What we need to build now is not only an aesthetics and poetics of the convergent moment, but an ethics and a politics that follow from this perception of time and reality. In such a new civilization, the present would not be sacrificed for the future or for eternity. Nor would the present be lived, as consumer societies do, in the denial of death. Rather, we would live in the full freedom of our diversity and sensuality in the certain knowledge of death. This ethical foundation of the new civilization would extol this freedom and creativity without illusion; it would seek to preserve the plurality of the present–the plurality of different times and the presence of the ‘other.’ Its politics would be a dialogue of cultures.
"West Turns East at the End of History" in New Politics Quarterly, Spring 1992
and
Since Parmenides our world has been one of neat and sharp distinctions between what is and what isn’t. The being is not the no-being. This first uprootedness—because it was a pulling out of
the being from the original chaos—constitutes the foundation of our mode of thought. An edifice of ‘clear and distinct ideas’ was built upon this conception, one that has made the history of the
West possible but also, one that rendered virtually illegal any attempt to embed the human being upon any other principles.
[…]
Whatever its future will be, what is certain is that from this perspective the history of the West can be seen as the history of a mistake, of going astray, in its double meaning: we have been
moving away from ourselves when we lost ourselves in the world. We ought to start all over again.
Obras completas, vol.1: La casa de la presencia, poesía
e historia México: FCE, 1994, pp. 116-117
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Melancholy and time
What is a specific architectural proposal for ruins? Beyond the devices of architectural experience and meanings which emerge from various transfigurations of the ruin, the basic emotional message of the ruin is the melancholy. In this sense, the classical formulation of melancholia as a disposition of the humors is not what is intended. Architectural spaces do not induce melancholia in this Aristotelian sense because architectural space, as constructions aimed at stimulation and inter-reference, provokes the visitor to action—whether it is the action of gazing or confusion, or the action of circulation or occupation. Therefore, the Aristotelian melancholia of boredom is not suitable towards the consideration of space. It is rather a “Kierkegaardian” melancholy which is deeply appropriate. Such a disposition in architectural space is premised upon the suspension of disclosure, or of total environmental knowledge, or of sensory satisfaction. In such dynamic spaces, the visitor awaits the Kierkegaardian moment when experience and knowledge come to fully bear on each other—when experience fully exposes the knowledge of one’s place, and when knowledge (for instance, political or social knowledge as in a site of conflict or emotional and cultural knowledge as in a site of hermitage or gathering) fully brings forth the breadth of experience.
The ruin is suitable in this capacity because it is, by laying bare in a state of ruination, establishing and broadcasting a potential—that is, a notion of what was once whole—that will never again be met. Whereas decay is always “contemporary” in the sense that a corroding stone is fully in its nature even though it crumbles and chips from a previous state, ruination is the recognition of a present state implicated in an ideal or otherwise informed state of wholeness. Whether these implications are optimistic or cynical is beside the point here (though I have a clear opinion on the matter) because both worldviews imply two things off the bat:
1. a system of valuation
2. a re-appropriation and transfiguration.
What is now evident is that the ruin, and other places of ruination, is situated by both place (as in place) and the aspirations of the visitor. In this way, the ruin is a performative social and cultural arena actively engaged at the moment a visitor beholds it. Moreover, this function when combined with the historiological weight of the ruin establishes parameters of narrativity and reiterative, projective temporality. That is, each visitor reiterates this narrativity such that the traits of the ruin (such as physical decay) that measure time are fused into the temporality of duration with-in and the projective-like thought of transfiguration that steep from the visitor’s experience. Each visitor draws out the story and urges the story onward.
The ruin is suitable in this capacity because it is, by laying bare in a state of ruination, establishing and broadcasting a potential—that is, a notion of what was once whole—that will never again be met. Whereas decay is always “contemporary” in the sense that a corroding stone is fully in its nature even though it crumbles and chips from a previous state, ruination is the recognition of a present state implicated in an ideal or otherwise informed state of wholeness. Whether these implications are optimistic or cynical is beside the point here (though I have a clear opinion on the matter) because both worldviews imply two things off the bat:
1. a system of valuation
2. a re-appropriation and transfiguration.
What is now evident is that the ruin, and other places of ruination, is situated by both place (as in place) and the aspirations of the visitor. In this way, the ruin is a performative social and cultural arena actively engaged at the moment a visitor beholds it. Moreover, this function when combined with the historiological weight of the ruin establishes parameters of narrativity and reiterative, projective temporality. That is, each visitor reiterates this narrativity such that the traits of the ruin (such as physical decay) that measure time are fused into the temporality of duration with-in and the projective-like thought of transfiguration that steep from the visitor’s experience. Each visitor draws out the story and urges the story onward.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Diagrams
the lesson learned from an education in architecture
diagrams are useless. they are generally bullshit.
diagrams are useless. they are generally bullshit.
Monday, March 17, 2008
1. Reflections on Bergson
1. REFLECTIONS ON BERGSON
Bergson writes that “we involuntarily fix at a point in space each of the moments which we count, and it is only on this condition that the abstract units come to form in sum.” In this way, spatial ideas become placeholders for lost moments. Therefore,
a. a point in time accompanies the collection of all items or signs toward a sum.
b. the moment in time is forever lost and irretrievable once it passes.
c. thus, a sequence relies on spatial placeholders to arrive at a sum.
d. this is the essence of duration.
That is, duration has telos, described by the act of place-holding itself. Moreover, this telos is implicit to the conscious recognition of those things (mental representations) that describe these place-holders. That is to say, place-holding as a process, and the conscious appropriation of content that occurs in the act of place-holding together establish the idea of a sum as the ends of a duration. Bergson says something similar when he writes that “every number is a collection of units, as we have said, and on the other hand every number is itself a unit, in so far as it is a synthesis of the units which compose it,” and “this unity thus includes a multiplicity, since it is the unity of a whole.” (51) Indeed, Bergson continues that “when we look at a number in its finished state, this union is an accomplished fact: the points have become lines, the divisions have been blotted out, the whole displays all the characteristics of continuity.” (52)
Architecturally, the above list may mean that:
a. dimension is measured through the gathering of such information in experiential sequence. One first discerns the boundaries of a room upon entering, often according to how the entry happens.
b. the moment in time is retrievable in that it refers to constructed signs that are repetitiously accessible.
c. nonetheless, spatial placeholders in architecture come from constructed space itself, and as such a sequence relies on spatial placeholders to arrive at a sum; the sum is a fully-discerned progression of space, or a progression of space that is discerned appropriate to the visitor and her purposes.
d. this is the essence of architecture as sensory comportment which describes it as an environment of continuous components and thus, through accessing it in time, has duration.
Bergson’s next big point is nice given this list of architectural possibilities. Speaking of divisibility of the sum, having been “objectified” in that it is thought of as a semiotic entity and in a finished state, he writes that “it then appears to be divisible to unlimited extent. In fact, we apply the term ‘subjective’ to what seems to be completely adequately known, and the term ‘objective’ to what is known in such a way that a constantly increasing number of new impressions could be substituted for the idea which we actually have for it.” (52) This is a reversal of what would be popularly held; the subjective would be that which is not adequately known, at least to a community and often to an individual (since we now discredit personal experience as being not-what-it-really-is-yet-there-is-no-Really-Is-except-in-your-head-and
-that’s-not-what-really-is), and the objective would be that which is certainly adequately known and indivisible only within the parameters of the certainly-adequately-known’s rational rules. Bergson says that this is because the totality is something that belongs to the mind; that is, the mind is a necessary partner in constructing unity:
“What properly belongs to the mind is the indivisible process by which it concentrates attention successively on different parts of a given space; but the parts which have thus been isolated remain in order to join with the others, and once the addition is made, they may be broken up in any way whatever. They are therefore parts of space, and space is, accordingly, the material with which the mind builds up number, the medium in which the mind places it.” (53) For Bergson, the mind is the final synthesizing agent, making the parts of space seamless. This is why the subjective for Bergson is that which is certainly and adequately known. Within that unity, the mind may divide at will, break down the moments of sense and experience, in a way which re-objectifies the elements of space as distinct items in the sequence. How this happens, however, is left up to the individual and is not adequately known, and therefore objective, at least until the mind creates a new synthesis.
Bergson writes that “we involuntarily fix at a point in space each of the moments which we count, and it is only on this condition that the abstract units come to form in sum.” In this way, spatial ideas become placeholders for lost moments. Therefore,
a. a point in time accompanies the collection of all items or signs toward a sum.
b. the moment in time is forever lost and irretrievable once it passes.
c. thus, a sequence relies on spatial placeholders to arrive at a sum.
d. this is the essence of duration.
That is, duration has telos, described by the act of place-holding itself. Moreover, this telos is implicit to the conscious recognition of those things (mental representations) that describe these place-holders. That is to say, place-holding as a process, and the conscious appropriation of content that occurs in the act of place-holding together establish the idea of a sum as the ends of a duration. Bergson says something similar when he writes that “every number is a collection of units, as we have said, and on the other hand every number is itself a unit, in so far as it is a synthesis of the units which compose it,” and “this unity thus includes a multiplicity, since it is the unity of a whole.” (51) Indeed, Bergson continues that “when we look at a number in its finished state, this union is an accomplished fact: the points have become lines, the divisions have been blotted out, the whole displays all the characteristics of continuity.” (52)
Architecturally, the above list may mean that:
a. dimension is measured through the gathering of such information in experiential sequence. One first discerns the boundaries of a room upon entering, often according to how the entry happens.
b. the moment in time is retrievable in that it refers to constructed signs that are repetitiously accessible.
c. nonetheless, spatial placeholders in architecture come from constructed space itself, and as such a sequence relies on spatial placeholders to arrive at a sum; the sum is a fully-discerned progression of space, or a progression of space that is discerned appropriate to the visitor and her purposes.
d. this is the essence of architecture as sensory comportment which describes it as an environment of continuous components and thus, through accessing it in time, has duration.
Bergson’s next big point is nice given this list of architectural possibilities. Speaking of divisibility of the sum, having been “objectified” in that it is thought of as a semiotic entity and in a finished state, he writes that “it then appears to be divisible to unlimited extent. In fact, we apply the term ‘subjective’ to what seems to be completely adequately known, and the term ‘objective’ to what is known in such a way that a constantly increasing number of new impressions could be substituted for the idea which we actually have for it.” (52) This is a reversal of what would be popularly held; the subjective would be that which is not adequately known, at least to a community and often to an individual (since we now discredit personal experience as being not-what-it-really-is-yet-there-is-no-Really-Is-except-in-your-head-and
-that’s-not-what-really-is), and the objective would be that which is certainly adequately known and indivisible only within the parameters of the certainly-adequately-known’s rational rules. Bergson says that this is because the totality is something that belongs to the mind; that is, the mind is a necessary partner in constructing unity:
“What properly belongs to the mind is the indivisible process by which it concentrates attention successively on different parts of a given space; but the parts which have thus been isolated remain in order to join with the others, and once the addition is made, they may be broken up in any way whatever. They are therefore parts of space, and space is, accordingly, the material with which the mind builds up number, the medium in which the mind places it.” (53) For Bergson, the mind is the final synthesizing agent, making the parts of space seamless. This is why the subjective for Bergson is that which is certainly and adequately known. Within that unity, the mind may divide at will, break down the moments of sense and experience, in a way which re-objectifies the elements of space as distinct items in the sequence. How this happens, however, is left up to the individual and is not adequately known, and therefore objective, at least until the mind creates a new synthesis.
2. Reflections on buildings as artifacts that produce culture
2. REFLECTIONS ON BUILDINGS AS ARTIFACTS THAT PRODUCE CULTURE
a. Find any projects that deal with endurance, ideology, political malleability, immersive passivity (allows surrounds to infiltrate), the eternal gaze, ambiguity of position in space, product of the times, constantly changing experience, escapism, didactic place, unnatural inhabitation, and time-keeping.
b. Ruination as a contemporary condition coincident to inhabitation
c. the ruin as cultural performance v. that of display (modification of the ruin over time and the live archive?)
d. introduce the idea of ruination-ergo-time, and what would happen if you could inhabit the ruin through ruination (what on earth does this mean?)
I've been trying to find such examples. The 2006 exhibition Ideal City-Invisible Cities may give some clues. Presumably, the architecture created in the ideal city would communicate to some extent the ideals by which it owes its existence. Such spaces would be didactic, enduring, and ideological. Here are two links with overviews:
Ideal City-Invisible Cities exhibition website
and
An art blog article
Also, I found these projects in a book called Rethinking: Space, Time, Architecture. The book is generally a collection of verbiage and pretentious language but some of the pictures are informative:
1. "Marking Time and Territory"
Colin Ardley, artist with Hermann Scheidt, architect
2. Cafe Bravo
Dan Graham, artist with Johanne Nalbach, architect
3. "Hohe Dosierung"
Coco Kuhn, artist with K. Hufnagel, architect
4. "Why is it Called Paradise?"
Christoph Mayer, artist
Finally, here are two installations by Richard Sera and a drawing by somebody unknown and without citation:
a. Find any projects that deal with endurance, ideology, political malleability, immersive passivity (allows surrounds to infiltrate), the eternal gaze, ambiguity of position in space, product of the times, constantly changing experience, escapism, didactic place, unnatural inhabitation, and time-keeping.
b. Ruination as a contemporary condition coincident to inhabitation
c. the ruin as cultural performance v. that of display (modification of the ruin over time and the live archive?)
d. introduce the idea of ruination-ergo-time, and what would happen if you could inhabit the ruin through ruination (what on earth does this mean?)
I've been trying to find such examples. The 2006 exhibition Ideal City-Invisible Cities may give some clues. Presumably, the architecture created in the ideal city would communicate to some extent the ideals by which it owes its existence. Such spaces would be didactic, enduring, and ideological. Here are two links with overviews:
Ideal City-Invisible Cities exhibition website
and
An art blog article
Also, I found these projects in a book called Rethinking: Space, Time, Architecture. The book is generally a collection of verbiage and pretentious language but some of the pictures are informative:
1. "Marking Time and Territory"
Colin Ardley, artist with Hermann Scheidt, architect
2. Cafe Bravo
Dan Graham, artist with Johanne Nalbach, architect
3. "Hohe Dosierung"
Coco Kuhn, artist with K. Hufnagel, architect
4. "Why is it Called Paradise?"
Christoph Mayer, artist
Finally, here are two installations by Richard Sera and a drawing by somebody unknown and without citation:
What to do with a ruin of Earth
Droopy-eyed and procrastinating trying to wake up in studio this morning, I went on a Wikipedia safari which got me reading about the geochemistry of Earth's core and the magnetosphere it produces. There is, I guess, a somewhat extended history of fantasies dealing with traveling to the core of the earth. One such fantasy addressed what would happen if--if, through some inconceivably mind-blowing delusion of dimethyltryptamidely-exogenous irrational affectation--the earth were to cease its rotation. This amounts to asking what would happen if the earth lost its prized, protective magnetic field and succumbed to all the torrents of space with its gamma rays and solar plasma and angry showers of ionic torpedoes. What would the president of Future-America do with the ruin of Earth?
Just when I thought that no movie--now or in the future--could surmount the absurd nitwit-edness of Armageddon, I read about the 2003 film The Core. This is just too good to be true:
Synopsis
And for reprieve, take a visit to this fantastic site which I enjoy:
Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics
Alright, back to work.
Just when I thought that no movie--now or in the future--could surmount the absurd nitwit-edness of Armageddon, I read about the 2003 film The Core. This is just too good to be true:
Synopsis
And for reprieve, take a visit to this fantastic site which I enjoy:
Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics
Alright, back to work.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
agenda
1. REFLECTIONS ON BERGSON
a. articulations between time and space and how they come out architecturally
b. spatial ideas become placeholderss for lost moments
2. REFLECTIONS ON BUILDINGS AS ARTIFACTS THAT PRODUCE CULTURE
a. Find any projects that deal with endurance, ideology, political malleability, immersive passivity (allows surrounds to infiltrate), the eternal gaze, ambiguity of position in space, product of the times, constantly changing experience, escapism, didactic place, unnatural inhabitation, and time-keeping.
b. Ruination as a contemporary condition coincident to inhabitation
c. the ruin as cultural performance v. that of display (modification of the ruin over time and the live archive?)
d. introduce the idea of ruination-ergo-time, and what would happen if you could inhabit the ruin through ruination (what on earth does this mean?)
3. RUINATION AND TIME :: RUIN AND PLACE
a. ruination v. decay
b. assignment of meaning as deferred to place, and what is the placeless ruin?
4. INSTRUMENTAL DIAGRAMS FOR THE MEASURING OF THINGS NOT NECESSARILY NUMERICAL
5. TRANSITIONS TO EXPERIENCE
a. spatial sequencing: the cinematic and the use of space through movement and time--the in-between, flux, etc.
b. the observation of ruination--from what gaze and stance?
6. GIVEN THE ABOVE, CATALOGUE OF DEVICES, METHODOLOGIES, AND ARTIFACTS WHICH REFER TO THE DESIGN PROCESS
7. FORMULATE ARGUMENT THAT IS DESIGN-ORIENTED
a. articulations between time and space and how they come out architecturally
b. spatial ideas become placeholderss for lost moments
2. REFLECTIONS ON BUILDINGS AS ARTIFACTS THAT PRODUCE CULTURE
a. Find any projects that deal with endurance, ideology, political malleability, immersive passivity (allows surrounds to infiltrate), the eternal gaze, ambiguity of position in space, product of the times, constantly changing experience, escapism, didactic place, unnatural inhabitation, and time-keeping.
b. Ruination as a contemporary condition coincident to inhabitation
c. the ruin as cultural performance v. that of display (modification of the ruin over time and the live archive?)
d. introduce the idea of ruination-ergo-time, and what would happen if you could inhabit the ruin through ruination (what on earth does this mean?)
3. RUINATION AND TIME :: RUIN AND PLACE
a. ruination v. decay
b. assignment of meaning as deferred to place, and what is the placeless ruin?
4. INSTRUMENTAL DIAGRAMS FOR THE MEASURING OF THINGS NOT NECESSARILY NUMERICAL
5. TRANSITIONS TO EXPERIENCE
a. spatial sequencing: the cinematic and the use of space through movement and time--the in-between, flux, etc.
b. the observation of ruination--from what gaze and stance?
6. GIVEN THE ABOVE, CATALOGUE OF DEVICES, METHODOLOGIES, AND ARTIFACTS WHICH REFER TO THE DESIGN PROCESS
7. FORMULATE ARGUMENT THAT IS DESIGN-ORIENTED
Saturday, March 01, 2008
four from bergson
The ruin, as well as the condition and/or processes or ruination, owe their coherence or incoherence to questions of time. "When" questions are our first point of access for the ruin. "How long" questions are our first point of access when encountering ruination. These questions and the time-based issues that they raise (for instance, the decay of a material or the dating of an artifact) together form the concept of temporality. This is a word that is tossed about in discourse but lacks any obvious distinction in its normal use from just saying "time passes by." Temporality, I would like to argue, is a reflective proposition of how time passes. It takes a stance on an issue. The temporality of solitary confinement would be different, therefore, than the temporality of one's childhood or traveling in a plane. So temporality in ruins and ruination deal with why and how. That said, to be tangibly realistic, the experience of time depends on duration. Henri Bergon, in Time and Free Will, includes an essay called The Idea of Duration. It begins positing numbers and what they mean as symbols versus durations--durations of successive circumstance (i.e. 34 as a "duration," Bergson calls it, of 34 sequential entities). He argues that either way, because time, once a moment passes by, is irretrievable, multiplicity (e.g., numbers) rely on spatial reasoning in that we use a spatial abstraction as a placeholder, in the same way that in some video games the stairs crumble as the character progresses. From this point, the essay opens up into a compelling intellectual menagerie which would take me a while to outline. Here are four quotations to think about with respect to space, duration, and our conceptions of the objects (such as ruins) that we encounter in the world:
In a word, we must distinguish between the unity which we think of and the unity which we set up as an object after having thought of it, also between number in process of formation and number once formed...as soon as we consider number in a finished state, we objectify it, and it then appears to be divisible to unlimited extent. In fact, we apply the term subjective to what seems to be completely and adequately known, and the term objective to what is known in such a way that a constantly increasing number of new impressions could be substituted for the idea which we actually have of it.
and
Our final conclusion, therefore, is that there are two kins of multiplicity: that of material objects, to which the conception of number is immediately applicable; and the multiplicity of states of consciousness, which cannot be regarded as numerical without the help of some symbolical representation, in which a necessary element is space.
That is, "states of consciousness" as that which strings together the gaps, and does so necessarily as spatial reasoning.
and
For if time, as the reflective consciousness represents it, is a medium in which our conscious states form a discrete series so as to admit of being counted, and if on the other hand our conception of number ends in spreading out in space everything which can be directly counted, it is to be presumed that time, understood in the sense of a medium in which we make distinctions and count, is nothing but space.
and finally,
For [the co-existence of inextensive sensations] to give rise to space, there must be an act of the mind which takes them in all at the same time and sets them in juxtaposition: this unique act is very like what calls an a priori form of sensibility. If we now seek to characterize this act, we see that it consists essentially in the intuition, or rather the conception, of an empty homogeneous medium. For it is scarcely possible to give any other definition of space: space is what enables us to distinguish a number of identical and simultaneous sensations from one another; it is thus a principle of differentiation other than that of qualitative differentiation, and consequently it is a reality with no quality.
In a word, we must distinguish between the unity which we think of and the unity which we set up as an object after having thought of it, also between number in process of formation and number once formed...as soon as we consider number in a finished state, we objectify it, and it then appears to be divisible to unlimited extent. In fact, we apply the term subjective to what seems to be completely and adequately known, and the term objective to what is known in such a way that a constantly increasing number of new impressions could be substituted for the idea which we actually have of it.
and
Our final conclusion, therefore, is that there are two kins of multiplicity: that of material objects, to which the conception of number is immediately applicable; and the multiplicity of states of consciousness, which cannot be regarded as numerical without the help of some symbolical representation, in which a necessary element is space.
That is, "states of consciousness" as that which strings together the gaps, and does so necessarily as spatial reasoning.
and
For if time, as the reflective consciousness represents it, is a medium in which our conscious states form a discrete series so as to admit of being counted, and if on the other hand our conception of number ends in spreading out in space everything which can be directly counted, it is to be presumed that time, understood in the sense of a medium in which we make distinctions and count, is nothing but space.
and finally,
For [the co-existence of inextensive sensations] to give rise to space, there must be an act of the mind which takes them in all at the same time and sets them in juxtaposition: this unique act is very like what calls an a priori form of sensibility. If we now seek to characterize this act, we see that it consists essentially in the intuition, or rather the conception, of an empty homogeneous medium. For it is scarcely possible to give any other definition of space: space is what enables us to distinguish a number of identical and simultaneous sensations from one another; it is thus a principle of differentiation other than that of qualitative differentiation, and consequently it is a reality with no quality.
Friday, February 29, 2008
time
1. what are examples of un-historical interpretations of the ruin?
2. what is an example of contemporary architecture that deals with temporality?
3. what about contemporary architecture that deals with temporality and the ruin, emptiness, abandonment, etc.?
2. what is an example of contemporary architecture that deals with temporality?
3. what about contemporary architecture that deals with temporality and the ruin, emptiness, abandonment, etc.?
bill viola
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