This essay was originally written as my reflection of Bernard Tschumi's Architecture and Disjunction (you will notice the first paragraph or so is the same). I in fact wrote this one beforehand, and subsequently decided to delete most of the essay and rework it more suitable for a blog post. But that said, as my current writings build off of certain concepts discussed in this essay, I have decided to post it here. It is unfinished, yet conclusive in attempting to construct a theoretical foundation for ethico-political architecture.
Before we move on, a brief comment on an infamous saying that could provide some guidance and further questions for the following discussion. "All that is solid melts into air" - I would argue this statement should not be seen as inevitable, but I do believe it is fair to say that this is the internal logic of the capitalist system in its reified ideology. If it is a logic, it is for a reason. It is then important to ask ourselves, why does the capitalist system want to sublimate things? What is it about solidity that is threatening? Before we delve into a positivist ethics, let's look at what is left standing in our way, or what other types of political activity risk being compromised by internal contradictory laws.
In re-reading Architecture and Disjunction, a
collection of essays by Bernard Tschumi written between 1975-1991, published in
1996, and inaugurated as seminal text for architecture students
around who-knows-when, what initially struck me was its vey explicitness of the
political motivation behind Tschumi's writing and investigation. Coming out of
France '68, Tschumi opens his discourse by trying to locate the political
operativity of architecture, characteristic of the late avant-garde that he
acts as one of the closing figures to. His thought navigates starts by
rejecting the neoliberal notion that architecture is merely a representative
instrument, and from this point seeks to find the tools with which architecture
can subvert this ideology and act as a "catalyst for change." His
goal in this is to find a way that architecture can be used for the creation of
society itself, as opposed to represent transcendental hegemonic ideals of it.
He locates this agency starting from a conclusion that "architectural space
per se (space before its use) [is] politically neutral" and thenceforth
outlines two primary strategies: The first he calles "exemplary
actions" and uses "guerrilla building" as an example:
architecture that rejects the value of form in order to signify the
significance of use in a "rhetorical act"that "reveals that the
capitalist organization of space destroys all collective space" and acts
"not merely [as] the realization of an object built for itself, but also
the revelation through building of realities and contradictions of
society" (p11). He curiously calls this strategy "not specifically
architectural but rely[ing] heavily on an understanding of urban structures. It
also suggested the polarization of conflicts so as to destroy the most
reactionary norms and values of our society" (p10). A contemporary example
of this would clearly be the encampments of the 201X revolutions. The second
strategy, which he calls "counterdesign" is "more architectural
insofar as it used the architect's means of expression (plans, perspectives,
collages, etc.) in order to denounce the evil effects of planning practices
imposed by conservative city boards and governments." Employing
Critchley's figure of the architect as an aesthetic sublimator, the architect
would use the architectural mediums to voice a pure critique and emphasize the
impossibility of understanding space in its experience. Examples of this range
from Archizoom's No-Stop City to
Tschumi's own graphic narratives in the Manhattan
Transcripts, as well as many of the winners to the most recent
iteration of the Think-Space programme (1, 2, 3).
Tschumi immediately follows the explanation of counterdesign with a
critique of its potential for "recuperation", or cooptation by the
capitalist hegemony it is trying to combat. I would like to disagree with the
sufficiency of this critique, claiming that the problem is not that the
hegemony can coopt the activity, but
the activity doesn't ever take place: by "leading to [the] active
rejection of such planning processes" (p11) it is deferred. Rejected by
who? How? Where? When?
What is immediately
peculiar even this early into the book, and perhaps revealing, is that for
Tschumi, his declaration that exemplary
actions are "not architecture" provides a sufficient enough
critique to dismiss its potential for political action (at least within the
'role' of the architect), though he concludes that "[n]one of these
environmental tactics leads directly to a new social structure" and
continuing with "[a]rchitecture and its spaces do not change
society", merely relegating its political potential to "one day
influence society" (p15), even though contemporary scientific research
into neuroplasticity has begun to prove otherwise (4).
This is echoed later on, when he states that the question asked is about the
"nature of architecture rather in the making of architecture" (p38).
Describing the general introspective turn of the late avant-garde, Tschumi
writes "the search for autonomy inevitably turned back toward architecture
itself, as no other context would readily provide for it" (p35-36). My
question, at this point in the critique, is, how
can architecture not have a context other than itself? What made the
architects of this historical movement believe this? His immediate
justification is the historical contingency of the architect and its
contemporary "non-necessity." This is further added to by referencing
the idealized notion of the 'Architect' and what architecture is not: "[u]nless we
search for an escape from architecture into the general organization of
building processes, the paradox persists" (p47). Even though criticizing
it early on, Tschumi has no qualms identifying with the Hegelian definition of
architecture (and therefore the architect) as "supplemental" - i.e.
everything that is not necessary. But within this framework, and deepening his
interpretation of what the "not necessary" means, wouldn't the
specific "organization of building processes" be "not
necessary" as well? The key element to whatever is "not
necessary" is that despite the fact of its arbitrariness, it exists. If the design of space is
contingent, and therefore subject to architecture, why is the building process not? It
is, and this conclusion Tschumi makes is exemplary of accepting the capitalist
division of labor he claims to be fighting against. To the degree that
architects over the past 100 years have been focused on innovating forms of
architectural representation, it is highly suspicious that architecture has
given little focus to the innovating the representation of architectural form.
Perhaps this can be evidenced in contemporary practice with the 'digital turn'
and building integrated modeling, but even this form of innovation does not
address the social relations it is based on.
In proper post-modern
fashion (defined as the explicit rejection of modernist ideologies and its
project), Tschumi asks "Does architecture, in its long-established
isolation, contain more revolutionary power than its numerous transfers into
the objective realities of the building industry and social housing?"
(p46). Was this formulated out of mere frustration in Modernism's perceived
failure? Echoing Critchley's ethical foundation of 'disappointment', Tschumi
claims "Defined by its questioning, architecture is always the expression
of a lack, a shortcoming, a noncompletion. It always misses something, either
reality of concept" (p48). Though my question still remains, it can be
deepend: if failure is
inherent to architecture, why give up on an approach to architecture that has
failed? It is perhaps a consequence that can be linked to Critchley's ethical
argument, as well as Brott's architectural subjectivity, and my overall trouble
with them both: when we sublimate, yes it
releases creative energies and existential agency, alleviating the 'weight' put
on by the hegemony, but does not address the cause of the original
oppression, or in Critchley's terms, does not make the demand any less
demanding, nor does it question whether what is being demanded of us should be. If anything, and
evidenced by the contemporary state of architectural practice and the
conditions of its workers, by sublimating and suppressing the angst, it only
makes the demander demand more. And this makes logical sense: if the 'bad'
things can be felt less painfully without challenging the existence of the
objects that inflict the pain itself, and further the potentiality for the
inflictor to inflict, sublimation merely becomes an instrument of oppression.
This critique is,
importantly, merely a theoretical development of the consequences engendered by
the supposed and assumed social identity. It should come as no surprise, and
particularly not to the authors whom I am critiquing. In locating architecture
itself in the transgression of space, Tschumi writes: "Limits remain, for
transgression does not mean the methodical destruction of any code or rule that
concerns space or architecture. On the contrary, it introduces new
articulations between inside and outside, between concept and experience"
(p78). It is therefore, just to be clear, not Tschumi's intention to say
anything otherwise; it is not as if what I am saying is what he tried to say
and failed to do so, but simply and reflectively puts into question the
operative significance of the terms upon which I am critiquing, mainly, the
agential relation between the human and
their heteronomic "code". Tschumi is clear regarding the complexity
of this question when he essentially lays out the foundation of his discourse
by declaring "(a) that there is no cause-and-effect relationship between
the concept of space and the experience of space, or between buildings and
their uses, or space and the movement of bodies within it, and (b) that the
meeting of these [interdependent yet] mutually exclusive terms could be
intensely pleasurable or, indeed, so violent that it could dislocate the most
conservative elements of society" (p16). My much larger question, which
can hopefully use Tschumi's theory as a case-study, is, why give up on the
revolution? A starting point for exploring this massive subject is: What is the
difference between revolution as "professional forces trying to arrive at
new social and urban structures" (p10) and transgression as "new
articulations between inside and outside, between concept and experience"?
This argument brings us
very close to the discourse of emergence and the event, questioning the
metaphysical potentiality of new-ness itself, which I would like to try and
avoid. But let us proceed by investigating the notion of transgression more
closely and how it relates to revolution. To do this we can compare its
relation to another similar concept's relation to the same term: subversion.
Transgression effectively changes things. It makes what was bad now not, or at
least differently, to the result of less pain. Transgression can be thought of
as a form of non-violent micro-revolution. Subversion, on the other hand, does
not seek to change things with its own act of subversion. Subversive activity
is meant to act as a mirror that makes the contingency (and horror) of things brutally transparent.
Subversion incites anger, and as such can be thought of as a preparation for
revolution. Transgression, conversely, produces jouissance, and as such sedates
the revolutionary spirit. I use the word sedate here
quite specifically, intending to imply the effect of a drug; transgression
is essentially heterotopic, which means that as soon as a subject leaves the
boundary of the transgressive heterotopia, the oppressive hegemonic violence is
placed back on their shoulders, with post-transgression subject being
less-familiar with carrying (the anxiety caused by) this burden, inducing its
consequences to greater effect. Revolution is the activity of reducing the
amount of weight we are forced to burden. This
is not to say revolution is idealistically transcendental or utopian. It is not necessarily the removal of all weight, but it is
its literally alleviating, taking some of the weight off.
To continue with the
analogy of weight might prove fruitful. Matter has four forms: solid,
liquid, gas, and plasma. Weight can only be felt in solid. Weight can
crush. Liquids saturate and can drown. Gas pressurizes and implodes. Plasma
burns and suffocates. One resists weight, swims in liquid, breathes gas, and
avoids plasma. Let's call solid stuff, liquid representation, gas ideology, and plasma truth.
Sublimation,
interestingly, is a particular type of phase change, from solid to gas. But in
order to integrate and proceed this thermodynamic understanding of political
activity into the discourse I have already established, Critchley's aesthetic sublimation is, in the etymological sense of
the term, an upward phase change, and it is this definition of sublimation as upward phase change that
will be used in the following argument. It is therefore pertinent to ask, what
happens when sublimation occurs? According to the thermodynamic model of
enthalpy, the sublimation of matter increases the system's embodied energy.
Embodied energy can be defined for our intents as purposes, following the first
law of thermodynamics, as "[1] the internal
energy, which is the energy required to create a system, and [2] the
amount of energy required to make room for it by displacing its environment and
establishing its volume and pressure" (5). Before continuing onto the
second law of thermodynamics, it must be said that the concept of entropy has
been employed by a variety of disciplines, scientific and not, but I would like
to try and maintain, at least this point in time, a discourse based on energy,
as opposed to statistical mechanics (which is where the typical understanding
of entropy as 'a system's natural progression towards chaos' comes from). By
doing this, I am axiomatically declaring that the decrease of entropy is what
leads to mechanical disorder, and not vice versa. That is not to say that the
increase of disorder does not lead to a decrease in entropy, but for the sake
of our ethical moment and political aspirations, and in response to contrary
postmodern views, energy is the operative terrain.
But when approaching
entropy through the second law of thermodynamics, we are confronted with an
'inevitable' relation between an isolated
system and its
equilibrium, neither of
which are the case of nor applicable to our environmental moment. The
fundamental difference between equilibrium
thermodynamics and non-equilibrium
thermodynamics is not so much the conception of, but the acceptance of irreversible processes. The difference between
reversible and irreversible process have to do with the system's
interior/exterior relation: reversible processes which maintain
equilibrium by employing the first law of thermodynamics and changing only that
which is internal to
the system itself, whereas irreversible processes are relational processes that perform work on its
surroundings, either adding or taking away energy via entropy production or energy
dissipation (7),
and therefore unsettling the supposed equilibrium of both. Going back to the
original definition of entropy, either the energy internal to a system or its
boundaries are changed. So the questions can then be asked: (a) how do systems
interact, (b) what makes their relation irreversible and (c) what are the
consequences (of that irreversibility)? Thermodynamically speaking, irreversible
relational processes are a result of mediation or mutation (8). The primary
difference between these two forms of interaction are where the interaction takes place.
In mediation, interaction does not take place within the
systems themselves, but instead outside in a non-space where the information
being transmitted can be not only lost or modified, but not necessarily
received. Mutation on the other hand uses the boundary of the systems
themselves as the mediation device, pushing up against each other in a violent
confrontation of who-takes-what.
As you can see, the
definition of the systems' borders change depending on the type of heteronomous
relation the system enters. I have yet to answer question (b) or (c) from
above; what makes these relations irreversible and what are its consequences?
It seems to me that the status of 'irreversibility' of these processes may be
worth challenging. Let me explain: if the loss or gain of energy is
considered irreversible,
as whenever energy is lost or gained it is effectively changed, what irreversibility
implies is that it is not the entropic
state the system was at before the exchange that is effectively
irreversible, but the specific
material makeup of the system that gave it that state. In this reading,
could it be that the problem with thermodynamics is not its materialism, but
that it is not sufficiently materialist? By saying this I am only further
emphasizing the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy. What this
means is, if a system ideally works to (wants to) progress towards a state of
equilibrium, why does it matter (no pun intended) what form the energy comes or
goes in, as long as the coming or going moves the system closer to its
equilibrium? The problem with a materialist view on this point is the belief
that the specific quantity of energy given or taken can be known, which beyond a
materialism would be a reductionist viewpoint closer to scientism than anything
else.
Therefore, if the
irreversibility is not necessarily a problem, we are merely left with a
consequential situation of dis-equilibrium. Let me make this clear: when I
speak of equilibrium, I do not mean to evoke an idyllic picture of the garden
of eden, or any notion of pre/post-fall. When I use the term equilibrium and
non-equilibrium thermodynamics, I neither wish to refute the second law of
thermodynamics: I merely mean to invoke equilibrium
as the orientation of the
"spontaneous evolution" and "preferred direction
of progress" developed in the second law of thermodynamics.
Additionally, by raising these even more laden terms, I do not claim to (be
able to) proscribe an identifiable, representable, point towards which progress
and evolution heads towards; for a plethora of reasons, equilibrium cannot be
described in any other way than on its own terms. Lastly, "we" is not
everyone - "we" is the "we" of each singular identity. All
I wish to do is claim that 'progress' is our political nature, or, said
differently, we desire ethical good.
If thermodynamic
equilibrium, political progress and ethical good is the 'thing' which we
motivate ourselves to. But when we reflect this back on architectural agency
and attempt to situate this framework within the specific historical context
previously analyzed, we come across certain fallacies. Sublimation, that which
increases the embodied energy, must either effect an increase of internal
system energy, the society within which the experience takes place, or increase
the territory of said system / society. This is sensually paradoxical: if solid
matter is liquified, it disperses beneath us, or if vaporized, "melts into
air". It "intensifies" (Nealon, 2008). When sublimated, matter has an easier time expanding its
bounds: it is able to infiltrate into every imperfection in the solid surface,
as in concrete, cracking it from within. Much like the urbanism of cities like
Los Angeles, this is not a problem if there is plenty empty space to expand
into, and even in certain contexts where space is a problem, such as Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil, Valparaíso, Chile or La Paz, Bolivia, techniques
are invented to conquer the geological obstruction. But there is a
problem, because not only is space finite, but through the processes of global warming, we are not the only ones who are producing
entropy in our global system, further accelerating the production of
consequences. The conclusions to make from this, in our contemporary global
moment, could be: the less we can sense, the more energy, less entropy, and
less equilibrium there is.
The question is, as it
always has been, what is to be done? Ethically, the answer is simply to move
our societal system towards equilibrium. I believe I have already
put forth the argument that we should not dedicate our work towards
sublimation. Tschumi's operative theory of transgression is peculiar to situate
in this expanded context, as it's ethical operativity is precarious and must be
questioned. To quote again: "(a) that there is no cause-and-effect
relationship between the concept of space and the experience of space, or
between buildings and their uses, or space and the movement of bodies within
it, and (b) that the meeting of these [interdependent yet] mutually exclusive
terms could be intensely pleasurable or, indeed, so violent that it could
dislocate the most conservative elements of society" (p16). Transgression
uses the material state of liquid: transgression depends on pre-existing
representational identities, even if what they represent is non-causality or
non-identity. This follows Roland Barthes' semiology of myth, where the
transgressive act would effectively create a third-ord semiological system, or,
an "artificial myth". When the inherent disjunction within the representational
scheme is either united or revealed in its raw contingency (or
whatever other form of "meeting" can be imagined), the liquid
material of representation is sublimated, reified into
ideology; by their very explicit representation, despite their contingency, they are made real.
Let us turn to another
form of sublimation, one that Jeremy Till acutely locates in the architectural
concept of the tectonic (9),
and is what Barthes calls processes of the poetic (10). "[P]oetry ...
attempts to regain an infra-signification, a pre-semiological state of
language; in short, it tries to transform the sign back into meaning: its
ideal, ultimately, would be to reach not the meaning of words, but the meaning
of things themselves"(Barthes, p133). Curiously and conveniently, this
form of sublimation corresponds to the technical scientific term of sublimation,
the phase change from solid to gas. But the problem with vaulting solid weight
to the level of gaseous ideology is that, and this is something Tschumi pointed
out in his explanation of the disjunctive role of architecture as the
conceptualization and experience of space, stuff doesn't "say" anything.
Therefore when stuff itself in a pre-signified state is
made to speak, it is 'personified', or phrased differently, its 'thingness' is
instrumentalized as a ventriloquist's puppet, eerily reminiscent of McLuhan's "the medium is the message".
Before we move on, a brief comment on an infamous saying that could provide some guidance and further questions for the following discussion. "All that is solid melts into air" - I would argue this statement should not be seen as inevitable, but I do believe it is fair to say that this is the internal logic of the capitalist system in its reified ideology. If it is a logic, it is for a reason. It is then important to ask ourselves, why does the capitalist system want to sublimate things? What is it about solidity that is threatening? Before we delve into a positivist ethics, let's look at what is left standing in our way, or what other types of political activity risk being compromised by internal contradictory laws.
Solid -> Gas
(Sublimation) = Poetry
Liquid -> Gas
(Vaporization) = Transgression
Solid -> Liquid
(Melting) = Signification
Signification is, I hope,
rather self explanatory, and arguably impossible (or at least impotent) today.
Signification is to ignore the disjunction of postmodern times, the contingency
of all value and meaning. This operation can use post-modern and contemporary
architectural formalism as a prime reference, and refers to what Barthes calls
"ultra-signification" (Barthes, p133). It is to say "this means
that" or "this will do that". It is to put blind faith in the
myth of a universally metaphysical causal logic; blind only for the reason that
one must be blind to not notice that cause -/> effect.
One last thing before we
begin: it is clear that up until this point I have ignored plasma as a state of
matter. Without going into psychoanalytic theory too much, we can note the
uncanny similarities between the consequences of exposure to plasma and
confrontation with the Lacanian Real. While the will to make our individual
beliefs transcendental and absolute truths may serve as the 'essential'
foundation behind our ethical actions, much like notions of revolution itself,
in order to carry this through would be not only to negate the basic principle
of contingency that ethico-political actions are based on, but would simply be
Fascist.
To begin, let's do a bit
of a summary as to where we are at this point in the essay, as well as restate
the intention with which this essay is being written. We are well along on the
path to discovering the political and ethical (im)possibility of architecture,
which started with an analysis of Bernard Tschumi's late avant-garde theory of
architecture as a political agent. By revealing internal contradictions and
fallacies within his argument, we were led away from architecture in particular
to ethics and politics in particular, taking inspiration from Simon Critchley's
theory of heteronomous and existential weight, to which architecture, as an
inherently heteronomous element, forms an integral part of. Combining the
analogy of weight with Jeremy Till's notion of aesthetic sublimation, to which
Tschumi's transgression acts in, led to the introduction of thermodynamics as
framework which can allow us to better grasp the intentions and consequences of
our actions. Using a non-equilibrium conception of thermodynamic systems, we
have worked through and identified three types of thermodynamic agency in the
form of phase changes that have been architecturally embodied in various
historical epochs as ethico-political, but in fact work contrary to these
beliefs and only advance the production of what they were claiming to act
against. We are now finally free to begin our quest towards discovering what
constitutes the metaphysics of ethical and political action.
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