Le Roi Est Mort; Vive Le Roi

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description

essay presented in year one of post graduate diploma in architecture at oxford brookes university for module "thinking architecture"

Transcript of Le Roi Est Mort; Vive Le Roi

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Being an act of intelligence, Architecture has been in contact

with every philosophic and theoretic gear which had been in

discussion among its contemporaries each time. Rooted

deeply in the very essence of being, the discipline has evolved

into an intellectual continuum radically associated with the

boundaries, as well as the orientation, of the thought of each

era. Sometimes ahead of the concept of its time anticipating

the realm of the society, other times following the political

implementations of class-ruled, or mass-ruled, aggregations,

but nevertheless in time to consort the needs of humanity,

Architecture has been a synchronised and indivisible agent of

the premise of existence.

Paramount to the current semiotics of society is the notion and

application of Simulation to all possible aspects of living. There

is hardly an intellectual or practical property of

contemporaneity which is not represented by a digital, or a

physical, model in order for its parameters to be studied,

revealed, altered, edited, and finalised prior to operation upon

any subject of interest. Although modelling does not exactly

contain a great deal of novelty factor due to its extended use

since the beginning of the history of mankind, it is now, more

than ever, that it is aided by the advances of information

technology to appear as a robust analytical method within

which every inquiry shall find solutions.

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Among the practice-related professionals, Simulation is treated

as a tool which can disengage the Gordian Knot of decision

and policy making. The main interrogation relates to the extend

of its efficiency and autonomy, as well as its properties of

subjectivity and position against each matter. Critique is rather

more austere on behalf of the theoretical representatives of the

time. Representation, either as a multidimensional depiction, or

as a two-dimensional image, has been under critique since the

dawn of its constitution. Either as a symbol, or an object

manipulated to the point which it becomes significant,

representation has been subject to discussion for centuries.

And, if its multidimensional representative – be that Simulation

– has only lately started to set off the debate around its

potentials and consequences, the region of the Spectacle has

been under the magnifying glass for at least half a century in

the latest history of Architecture.

Scope of this essay is to attend the evolution track of an

Architectural theory initially related to the Event – Spectacle

dipole, and recently engaged to the Reality – Simulation

dilemma. Albeit the connection between the two confrontations

is not profound, practical and literary references will be

provided to build the infrastructure within which both pose as

the unavoidable extension of the other in terms of qualities and

chronology. The importance of this inquiry is critical for

Architecture, in the sense that it provides both conceptual and

practical output, capable of administering the discipline with

the credentials with which it will be able to negotiate

contribution to the contemporary realm. There are scarcely any

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design projects that can exist, and stand out, without a prior

consideration of those credentials.

For the purpose of this essay, a range of bibliographic

references was employed to circumscribe the artificial

perimeter of the topic as accurately as possible.

Similar to the language they use, as well as to the depth of their

criticism, Jean Baudrillard – with his texts on Simulation1 – and

Guy Debord – with his writings regarding the society of the

spectacle2 – are intellectuals which not only commented

against a dominant way of being, but are also interrelated in

the sense that there are merely any differences between the

aphorisms they use to characterise two apparently different

notions. Extracts from their writings will be used within the body

of the essay, as well as in the form of quotes in the image

pages to illustrate relativity between the two intellectuals.

Directly related to Architecture, but sourcing their reasoning

from theory, representatives of an era which lacked cold-blood

analysis on crucial subjects, Bernard Tschumi got involved with

the apology of the event theory in the discipline3, and the

discourse which was born out of it4, and Neil Leach

commented on the aftermath of the events of 1968 related to

Architecture5, as well as the emerging practices which find

1 > Baudrillard J.| 1994| Simulacra and Simulation| United States of America: The University of Michigan||

2 > Debord G.| n. d.| Society of the Spectacle| London: Rebel Press||3 > Tschumi B.| 1994| The Manhattan Transcripts| London: Academy||4 > Tschumi B.| 1996| Architecture and Disjunction| Cambridge, Massachusetts:

The MIT Press||5 > Leach N.| 1999| The Anaesthetics of Architecture| Cambridge,

Massachusetts: The MIT Press||

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their reasoning in simulation6.

Collections of the proceedings of two conferences, one

dedicated to the contemporary role of the Spectacle in

Architecture7, and one related to the impact of networks in

contemporary practice8, will describe the current analysis of the

matters of the topic.

Philip Ball and John Thackara are included in the referenced

authors due to contribution of their books in the unlocking of

several premises of thought on decision9 and multidisciplinary

design10 throughout the body of text.

Unedited passages from the nominal work of Italo Calvino,

“Invisible Cities”, will provide meaningful and imaginary

discourses to rather dry and abstruse positions which will be

included in the text, because “Some texts, like Italo Calvino's

metaphorical descriptions of “Invisible Cities”, were so

architectural as to require going far beyond the mere illustration

of the author's already powerful descriptions”11.

Such discourses will be evident on the opposing page of the

booklet, where images will also be placed, and both will

6 > Leach N. [editor]| 2009| Architectural Design: Digital Cities| Volume 79| No. 4 [July/ August 2009]| London: John Wiley & Sons||

7 > Vidler A. [editor]| 2008| Architecture: Between Spectacle and Use| Williamstown, Massachusetts: The Clark||

8 > Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007| Network Practices: New Strategies in Architecture and Design| New York: Princeton Architectural Press||

9 > Ball P.| 2004| Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another| United Kingdom: Arrow Books||

10 > Thackara J.| 2005| In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World| London: The MIT Press||

11 Tschumi B.| 1996, p. 145||

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correspond to an alternative narrative, interrelated with the

main body of text, yet independent and purely supportive.

Relation of “quotation discourses” with part of the body of the

essay will be marked with underlining. The order of appearance

manages to distinguish the correspondence of each reference.

[/]

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Laurent had been in the kitchen the whole Saturday afternoon,

cooking the perfect dinner for two. After he had spent hours in

the local open-air market shopping for the correct ingredients, he

had finally reached to the point where he could create the right

menu. Rosemary and olive oil baked Camembert to go with

crackers, celery, and cherry tomatoes would be the “hors d'

oeuvres”, accompanied by a fruity rose (Cabernet Sauvignon and

Chablis), which would have the mission to unlock and blend the

used spices with its own. A dried fig and pomegranate green salad

would take the position of the introductory side dish, and would

be punctuated with the mineral taste of a “nouveau” Chardonnay.

Venison roast with raisins, plums, and new potatoes, exposed by a

full-bodied Barolo would bring the situation one step before the

desert; dark chocolate mousse with walnuts – a combination

which would simply flourish when enhanced with the tones and

aromas of a sun-dried grapes Mediterranean Moschatos. He

wanted everything to transmit the sense of casual luxury.

Monique, on the other hand, had walked the boutiques street back

and forward several times, in order to decide on the outfit which

would impress Laurent. She chose a simple, long, straight-line,

cotton dress in dark purple, which exposed nothing but her hands

and shoulders, matched it with brown leather ballet flats, and a

pair of long bronze earrings. She concluded her appearance with

some drops of her favourite perfume, which originated its scent

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from essences like honey, solar musk, orange blossom, and vanilla.

Her aim was to appear mysterious, yet accessible, and to

communicate her non-negotiable need for independence. After

all, that was just their first date and, although she liked him a lot,

and knew him for quite a while, she would not reveal her

intentions, nor fall for him as easily as she had accepted to meet

him at his house for dinner.

After she had knocked on his door, and he had welcomed her in

his flat, her initial positive mood was reversed; the space was

rather contemporary decorated compared to the classic manner

she imagined Laurent would have kept it, 1960's jazz which was

playing felt inappropriate and overwhelming whatsoever, the

candles and the amount of wine on the table were adding a

somewhat insolent tone in the atmosphere, food did not exactly

smell the way she would liked it to, and he appeared a bit more

enthusiastic than she expected when he looked at her exposed

shoulders. Laurent did not appreciate the sudden fadeout of her

smile after he opened the door, let alone the outfit which Monique

selected to wear. Albeit he did not intent to rush things, her appeal

towards him could be described with a bit of disappointment.

Where did Monique he used to know go? Where did Laurent she

used to know go? The predictions which had both done, and had

both based on assumptions, were not accurate at all. That

Saturday night did not start well.

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/ vanishing point

“Nothing resembles itself, and holographic reproduction, like all fantasies of the exact synthesis or resurrection of the real […] is already no longer real, is already hyperreal”12

“Reality emerges within the spectacle, and the spectacle is real”13

What lies beneath disappointment about the non-resemblance of

the initial hypothesis with the result is obviously the whole

number of assumptions which led to the inexact estimation of the

situation. No matter the morph of reproduction – whether it

remains conceptual, or it acquires physical dimensions and

becomes an image –, it is not a sufficient source of the real. To

what extend it can resemble reality is a discussion which its

modern initiators are the Situationists.

Identifying the social relation between people as one which is

“mediated by images”14, Guy Debord, founding member of the

Situationist International, blamed unification as the catalyst which

pointed to the loss of unity in the world. “Spectators are linked

solely by their one-way relationship to the very centre that keeps

them isolated from each other. The spectacle thus reunites them

only in their separateness”15, he continued in his writings, “Society

of the Spectacle”. Being a strong defender of a life of action, he

thoroughly rejected the elaborate production of the image as the

means through which relations should be transmitted. The

rejection gave instantaneous re-birth to the Event-Spectacle

12 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 108||13 Debord G.| n. d., p. 9||14 Debord G.| n. d., p. 7||15 Debord G.| n. d., p. 16||

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dipole, which could not but affect the Architectural practice.

According to Bernard Tschumi, the existence of the theoretical

dipole resulted into a schism in the discipline, and the two sides –

of the very same coin – were separated into “a maximalist

version, [which aimed] at overall social, cultural, political,

programmatic concerns while the other, minimalist,

[concentrated] on sectors called style, technique, and so forth”16.

The latter came along with the seduction of the object, and in this

mannerism it had been assigned several characteristics;

“Seduction, Baudrillard argues, is that which extracts meanings

from discourse and detracts it from its truth. […] Seduction can

therefore be contrasted to “interpretation””17.

There is no doubt that the absence of meaning, or rather, the

ascription of it in objects which have achieved significance based

solely on their desire factor, is the main reason for the slavery of

image. It should not be unanticipated that the most elegant

aphorism in the “Society of the Spectacle” is deeply political, and

well-aimed toward the heart of the economic system: “The

spectacle is capital accumulated to the point that it becomes

images”. The truth behind the quote was present even when the

words within were reversed: “[Spectacle is] an image accumulated

to the point that it becomes capital”. In the ability of the phrase

to transform itself lies the strength of its objective. Debord also

noted the ability of the issued image to obtain “metaphysical

subtleties”18, thus, to become a commodity. The consumers'

passive acceptance would become feasible via the dogmatic reality16 Tschumi B.| 1996, p. 103||17 Leach N.| 1999, p. 71||18 Debord G.| n.d., p. 19||

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which emerged from the nature of the Spectacle, and gave no

chances for questions; “What appears is good; what is good

appears”19. The solitariness of the dominant life model was

considered as the characteristic of self-destruction according to a

dogmatic rule; “every discipline that becomes autonomous is

bound to collapse”20.

Situationism brought up ideas like “negation of real life”21,

“fragmented views of reality”22, both attached to the Spectacle,

which was considered a phase “opposite to dialogue”23. The next

step is described by Anthony Vidler; “The assemblage of

situations driven by the psychic measuring of environments was

the primary concept behind the Situationinst movement, and

consequently the riots in Paris in May 1968.

19 Debord G.| n.d., p. 10||20 Debord G.| n.d., p. 95||21 Debord G.| n.d., p. 117||22 Debord G.| n.d., p. 2||23 Debord G.| n.d., p. 11||

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/ post dramatic

“While one should be wary of ascribing too much influence to the Situationists in this extraordinary series of events, their contribution to raising consciousness and fostering a spirit of resistance – notably through the Situationist-inspired enrages movement – should not be underestimated”24

“The most important contribution of the movement – and the riots, if one chooses to separate the two – was probably the creation of the precedent of possible discourses through the detournement strategy and the manipulation of programmatic attributes, which were considered unnegotiable at the time”25

“[...] throughout the 1970's there was an exacerbation of stylistic concerns at the expense of programmatic ones and a reduction of architecture as a form of knowledge to architecture as knowledge of form”26

The Situationinst concerns for random events reflection on

Architecture was to guide the discipline to consider imaginary

programmatic functions into its own events, and, in that way use

was reviewed to acquire alternative interpretations. Projects which

are considered direct aftermath of the events of May 1968

pursued concepts such as “disorientation”, applications such as

“dynamic labyrinth”, and the meaning of space as an ontological

experience27.

Bernard Tschumi suggested that actions qualify spaces as much as

spaces qualify actions, based on the interpretation of violence as

“the intensity of the relationship between individuals and their

24 Leach N.| 1999, p. 60||25 Tschumi B.| 1996, p. 122||26 Tschumi B.| 1996, p. 140||27 Leach N.| 1999, p. 59||

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surrounding spaces”28. By using terms like “fluid and erratic

motions”, “bodies violating space”, “intrusion”, “carve”, and

“presence”, he was led to the – at least – implicit role of violence

in Architecture; one which should not be neglected29. Having the

latter assured, the Swiss began an apologetic course, through

which he redefined Architecture's necessity for both “reality and

concept”30; “Form, or geometry, or style cannot guarantee the

pleasure of space on their own”31, he argued; “The potential

absence of necessity makes the discipline workable in its domain,

and, therefore lonely in a quest for autonomy and commitment”32,

he continued. The terminus a quo had already started to appear..

In a lecture given at London-based Architectural Association in

June 1982, Tschumi championed the allegorical importance of

snapshots of events33, and commented on the value of the

disturbance to the neutral logic which they carry. Most

importantly, he went through a platitudinal discussion within

which set an end to fundamental matters related to the unofficial

rivalry between the Event and the Spectacle, succeeded to put

them under the same magnifying glass, and noted “strategy, form

and sophisticated reference [which should be given] to a general

public out for the day”34. Whatever operational frame was absent

from the Event theory found its main representative in Bernard

Tschumi.

28 Tschumi B.| 1996, p. 122||29 Tschumi B.| 1996, p. 105||30 Tschumi B.| 1996, p. 48||31 Tschumi B.| 1996, p. 111||32 Tschumi B.| 1996, p. 47||33 Tschumi B.| 1994, p. xxvii||34 Cook P.| 2008, p. 40| Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture| West Essex:

Wiley||

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/ so much for the avant-garde

“If, in the case of the sublime, the object becomes unbounded – and therefore less and more than an object – with the ideological imaginary of the spectacular countersublime, the object reaches an extreme degree of definition, closure and intensity”35

“[The fundamental error of the architectural avant-garde happened possibly when architectural exhibitions in galleries] encouraged “surface” practice and presented the architects work as a form of decorative painting”36

In the cases which hard-core political declarations never seized to

exist, the excessive manipulation of form for the sake of visual

aesthetics and only, led to reviews which considered that kind of

production related to pornography, an orgy of realism, and the

result of premature ejaculation37. Neil Leach maintains that the

moment reason gave its place to technique and performance, the

entrance to the world of the instantaneous was ineluctable38.

Critiques to the society of direct projection often suggested

methods of informal analysis. Notably, Lebeus Woods study for

Sarajevo proposed “injection”, “scar”, and “scab” as deeper levels

of construction. There is hardly any implication for any kind of

event which might follow that study whatsoever, and Leach

commented rather censoriously that “Woods seemingly fails to

acknowledge the aestheticisation that lies at the heart of his

project, a condition that is exacerbated by his proposed

architectural solutions”39. Indeed, the produce which responded to35 Vidler A. [editor]| 2008, p. 45||36 Tschumi B.| 1996, p. 141||37 Leach N.| 1999, p. 74||38 Leach N.| 1999, p. 75||39 Leach N.| 1999, p. 29||

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the Spectacle as a non-favourable premise limited itself into

merely spectacular representations of the metaphors of the critics

opinions. What is more, this response was communicated through

exhibitions where “revolution” “became political and claimed a

certain authority”40.

40 Tschumi B.| 1996, p. 68||

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/ infra-terrestrial

“The 1990s were in many ways a turning point in the discussion of drawing. The computer was beginning to establish a leading position, the discussion of “process” was rampant in the most fashionable schools of architecture, the gadget was a creative trigger, the absorption of photographics, multitudinous printing techniques and the inspiration of film and video led to the spirited discussion of architecture and its presence or non-presence. Contemplating (say) a rectangular surface in front of you did not necessarily mean that you would be offered a total, retainable or definite image”41

“The days of the celebrity solo designer are over”42

“The metropolitan individual has to accommodate and register the

rapid bombardment of stimuli within the city, where even the

crossing of the road would fray the nerves”.43What Neil Leach

points out, could have been easily observed by any inhabitant on

any metropolis on this planet. There is no need for compositional

terms, such as the one of “ontological alienation”44, to describe

the saturation of complex systems in this era, and the vast

amounts of the incomprehensible information which surround

individuals. Any combination of the series of political, economic,

or social factors which are namely responsible for this, could take

the blame, but no matter who the expiatory victim would turn out

to be, one single arithmetic parameter could bear all; “The planet's

population has doubled in [this] generation's lifetime – something

that never happened before”45. The mass-spread of digital culture

41 Cook P.| 2008, p. 146||42 Thackara J.| 2005, p. 75||43 Leach N.| 1999, p. 33||44 Thackara J.| 2005, p. 101||45 Thackara J.| 2005, p. 127||

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unavoidably degraded human knowledge – either from education,

or from experience – into a merely symbolic form. Cities are

transformed into layers of symbols, and in order to anticipate that

transformation, encounters and interactions need to be devised

and, almost, injected, in the form of events which will refashion

passive acceptance in post-spectacular practice. “We do not

receive anywhere near the quantity of data it takes to overload our

neurons”46, argues Thackara; therefore the critical task is to

provide the infrastructure to allocate it, and the provision to digest

it.

By the end of 1980s a concern on the premise of infrastructural

schemes was beginning to make an entrance. A discreet

intervention proposed by OMA for the Melun-Senart town in

France in 1987 proposed the incorporation of isolated

programmatic voids, ready to express the tendency which might

be evident in the future. The designers left the building sites open

and undetermined “by incorporating the character and the

potential of the urban plan in the designed characteristics of the

voids”47. The urban surface has never stopped to carry functions

and services in its epidermis since then; in opposite cases – spaces

designed for single functions, usually evident in old-style cities –

the fostering of innovative situations tends to be unlikely48.

Situation specificity took the position of function specificity

through the deployment of a “dynamic, organisational, structural

plan, using scenarios, diagrams, parameters, formulas, and themes,

46 Thackara J.| 2005, p. 162||47 Corner J. [editor]| 1999, p. 238| Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary

Architecture| New York: Princeton Architectural Press||48 Thackara J.| 2005, p. 104||

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that [encompassed] the mapping of political, managerial,

planning, community, and private relations”49. The new concern –

and truly, a diachronic one – was to get participants to regain

contact with each other.

The Parc de la Villette, Paris, competition required the

characteristics of the age. Both the realm of the time, and the

extracts of Bernard Tschumi's “The Manhattan Transcripts” were

combined to conceptualise the winning entry; a set of

deconstructed cubical solids applied on a programmatic Cartesian

grid. The Follies, as they were named, were nodes juxtaposed over

layers of functions, as well as operational voids, and the complete

composition could host multiple happenings simultaneously. What

is commendable, in the sense that it leaves no questions for the

timing of “The Manhattan Transcripts”, is that the other entries

of the same competition considered programme as the engine of

the project as well, “driving the logic of form and organisation,

while responding to the changing demands of society”50. The spell

for the use of the diagram had been broken.

49 Thackara J.| 2005, p. 108||50 Corner J. [editor]| 1999, p. 237||

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/ event spectacle

“Looked at from a distance, randomness becomes total uniformity. […] Those phenomena that often strike us as the most complex, are, in contrast, not random”51

“We now invest extensively in data mining as a means to uncover unsuspected relationships and to summarise the data in novel ways that are both understandable and useful”52

The capability to analyse information, in any possible form,

document it, and allocate it in databases in which it can be

accessed again, and again, is, until now, the most meaningful

contribution of technology. In the circumstance that the access to

information happens at once with the event generating it, a most

beneficial visual dialogue is engendered; one which its potentials

go beyond the agents which constitute it, because of the dynamic

relations between them.

In his essay “From Data to Its Organising Structure”, George

Legrady stressed the always timely need “to investigate the

potential of the active participant as an influential component of

the multimedia interactive event”53. He has been researching and

applying visualisations of data and its organisation process for at

least four decades. Along with the fresh interest for this subject,

came the need of communicating it in the form of an aesthetic

experience, which should, at the same time, be understandable

within limited time and the use of common knowledge54. The

aestheticisation of information is primarily related to the fact that51 Ball P.| 2005, p. 95||52 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 148||53 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 144||54 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 146||

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“Contemporary society's infrastructure is encoded in databases

through our interactions in supermarkets, public transit systems,

educational institutions, libraries, etc”55; information is nowadays

available, accessible, and evident, everywhere; it has become

popular. The issue for the contemporary individual now, is to be

able to refine information in order to actually make efficient use

of it. Legrady maintains that “Information management is the

defining form of culture today as it positions us as citizens in

performing according to economic and political models defined

through the statistical outcome of the collected data”56.

55 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 158||56 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 164||

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/ about time

“Contemporary architecture has become a high bandwidth medium produced and monitored in new ways necessitating a recalculation of the field's basic assumptions”57

It would be naïve, to say the least, to pretend that any elaboration

with the visual properties of an image has come to an end. On the

contrary, the spectacular parameter maintains its dominant

position in most fields. It has also entered domains in which it has

never been before, like the data one. But its role has been

transformed into a supporting one. It is undeniable that the

representatives of form manipulation – the list of whom contains

most of the each time media-published practitioners – will

continue to “seek to arrest the image flow, to tie it down to a

place, a brand, and a purpose”58, but it will never stand alone as a

practice method any more. Right at the dawn of 2010s,

Architecture cannot be limited to its merely representational

expressions. It has been like that for thousands of years, while it

had been declaring “something other than itself: the social

structure, the power of the King, the idea of God, and so on”59.

Should it remained like that, it would not pose the faintest

solution to any of the society's issues, and, fatefully would be

compromised into a supporting technical role.

57 Vidler A. [editor]| 2008, p. 155||58 Vidler A. [editor]| 2008, p. 3||59 Tschumi B.| 1996, p.36||

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/ network flow

“A network is an abstract organisational model, in its broadest sense concerned only with the structure of relationships between things”60

“The operational principle is a redundancy. There are always multiple pathways between any two points and multiple options being activated at any one time. […] Events don't simply happen in the space. The space itself is the event”61

“The impossibility of rediscovering an absolute level of the real is of the same order as the impossibility of staging an illusion. Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible”62

“But what if God himself can be simulated, that is to say can be reduced to the signs that constitute faith? Then the whole system becomes weightless, it is no longer itself anything but a gigantic simulacrum, that is to say never exchanged for the real, but exchanged for itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without reference or circumference”63

Breakthroughs in the mathematics of complexity, as well as the

pace of technology adoption by the consumers introduced

network driven practices in the mid-1990s64. As soon as this was

evident, it had been a matter of time before the network started to

affect, not only performance, but also be concerned “with more

humanist parameters involving social organisation, aesthetics, and

culture”65. It was not only that it maintained its fundamental

properties, such as “flexibility, self-organisation, and

60 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 25||61 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 30||62 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 19||63 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 5||64 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 25||65 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 25||

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adaptability”66. Nor that it made clear that it becomes visible only

when it fails, and never before, neither after67. Network practice

consecrated “the socialist ambition of the political model; the

mass distribution of a mass-produced array of elements with the

same status; and a new freedom to laterally redistribute people,

objects, buildings, and activities”68. As Baudrillard puts it, it is “no

longer a question of the ideology of power, but of the scenario

of power”69. In the case of Architecture, Mark Wigley's comment

in his essay “The Architectural Brain” is apposite. “Interiors

became circuits. Flow on the outside ever more seamlessly merged

into flow on the inside until the line defining the limit of the

building became paper thin”70.

Not only the social model that the Situationinst pointed to, but

also the negation for the dedicated object, as well as the need for

the “dynamic labyrinth” are manifested in networks. “Architecture

is no longer the positioning of objects in a field; the field itself

becomes a kind of object. Rather than moving through a system

to reach static enclosure or building, you never leave the

movement system”71.

66 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 25||67 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 30||68 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 32||69 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 27||70 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 32||71 Burke A. + Tierney T. [editors]| 2007, p. 34||

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/ simulated discussion

“It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes”72

“The facts no longer have a specific trajectory, they are born at the intersection of models, a single fact can be engendered by all the models at once”73

“One of the most remarkable discoveries of the physics of society is that behaviour which looks strangely “human” can emerge among agents which are in effect nothing but robot-like automata”74

Simultaneously with the extensive use of network in practice, the

need for exploration rose. Data which could describe, and assure,

its efficiency, as well as parameters of the domains which it

represented, became input, and all parts created one discrete

component; Simulation. In the Architectural discipline, although

simulation is used in several subjects – notably environmental and,

structural flows – it is in the making of cities – in the form of

infrastructure, or built spaces – which interest is centralised. In the

latter case, two types of simulation models are used; continuous,

and discrete. Manuel DeLanda, in an interview to Neil Leach

explains the first type; “Continuous urban simulations use

differential equations to capture the rate of growth of any given

city [as a function of other rates], or to capture rates of

72 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 2||73 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 16||74 Ball P.| 2005, p. 420||

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urbanisation over entire regions”75. The facts are then entered into

a database, over a space-time grid of a certain resolution, and

continuity is achieved once the expression is mathematically

integrated. In discrete models, on the other hand, rates of growth

are derived from the bottom up, that is, are calculated based on

agents whose behaviour is defined by rules76. Effectively, these

agents are also able to interact, and, thus, to produce the effects

which emerge from those interactions. Baudrillard's comment is

caustic; “The real is produced from miniaturised cells, matrices,

and memory banks, models of control – and it can be reproduced

an indefinite number of times from these”77.

The issue then, is on the choice of the parameters which will

constitute the system, as well as the notions which they describe;

“Thus, before applying multi-agent simulations one must be clear

about these nested sets [from persons – to communities and

organisations – to industrial networks and federal governments –

to cities] in which wholes at one scale are the parts of wholes at

the next scale”78. But Baudrillard was sceptic about the substance

of aggregations; “We have all become living specimens in the

spectral light of ethnology, or of antiethnology, which is nothing

but the pure form of triumphal ethnology, under the sign of dead

differences, and of the resurrection of differences”79. He was also

doubtful on the percentage of truth which is embedded in

models, since confusion of the latter with facts could leave space

75 Leach N. [editor]| 2009, p. 52||76 Leach N. [editor]| 2009, p. 53||77 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 2||78 Leach N. [editor]| 2009, p. 53||79 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p.8||

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for all possible interpretations80.

History is a discipline which could be deployed in order for

several inputs and outputs to be manually – or, even digitally –

double-checked. According to DeLanda, most cities, or indeed,

different parts of the same city, are combinations of historic

paradigms, such as Venice – with the labyrinthine medieval core –

or Versailles – a city planned under a network of policy-makers81.

Baudrillard became semiotic in his positioning on doubling; “If

according to Mach, the universe is that of which there is no

double, no equivalent in the mirror, then with the hologram we

are already virtually in another universe: which is nothing but the

mirrored equivalent of this one. But which universe is this

one?”82.

Neil Leach championed the attention which should be given in the

use of agents, as they cannot be deterministic of a sort of

collective intelligence, only to have Manuel DeLanda adding that

simulation should be in the position to embody individual, as well

as group parameters, but, nevertheless, not collective83. What

happens when everything goes wrong, can be easily deleted, from

the hard drive, or considered obsolete. In the case that any given

simulation is considered perfect though, there is a series of

questions which remain unanswered. Baudrillard had one answer;

“When a system has absorbed everything, when one has added

everything up, when nothing remains, the entire sum turns to the

80 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 17||81 Leach N. [editor]| 2009, p. 53||82 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 106||83 Leach N. [editor]| 2009, p. 54||

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remainder and becomes the remainder”84; and, another one; “But

what happens when everything is sponged up, when everything is

socialised? Then the machine stops, the dynamic is reversed, and it

is the whole system that becomes residue”85.

Before total simulation is achieved, DeLanda is mostly concerned

with the treatment of populations of agents. In the instance

which simulation practices will be ready for use to make actual

buildings, an extensive elaboration in modelling those agents is

going to be demanded. Due to the work load, and for everything

to run smoothly, rules are going to be controlled by explicit rules,

which are going to be set by explicit constrains, which should

comply with certain regulations86. Even at this point, the

resemblance of what could be named “Spectacle Revolution”,

with what could be named “Simulation Opportunity” is vivid;

both would be able to make spaces. The difference is that the first

came to suggest spatial temporal reactions, and only represented

its proposals, whereas the latter appears determined to go beyond

its representational identity. In other words, the simulation

opportunity – with, or without the quotation marks – is, and this

could pose as a new paradox, Real.

It might be that the referential of violence in response to the

society of Spectacle is lost, but its memorandum is still present,

even if Baudrillard argues for the opposite87. It might be that

before Architecture will be able to generate buildings out of

84 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 144||85 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 144||86 Leach N. [editor]| 2009, p. 55||87 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 78||

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merely simulative practices, it has to be able “to devise intelligent

decision-making agents that can influence others and reflect upon

their own decisions”88. And, finally, it might be that through the

whole of this sequence of re-evaluations, the world, as humanity

knows it today, will change to accommodate the new order. One

which, for Baudrillard will homogenise and finally cancel all the

dispersed functions of body, and social life through the threat of

the hypermarket89, but, for others, may actually create a future

better that the present. It is, once again, in the hands of the

society of individuals – not of the Spectacle, not of the Masses –

to choose.

88 Leach N. [editor]| 2009, p. 55||89 Baudrillard J.| 1994, p. 76||

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/ next day

Sunday morning sunlight went straight through the window and

directly on Monique's face. She had been sleeping on the red sofa,

in her dress – significantly rumply, the latter – all night. She

pointed her eyes toward the smell of the coffee, which was

coming out of the espresso machine in the kitchen, where Laurent

was preparing breakfast. They had probably fallen asleep while

watching the film he suggested. By the way, although the flat did

not change its referential era of decoration overnight, it looked

better. The night before, she had enjoyed the food, otherwise she

would have not drunk so much wine; she had enjoyed talking with

Laurent, otherwise she would not feel comfortable enough to fall

asleep on his sofa; she had even appreciated his attitude – they

both want the same things. Monique got up from the sofa, walked

barefoot to the kitchen, round the island bar, and gently put her

hands – which were still exposed – around his shoulders – which

were not exposed –, and kissed him for the first time. She only

mentioned her disagreement with 1960's jazz a year later, at their

anniversary, when Laurent got her a new – and probably better –

pair of ballet flats.

[/]

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// references/>

/ annotated bibliography

> Ball Philip| 2005| Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another |London: Arrow||

Collective in its references, as well as its conclusions, Ball’s book is

one informed by classic science, and informative of social science.

From physics to philosophy, and from economy to traffic

planning, the references within cover the majority of areas which

concern the contemporary individual, and their manifestation is

led by the most objective language available: the one of

Mathematics.

> Baudrillard Jean| 1994| Simulacra and Simulation| United

States of America: The University of Michigan||

Due to fundamental argument on the notion of simulation, and

simulacrum – the copy without an original – the author succeeds

to marshal the major idiomorphs in which it exists, and then

extensively decompose it into finite elements. The result is a

collection of essays, which, although they were compiled in the

form of a monologue, they may as well set the scene for dialectics

in multiple directions. Thus, the texts become critically relevant to

the premise of Simulation, which is now rendered naked in front

of the eyes of its devotees and opponents.

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> Burke Anthony + Tierney Therese [editors]| 2007| Network Practices: New Strategies in Architecture and Design| New

York: Princeton Architectural Press||

The proceedings of a three-day symposium hosted at the College

of Environmental Design and the Department of Architecture at

the University of California, Berkeley, in October 2004, are not to

be neglected when it comes for referring into a topic not

irrelevant to networks. What is more, the explicit orientation of

all the individual essays included in the book provide sound and

valid views for the relevance of networks with Architecture.

> Calvino Italo| 1997| Invisible Cities| London: Vintage

Books||

A poetic and imaginative prose, chaotic and specific at the same

time, this classic novel harbours the allusive verbal representations

of the multiple faces which bear in one single city: Venice.

Through the memorabilia of the trips of Marco Polo, Calvino

creates an almost tangible collection of situations that occupy

space and time in Kublai Khan’s empire. ‘Invisible Cities’ allows a

reading in the co-existence and/or overlapping of the happening

and the image which is nevertheless fresh; free of hard-core

political associations, thus specific to the contemporary gear.

> Cook Peter| 2008| Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture| West Essex: Wiley||

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Through the whole aggregation of nine chapters dedicated to

architectural drawing and representation, the author presents a

series of drawings and their creators with the simultaneous

explanation of their speculations and origins. Of special interest

are the parts which contain Peter Cook’s view on the evolution of

the drawing mannerisms in parallel with the theory which

supports them. Drawing produces images; therefore spectacular

portrayals are its unavoidable outputs. By dealing with the

technological developments, which affect the idea of the

contemporary architectural image, in a non-aphoristic way the

former Archigram member compiles his predictions and

aspirations on the emerging Architecture of the invisible fields;

the kind of fields that derive directly from events that create

spectacles that create events and so forth.

> Corner James [editor]| 1999| Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture| New York:

Princeton Architectural Press||

This is a collection of essays examining contemporary landscape

architecture, which includes the essay “Programming the Urban

Surface” by Alex Wall. The essay is specific on the rising interest

for infrastructure, as well as the strategies which need to be

followed in order for Architecture to fulfil its role as a social

discipline.

> Debord Guy| n.d.| Society of the Spectacle| London: Rebel

Press||

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As the common sense reader might guess from its title only, this

book is a manifestation against what the notion and the society of

the spectacle has produced and how this affects the participants

and the humanity as a whole. Written and articulated primarily as a

polemic, it includes terminology, historical references and (its, and

ours) contemporary relations to a model of life which is stated by

the author as dominant. Guy Debord constructs a fundamental

text on the theory of the Situationists, which, albeit political and

unilateral in its contents, is uniquely analytical in its narrative and

disturbingly accurate on quite a lot of its statements.

> Leach Neil| 1999| The Anaesthetics of Architecture|

Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press||

A critique on the fetishisation and the privileging of the image as

the means with which the contemporary architectural culture pace

may be constituted, Leach’s caravan of essays aims to reproach

the “intoxicating world of the image”. The visual narcotics of the

image, as opposed to the lived experiences, are responsible for a

corruption which leaves the architectural discipline exposed in

front of –particularly- the eyes of the users, according to the

author. Spectacle and Event are, therefore, in a confrontational

status in a dialectic which favours the latter, but prejudges the

“victory” of the first.

> Leach Neil [editor]| 2009| Architectural Design: Digital Cities| Volume 79| No. 4 [July/ August 2009]| London: John

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Wiley & Sons||

“Digital Cities” explores the impact of digital technology on the

design and analysis of cities under the care of Neil Leach who is

the guest editor. In the interview of the latter with Manuel

DeLanda Urban Simulation is carefully discussed, and the extracts

of that discussion are nothing but fundamental in the exploration

of Simulation per se.

> Thackara John| 2005| In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World| London: The MIT Press||

A study on the added value of the technology and its devices to

the life of the contemporary individual, this book may as well

balance on the threshold between the Design and the Business

categorization, but it also reveals the junctions which describe the

two. The author, based on the circumstances and the situations of

today, delivers ways of innovation which can still transform what

is not prosperous now to what will offer better living standards to

the humanity tomorrow. Parts of the book which deal with

situation-based design, as well as flows and invisible fields are

relevant to the essay topic, especially because they are placed in

the contemporary context.

> Tschumi Bernard| 1996| Architecture and Disjunction|

Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press||

Tschumi’s writings are considered among the most important

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prerequisites in the field of event-based architecture, as well as in

the property of alternative readings which may be done in order

for the discipline of architecture to be understood. This book is a

melting pot of ideas which deal with the incidents, the experiences

and the images of architecture and throughout its collection of

essays (dated from 1975 to 1990), it negotiates the possibility of

disjunctions through its body. Furthermore, it is a clear statement

of both the precedents and the aftermath of the “The Manhattan

Transcripts” by the same theorist and practitioner – Bernard

Tschumi.

> Tschumi Bernard| 1994| The Manhattan Transcripts|

London: Academy||

Probably the architectural book with the best proportion of

thoughts/ words value, Bernard Tschumi’s theoretical project

consists of stories narrated in a three-square form appropriate to

architecture, but initiated by films. Influential in its topic and

multi-collective about the discussions that set off, “The

Manhattan Transcripts” suggests sequence, reciprocity and

conflict, among others, in an allegorical mannerism which turns

out to be less and less metaphorical as architecture evolves to the

discipline which is today, and will probably be tomorrow.

> Vidler Anthony [editor]| 2008| Architecture: Between Spectacle and Use| Williamstown, Massachusetts: The Clark||

Social idealism, technology, and the environmental impact are the

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main issues that the essays in this book deal with, along with the

realm of the spectacle. All were presented in a conference held in

2005 and all are products of an era that has hopefully surpassed

political and moral preoccupations and is focused on aspects

which enhance the role of architecture today. Whether the role of

it should be commercial or spectacular whatsoever is a question

that finds many answers within.

/ illustrations

[i] Miles Davis

http://www.fusionjazzer.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/

MilesDavis20.346181151.jpg

[ii] Riots in Paris, France, 1968

http://joelbrady.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/may68-01.jpg

[iii] Constant's New Babylon

http://joqnelson.com/constant.jpg

[iv] The Manhattan Transcripts

[Tschumi B.| 1994, p. 16]

[v] Sarajevo: Scar

http://historyofourworld.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/lw-ii.jpg

[vi] Alienation

http://www.reconnaissanceart.com/wp-

content/uploads/2008/04/alienation.jpg

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[vii] Melun-Senart, OMA

http://ensav.shinslab.net/wp-

content/uploads/2009/05/web0181.jpg

[viii] Schouwburgplein

http://netzspannung.org/cat/servlet/CatServlet/

$files/217934/Schouwburgplein-2.jpg

[ix] Parc de la Villette

http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki/80/Paris_parc_de_la_ville

tte_cite_des_sciences_la_geode_folie_200501.jpg

[x] Parc de la Villette, Winning Entry

http://www.imageandnarrative.be/uncanny/_img/3tschumi.gif

[xi] Parc de la Villette, OMA

http://www.arc1.uniroma1.it/saggio/DIdattica/Cmu/2001/Studi

o/lect/land/image.jpg

[xii] Pockets Full of Memories, 2001-2005

http://netzspannung.org/cat/servlet/CatServlet/

$files/264600/map_graphic.jpg

[xiii] The effect of Worms on the Internet

http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project_details.cfm?

id=268&index=16&domain=Computer%20Systems

[xiv] Flight Density

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http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project_details.cfm?

id=67&index=2&domain=Transportation%20Networks

[xv] Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao

http://architetour.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/guggenheim-

bilbao-1.jpg

[xvi] Director Interlocks

http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project_details.cfm?

id=175&index=10&domain=Business%20Networks

[xvii] The Regionmaker, MVRDV

http://architettura.supereva.com/books/2003/200309009/index.

htm

[xviii] Ballet Flats

http://cdn2.ioffer.com/img/item/137/762/741/sxXUziJoq4tsH

9K.jpg

/ cover quotes

[inside| back| top]

> Baudrillard J.| 1994, p.6||

[inside| back| bottom]

> Baudrillard J.| 1994, p.146||

[/]

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