blog

against Representation

(2/4/18) (published in underscore vol 6)

On first glance, the drawing and the model make sense as the way to represent something not fully perceivable as one.  No matter how small or large an object is, it cannot be fully understood from a single gaze, therefore important aspects should be represented together giving a more complete whole than the perception of aspects of an object.  The drawing might exist as a way to bridge the unfathomability between the actual building, which can not be fully realized within the mind, and therefore by definition: the drawing must reduce. In creating ‘the drawing’ a number of things might appear that relate solely to the way a human might interact with the building.  The cut plan in particular is a reduction to what a human might bump into on entering the building. In the same way, drawings can be created which reduce the building to its non-human elements, like a drawing of only a building’s windows or a map of where materials might have been sourced, or the reaction the building might have to the wind.  From this, drawing in this sense and representation fails to capture a building in total focusing on one quality of the building. This definition of representation as a map or index of qualities is a good starting point for what representations might be. Describing a fish as smooth, scaly, and floppy is a good example of this although always, this type of representation leans heavily on its structure and references. If the words smooth and floppy didn’t exist, that representation would mean nothing.  Standardization and the underlying structure of drawings (in a Latourian sense) seen through a linguistic turn helps representation in that it becomes less of a reduction than a reference to where the elements common become a reflection of the stuff around us.  This filtering through its structure harms the overall view of the building by reducing buildings and objects to a variety of types which have their root in the collective mind. This idea posits that if you see a bolt drawn, the mind creates a bolt from bolts it has seen before, and imagines it in the imaginary space.  This route for justifying representation seperates therefore the fictional or (to use a term borrowed from Laruelle) generic bolt from the real bolt.  If these two are indeed separate, than no representation exists other than the drawing being a way to index the real thing. Instead, the imaginary world proposed by the drawing is completely separate from the real.  Although I use the term ‘the mind’ here, it is not the mind that creates or represents, drawings autonomously interact with the mind. The issue with all representation then is that the representation fundamentally can’t refer back to the original object without reducing it, and therefore creating its own fictional reality.  

With this as the basis for thought, an object can be its own representation, a shoe can both be the shoe and can exist as a fiction: in this fiction the shoe exists as how it represents itself through material. As a blanket statement, all material objects are a representation of themselves. There are many funny exceptions and grey areas to representation though, the most notable being the photograph, the 1:1 model, and the vague drawing where although they represent specific aspects of the real, reveal inhuman or unperceivable realities, and from these examples, someone designing the things and objects around them might begin to take a stand against representation and instead create drawings which are photographs and models which are really 1:1 models just very small. The question proposed by the photograph is: in how does it reduce?  The photograph is different from the drawing because the drawing creates a generic moment and therefore creates a generic object while the photograph depicts a specific moment so specific even a human could not perceive it.  The space in which a photograph takes place is therefore inhuman because the manner of perception is completely foreign to the human experience.

The 1:1 model forces a different issue altogether.  The 1:1 model reveals that the notion that a representation might be created to show something smaller is incorrect.  1:1 paintings of people do the same in that what is represented is a manifestation of the structure in which the model is made rather than the thing in itself.

The vague drawing or the drawing which depicts objects in a double bind is notable and brings a new spirit to this investigation of representation.  The representation which exists in a double bind reveals an impossibility — the limits of representation where a new space emerges which is neither real nor representation but rather a kind of in-between where two things exist at once, a quantum state of sorts.  

These exceptions pose an interesting quandary for representation, why should representation be true to its source object; Why can’t representation exist to represent itself.  Should the models we make be no longer called models, can they be viewed on their own terms? No more drawings, no more models, no more representation, what is left over might be more interesting to explore.

insta-policy

(5/18/19)

The contemporary and the split of aesthetic interests has come : architecture cannot replicate one ideal like the moderns so gracefully did.  The notion of clean energy and sustainability pointing the field towards new forms through utility is incoherent given the false successes of trends such as parametricism.  No work of architecture embodies this rebellion against the structuralist vision more than Andrew Kovacs’s Colossal Cacti at Coachella : a contemporary cathedral in which narratives generated on social media create the true work.  An analysis of the seemingly singular yet multiple social media narrative this project creates reveals the growing influence of image in architecture. Policy towards resolving the issue of climate change has been at a similar pace as architecture:  reacting rather than predicting. Through this new ontology of images which architecture can create, change could be linked to architecture in a way that is more dramatic than ever before.

This greater trend of faster and more random connections has allowed people to deterritorialize from relationships in their life and pursue interests which would have previously seemed alien, creating familiarity through shared experience.  Whereas fifty years ago, someone would have been locked to their family and people in the neighborhood, the internet has allowed people to pursue ‘their own goals’ apart from traditional roles. The way in which people choose this new territory, and how architecture provides the setting is essential to developing an idea about the cause of Colossal Cacti’s success.  An analogy to pilgrimage in the medieval period canonically would show architecture as linked to a sense of sublimity, however today the frame for social media seems extremely banal and ever changing with a sense of plurality rather than individuality. Although the Cacti are ‘Colossal’, they are hardly unbelievable as might be the case with the gothic cathedral typology — they do share though a certain alienation from their background.

 As a way to bridge these two types, the gothic cathedral and the insta-monument, the general concept of monument must not be tied to the physical makeup of the space but rather to the notion of shared narratives which social media seems to excel at, allowing users to create images and fabricate narratives. Although this echoes some deconstructivist event theory, objects on social media differentiate in that they are things-in-themselves, and not just an assemblage of signs.   This artificial nature of connection and Deleuzian reterritorialization allows insta-monuments to create new conceptual spaces for people to live these new shared narratives. In this way, the form of the insta-monument becomes an exact breed of utopia, through its temporal and unachievable nature — a perfect place. Because the logistics of this type of utopia are so individually based, with its point more on narcissism of the individual than of the place itself, the social media utopia’s reliance on economic and cultural systems is somewhat vague.  The world of instagram, which influences culture, seems infinitely far from the world of policy, which influences how that culture comes about, as well as the logistical frames that allow that culture to exist like the proliferation of carbon fuel.

The natural conceptual progression of the insta-monument allows it to influence not just the culture but the logistical frames which surround us.  Today the transition to sustainable energy could be influenced directly by images and narratives produced by insta monuments. Architects now must consider how to influence policy in creating these new insta-monuments and predict and subvert societal trends towards goals like climate policy. Utopic visions expressed through instagram show a critique of reality through a fabrication of a new real — it is in the fabrication of this new real that architecture can produce something unseen like the transition away from fossil fuels.  This model of monuments influencing society pushes and fragments the original, similar to how a copy might tarnish or change the real. In particular, it may be the only way that large systemic issues like climate change, that have less specific goals, will be able to see policy fit for their complexity.

subscription architecture

(6/3/19)

The idea of cost and what a piece of architecture is worth is very strange within the discipline.  Although in other artistic fields, the notion of subscription and payment has been turned into a worth measured empirically through time, the notion of time within a piece of architecture is often seen as an enemy, or as something tacked on, seperate from the ‘plastic’ tendencies of the discipline.  This idea of ownership in the context of music has become completely entrenched within new mediums, intrinsically disconnected from the ideas of ownership. This subscription model in architecture has not been experimented at small scale, with large corporations leading the change, showing how business models which value subscription over one time payment may have more temporal changes on society.

A noticeable success of this new theoretical proposal is the way it ignores time by constantly reinventing itself.  While modern architecture praises this old structuralist idea of timelessness and an ideal unachievable architecture as its precedent, a subscription based architecture would be entirely from the culture it is from, adopting its form not from function, logical need, or from any ideal, but rather whatever the market would allow.  This strictly monetarily based architecture, subject to rapid change would find form through trends and popularity, influenced more directly from culture on a smaller scale. Whereas architects like Zaha Hadid would argue that architecture should a continuum from what is around it, the invention of rapid transit and isolated entry somewhat destroys the perception of landscape that Zaha argues for.  This falsely Deleuzian fluidity which permeates her work is fundamentally destroyed by inventions like the car, which would not allow the ideas which Zaha preaches through her drawings and would suggest a new formal agenda of difference as a unifier.

The notion of customization becomes a critical feature that becomes repurposed in this new architecture.  Whereas in the past the notion of individualization for the site, cultural context, and urban context becomes of vast importance, by removing these preconceptions, and focusing on instead a monetary modularity, architecture becomes more like furniture: deployable in any context with success based on immediate need.  Weaknesses associated with an architecture based on cultural value are still present in the subscription model, in that it has no basis for how these values are created, always subjecting itself to something already existing as its primary method of creation. This problem is present in modernist theory as well, with the logistics of creating architecture and the heavy and burdensome process often killing the primary motives behind a lighter more transparent and modular solution.  The response to this often takes the form of more formalist agendas, with the advancement of architectural aesthetics as a pursuit in itself. It is in this way that architecture might need to find solutions in the ways in which it also has its greatest contingency, in its structuring systems. A common solution found in other disciplines can be found in conceptually based artwork of the 70s, with art that interacts directly with the discipline as a way to unhinge art from its monetary systems.  Interesting precedent can be found in projects such as the wiki-house or other free design projects, given form through their iterations rather that through one off buildings. These projects assume though, the power of the individual to create which has its own systemic issues. Perhaps a more kit based solution could create a more legible alternative, but still the logistical process of building creates large issues for people trying to create a work of architecture. This move towards a genericism might be a logical solution for design, as the work of designers who work for IKEA seems to have more cultural impact than the latest gehry building.  Although it is a trivial point to argue that IKEA creates trends rather than following them itself, the cultural relevance of formal trends like scandinavian design and wood flooring with rugs would not be possible without it. Although IKEA is not a perfect model for this new subscription based architecture, its monetary solution is quite convincing and suggests the idea of modularity through basic and cheap materials, cnc routing, and instruction manuals might be more legitimate for architecture than site-specific works which represent what is around them. This also might suggest a way for architecture to impact the world on a greater scale.