I was invited to read Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man in its entirety to a live audience at the Kuppelsaal of the TU (Technical University) Wien on 7th December 2017. 

This prompted me to not only study and work with Pico's magnificent work, but also to then re-record it and create a video with just the text scrolling through so that anyone interested can listen to and read it at the same time. 

This is now available on YouTube.

The CAAD Department at ETH Zürich has announced its first ever Summer School, where the faculty includes: Ludger Hovestadt, architect and computer scientist, professor for CAAD at ETH Zürich; Vera Bühlmann, philosopher and media theorist, professor for architectural theory at TU Vienna; Elias Zafiris, quantum physicist and mathematician, professor at Eötvös University, Budapest; and Sebastian Michael who will be doing work on 'serious story telling'.

This is "aimed at creative open-minded people who would like to challenge traditional architectural education. Current students, bachelors, masters and PhDs, recent graduates, architects, designers, career changers and individuals interested in technology and culture at large are all welcome to explore and cultivate their thinking", and it promises to be a genuinely stimulating couple of weeks in a lovely château in France. Some scholarship places available.

Full info and application form here

In 2015, architect Moritz Behrens and digital lighting specialist Konstantinos Mavromichalis won the No 8 at ARUP competition with their Sentiment Cocoon – a 20 metre tall installation at ARUP's London Headquarters. 

From this came book about Sentiment Architectures, edited by Moritz Behrens and publishers Christian Berkes & Sophie Wohlgemuth, and Sebastian, having been at the opening of the Sentiment Cocoon, was asked to contribute a Sentiment Utopia for this book: a fictionalised, maybe Utopian, certainly very personal 'review' of the piece as he experienced it. 

The resulting Earth Portal Report 513118-000816 now forms the opening piece in this fascinating volume of writings and pictures by various contributors.

To mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, I will be recording all 154 Sonnets and posting them to YouTube as individual videos with the text so anyone who's interested can listen and read them.

Each Saturday, I will then pick one Sonnet from the week's posts and introduce it in a video blog. 

It will be a very personal introduction, taking the same approach as I did with The Sonneteer: assume we know nothing to start with and accept that everything is conjecture, except the words. 

Because the words themselves have a riveting story to tell..

​You can follow Saturday's Sonnet on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, or if you prefer a simple audio podcast, simply follow the podcast.

ICON, the musical that I wrote the book for, with Jonathan Kaldor providing the music and lyrics, is set to make its Stateside premiere at the 2016 New York Musical Festival (NYMF).

Considered one of the most significant events of its kind, NYMF takes place over three weeks between 18th July and 7th August in Manhattan's Theater District and features about two dozen fully staged productions. 

Dates and venue for ICON will be announced in May.

1928. The world is enthralled as American debutante, Constance Nielsen, marries into one of Europe’s ancient Royal Families. But when an impassioned affair with her music teacher sparks uproar, news of her tragic death turns her from living legend into timeless icon. 40 years later, a young man in search of his grandfather's past finds more than he's bargained for…

EDEN is a 'concept narrative' in the here & now about the where, the wherefore and forever. Published under the metanym FREI, it has just started life as a blog (on 1st August 2015) and is now live.

EDEN sets out from the simple and oft-posed question: what do you do or say if you should happen to bump into your younger self, halfway through your life.

From there it goes on a fairly, and deliberately, tangential meander on meanings, imagined and actual encounters, reflections, observations, before reaching some sort of conclusion. (Although it does reach some sort of a conclusion.)

It's an experiment, really; stay tuned to see how it pans out.

You can follow EDEN here (to receive notifications of new posts, click on the menu button to reveal the side bar and enter your email there)

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Publication date announced: 12th June 2015:

"This is not a book as you might expect. It doesn't offer a theory about cities, rather it speaks of any theory. It is not engaged in solving problems, but it is outraged at stupidity, at the oppressive and anonymous demand that any solid formulation of a problem should be simple. And above all it takes you onto a journey to (re-)discover The City."

Featuring Orlando in the Cities – a playful literary odyssey through 2,500 years of Western civilisation by Sebastian Michael.

Ludger Hovestadt, Vera Bühlmann, Diana Alvarez-Marin, Miro Roman, Sebastian Michael 

Applied Virtuality Book Series
Birkhäuser, June 2015 ISBN 978-3-0356-0626-3