingress: Black Rock City2017
  • In Dialogue With Gravity2017
  • Rem, Redacted2016
  • Media States, Or The State of Media2016
  • A Piece of England to Call One’s Own2016
  • Upon This Rock (I Will Build My Church)2016
  • The Design of the Species2016
  • Venice Isn’t Sinking, It’s Flooding2016
James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
Selected writing 2015 – 2023
Writing
  • Wang & Söderström: Royal Chambers 2023
  • for Wang & Söderström with Jazmin Morris, Magdalena Rozenberg, Oscar Salguero, Yasaman Sheri, David Zilber, Kiosk Studio
Back
Fig 1. Royal Chambers by Wang & Söderström (Wang & Söderström, 2023)


A 2022 census of ants puts the total population at twenty quadrillion – a twenty with fifteen zeros. That’s around two and a half million, give or take, for every human. These biomes, like cities, are networks of incredible sophistication.

A royal chamber, the prime cell of an ant colony in which a queen expends a life in continual creation, advocates for the notion of home as something more than four walls and a roof. Homes can be understood at manifold scales; they are around and within us. Our bodies, microbiomes of viruses, proteins, bacteria, archaea, and fungi, are one scale. The data-driven networks that we embed ourselves in and are dependent on, another. Earth is a home of a scale too challenging to comprehend in its rich and intertwined fullness. Between the visceral present, clear as mud, and the future – often clearer than we give it credit for – this project unfolds the idea of home as a multifaceted ecosystem.

If the cocoon of the caddisfly larva, the mound of an ant colony, and the beaver’s lodge are each a creation of creatures who modify their surroundings by design, then the aeroplane, the clock, and the internet are creations that similarly modify our surroundings in turn. From the simplest objects to the most sophisticated in our world, all technology—made by humanity or otherwise—is a part of nature. By way of sculpture, interactive installation, and visual media, Wang & Söderström investigate our relationship to digital and environmental development through an assembly of five works. Together they describe an entanglement of shifting power structures and perspectives in a rapidly changing ‘phygital’ world.

The ecology of technology, perhaps the most powerful force on our planet, calls for speculative perspectives that revaluate our role as custodians of something infinitely more intricate than ourselves. Royal Chambers posits an expanded idea of home, of care and connection from micro to macro, to shine light on a more integrated, nuanced notion of life and living.



Fig 2. Royal Chambers by Wang & Söderström (Wang & Söderström, 2023)

Fig 3. Spreads of Royal Chambers by Wang & Söderström (Wang & Söderström, 2023)


Extract from the book Royal Chambers: Home as Host, Host as Home by Wang & Söderström, for which a corresponding exhibition was on display at inter.pblc, Copenhagen, between November 4 and November 29, 2022.
ISBN: 978-91-89270-42-8
240pp, 200×280mm
March 2023
Essays Jazmin Morris, Magdalena Rozenberg, Oscar Salguero, Yasaman Sheri and David Zilber Publisher Arvinius + Orfeus Graphic design Kiosk Studio
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