Jeffrey Kipnis: Why bother? The director's cut, Part 1: In praise of the project (April 1, 2016)

Jeffrey Kipnis proposes that the architecture's value lies in work characterized by hysteria, and a passion for the backstory. Kipnis presents a vitalist matter theory approach to reality and experience, and reviews competing concepts of value. He acknowledges the usefulness of autobiographical and biographical strategies for interpreting work, but declares he does neither. He discusses the pentimenti of Velázquez, Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy as a performance, and Deleuze's concept of the body without organs. Kipnis discusses significant backstories of specific projects, including OMA's Très Grande Bibliothèque, the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition, the Kukje Gallery by Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu, and Anna Neimark and Andrew Atwood's entry in the 2016 P.S.1 competition.