THE GRACE MACHINE is partially based on Lars Spuybroek’s latest book, Grace and Gravity: Architecture of the Figure (2020), published by Bloomsbury, London. This hefty volume of 220,000 words develops a new set of tools which allows it to crisscross the various disciplines of art history, anthropology, philosophy, media theory, theology, and architecture. A broad range of concepts is introduced in the first chapter that carries the same title as the present website. These concepts are subsequently mobilized through a highly choreographed set of chapters and subchapters full of symmetries that, on the one hand, suggest a crystalline order and, on the other hand, contain sudden jumps suggesting the exact opposite.
THE GRACE MACHINE does not, however, follow the Grace and Gravity book, and no prior knowledge is required of it for the seminar. In fact, the machine reshuffles the deck of cards so precisely delt at each chapter, in order to recreate another, more compact volume of five postural figures that makes Grace and Gravity more accessible and transparent to its students.