Michael Rock is a founding partner and creative director at 2x4 and Director of the Graphic Architecture Project at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. At 2x4, he leads a wide range of projects for Nike, MTV, Prada, Vitra, Harvard and CCTV. Before starting 2x4, he was cofounder of Information incorporated in Boston. From 1984–91 he was Adjunct Professor of Graphic Design at the Rhode Island School of Design and since 1991, he has been a member of the design faculty at the Yale School of Art where he currently holds the rank of Professor. In addition he was a fellow at the Jan Van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, The Netherlands, and a contributing editor and graphic design journalist at I.D. Magazine in New York. His writing on design has appeared in publications worldwide. He holds an A.B. in Humanities from Union College and a M.F.A from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is the recipient of the 1999/2000 Rome Prize in Design from the American Academy in Rome and currently serves on the board of the Academy.
While architects have always synthesized diverse disciplines, media is taking an increasingly prominent position alongside design, structure and building systems. At the same time, other disciplines, heretofore considered outside of architecture – branding, advertising, promotion, public relations, publishing, display, film, interactive media, social networking – now have new currency, and certain cases primacy, in the development of the built environment. In this con text, alternative forms of practice, more or less architectural in nature, have a greater influence over the public experience of buildings, space, landscape, cities and environments than ever before. "Superficiality" looks at the types of image production that live in, on, around and about architecture.
