:: STEF'S BLOG ::

:: Thursday, May 15, 2003 ::

VPRO __ MVRDV




:: Stephanie 11:20 AM [+] ::
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reading from MVRDV

architecture is an interface between reality + architecture + its users

architecture argues from a non-reality (the ideas) and sets this within the context of reality via the architectural work. It is a contextualization, the 'putting into circulation' within reality of an architectural system

architect as "generators of space"

"We know that the computer era has now taken over once and for all" its like the final ultimatum!! continues " We find ourselves caught in a moment in which we have a clear notion of something being different, yet we persist in trying to understand this according to concepts that don't on the whole, apply." this is a remarkably similar view posed by ( can/t remember now) about concepts not being too abstract but not abstract enough to understand a point.

The computer abstraction of architecture transforms our way of understanding the production process, but also the very meaning of architecture as a productive activity in relation to reality

proposes to conceive of architecture and its context as a non-linear progression which begins with the intent to the drawing to the building and finally ending with the users, rather the whole process as being an interwoven-web of relations .."architecture_ must be conceived as a complex interaction of flows of information, matter and energy, over and above the mere linear sum of parts---human, material or categorical---which comprise up

architecture as interface

endophysics (look it up) introduces the idea that our perception of reality is a question of interfaces

according to Godel's theorem of indefinition, it is only from outside a comples universe that it is possiblr to giom description of it

so architecture becomes the interface and it is this interface which transforms reality

classical arch was highly non-interactive and hierachical, now we have to take into consideration ideas and concepts of emergence.

form as not being reliant on aesthetic syntax

architecture which comes after modernity, interaction of other factors external to the archtiect himself is in the increase.

"THe aesthetic of interactivity are based on action much more than on visual perception" Dick Rijken

The consequence of architecture as the interface of computerized reality is that there is a direct relationship between information and form, in the postmodern project, information literally takes on a shape, a form , would this be a counter argumetn posed in the essay where immaterial data taking on form or being translated directly is wron? indirect translation is okay.....??


:: Stephanie 10:51 AM [+] ::
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"The system, the artificial world, interpellates each individual within it so completely that their perceived subjectivity is a complete fiction, a simulacrum, while their "real" subjectivity is completely unknown to them. Their fictional subjectivity is taken for granted, never questioned, even to the point where their real physical existence and perceived physical existence are literally worlds apart" taken form the matrix essay. its a twisted yet unsplitable co-existence.
:: Stephanie 9:21 AM [+] ::
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Terrorism of the present, according to Baudrillard, is concerned with transparency, melancholy, and fascination: simulacra are made transparent to reveal the loss of the real beneath them; nihilism is melancholic because it is overcome by an indifference inspired by the transparency of simulacra; the nihilist's fascination is fascination "by all forms of disappearance, of our disappearance"

the concept of disappearance features a lot this century, the loss of the physical domain which makes it difficult for architecture's progress....is it because the world is trying ot radically alter existence just because of technological advacement? introduction of computers? Is it because the unreal, the world of tech is so much more fascinating than this world we've always known? I was showing Kit Aymptote's project for the NYSE and he commented, why are architects trying to get themselves involved in the virtual? It should be left to the web designers!! which, when you think about it, makes complete sense!
:: Stephanie 9:19 AM [+] ::
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""more impressed" by the fake TV props than by the actual space vehicles " taken from the matrix essay blog.....isn't this like what massumi writes about the everyday being boring...and we seek this uncanny in the familiar, in order to stimulate ourselves? why is virtual reality so interesting otus all...bacause its something we're unable to grasp at this present time, take the history and lineage of architecture for example, tracing the progression of form, alternate geometry became so ;in' at one stage and it was the main focus for a period of time, now, its presence still remains but assymetrical form and non-linear geometry are being taken over by computer processes and the like. Architecture is beginning to leave its very core motivation...form!
:: Stephanie 5:17 AM [+] ::
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couplings

Social reality + fiction
material reality + imagination
ambiguous + natural
machine + organism
materialism + idealism
Representation + Simulation
Organism + Biotic Component
Depth, integrity + Surface, boundary
Heat + Noise
Physiology + Communications engineering
Small group + Subsystem
Perfection + Optimization
Organic division of labour + Ergonomics/cybernetics of labour
Functional specialization + Modular construction
Reproduction + Replication
Bioogical determinism + Evolutionary inertia, constraints
Community ecology + Ecosystem
Scientific management in home/factory + Global factory/Electronic cottage
Public/Private + Cyborg citizenship
Nature/Culture + fields of difference
Co-operation + Communications enhancemenet
Sex + Genetic engineering
labour + Robotics
Mind + Artificial Intelligence
Virtual + reality
familiar + unfamiliar
diagram + architecture
space + void
immaterial + materealism

:: Stephanie 3:42 AM [+] ::
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quotes from Donna Haraway's, "A Cyborg Manifesto

Irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes, even dialectically, about the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary and true

Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction

an argument for the cyborg as a fiction mapping our social and bodily reality and as an imaginative resource suggesting some very fruitful couplings

relation between organism and machine has been a border war. The stakes in the border war have been the territories of production, reproduction, and imagination. This chapter is an argument for pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction

the plot of original unity out of which difference must be produced

The cyborg is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence

the one can no longer be the resource for appropriation or incorporation by the other

nothing really convincingly settles the separation of human and animal. And many people no longer feel the need for such a separation

The cyborg appears in myth precisely where the boundary between human and animal is transgressed. Far from signalling a walling off of people from other living beings, cyborgs signal distrurbingly and pleasurably tight coupling

Late twentieth-century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and art)ficial, mind and body, self-developing and externally designed, and many other distinctions that used to apply to organisms and machines. Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert.

the boundary between physical and non-physical is very imprecise for us

miniaturization has changed our experience of mechanism. Miniaturization has turned out to be about power; small is not so much beautiful as pre-eminently dangerous

The ubiquity and invisibility of cyborgs is precisely why these sunshine-belt machines are so deadly. They are as hard to see politically as materially. They are about consciousness - or its simulation

So my cyborg myth is about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities

There is no drive in cyborgs to produce total theory, but there is an intimate experience of boundaries, their construction and deconstruction.

It means both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories. Though both are bound in the spiral dance


:: Stephanie 3:37 AM [+] ::
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Reality is a matter of consensus, not some arbitrary decision from the recesses of your mind.
:: Stephanie 5:09 AM [+] ::
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The Design Of Everyday Things Norman : Knowledge in The Head and In The World

cognitive physchology

knowledge required for precise behaviour is found in the head and in the world (partly distributed in both)......behaviour is determined by both

Natural + Cultural constraints these provide a restriction on manipulation of the functioning object

External constraints reduce memory load like rhymes, the constraints on words enable easier memorization of poems

organization of the environment directly influences and supports intended behaviour ( how people arrange their environments to suit their behaviour, like desks etc.) an example is how i used to use * to mark words i didn't understand and then list them at the foot of the page, but once there were too many words, the * symbols had to get more complicated and in the end it got too messy, so now, i just draw a line across the page so that even if it looks messy, it is actually clearer in its understanding.

Memory--- precision of memory depends on the amount of information available in the world (coin eg.)

knowledge of + knowledge how the first is facts and can be taught, the 2nd needs a demonstrative kind of teaching approach, like how to balance a ball etc.

procedural knowledge which is knowledge how , rote in its nature, is large subconcious

rote ~ A memorizing process using routine or repetition, often without full attention or comprehension: learn by rote ; Mechanical routine.

STM-- short term memory; memory of the present, information is retained in it automatically and retrieved without effort, but the amount is severely limited eg, 5-7 numbers
LTM-- long term memory is memory for the past, takes time to store and retrieve. when material makes no sense it has to be reintepreted until it can be retained ( that explains why when a text is understandable or you can relate to it, you tend to remember it!)....oh, the forgotten Massumi!

Memory for arbitrary things > items to be retained seem arbitrary > rote learning > alphabet + multiplication table + computer shortcuts

Memory for meaningful relationships > items retained form relationships with themselves or existing conditions > when things make sense > natural mapping(like the light switch on the 2nd floor and how it corresponds to the staircases and rooms and the way i remember them , through creating a 'natural mapping'. > interpretation is essential but should not be confused with understanding

Memory through explanation > material does not have to be remembered rather can be derived from some explanatory mechanism >
:: Stephanie 10:49 AM [+] ::
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PERSONAL ISLAND




A portable Island. On land, a rowboat is sunk into the ground ; its bow is filled with soil and grass, a tree growing out of the bow; the oars are embeded in the ground, as if rowing on land. You can step down into the boat, and sit inside, as if the land were water. Facing the boat, in the water, is its mirror-image: a rowboat wedged into a circular plane of grass. The rowboat combines with the grass: as in the rowboat on shore, its bow is filled with soil and grass, a tree growing out of the bow. You can step out onto the grass plane, and into the boat, and row: the boat takes with it the circular plane of grass - it pulls out of a semi-circular cut in the shore - you can row your island out to sea.
:: Stephanie 11:19 AM [+] ::
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TELE-FURNI-SYSTEM. 1997.Guggenheim Museum Soho, New York







A system of architecture and furniture, for viewing videotapes, that is made up of the video monitors that are being viewed. Each monitor is encased in a steel framework inserted into a four-foot grid of steel pipe, from floor to ceiling. The monitors are spread through the room at different heights and in different directions. The monitors are stepped on, sat on, reclined on, in order to look at other monitors; the monitors used as architecture and furniture are, in turn, viewed from other monitors - the monitors viewed are, in turn, architecture and furniture for viewing other monitors. The monitors make up seats, stairways, tables and beds; the stepping-and-seating surface of each monitor is covered by a pad of industrial carpet. Audio-speakers are attached to the pipes, at the height appropriate for each viewing position.The system is adaptable to any room, and infinitely expandable: anywhere there's a monitor that can be looked at and listened to, it needs another monitor as architecture/ furniture from which you can look and listen - anywhere a monitor can be used as architecture or furniture, it calls for another monitor you can look at and listen to.
:: Stephanie 9:29 AM [+] ::
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PROJECT: A transparent bookstore. Outside the bookstore, you're on the wrong side of books. Entering the bookstore is like going inside the books, from behind.The walls, and the structure of the walls, are clear acrylic, behind which the wood shelves are floating on air.The bookstore is opened from within: a block of academic books hinges apart and, in so doing, folds in a wall of art books. Suspended above the walls, a frame of fluorescent lights outlines the bookstore that might have been, were it not wedged open.








When you enter the bookstore, you come around to the right side of books: the front covers of art books, the spines and titles of academic books. The furniture -- a cashier's counter at one end, a reading table between bookshelves, chairs for the table and counter inside and for the videotapes outside - is made of the same wood as the bookshelves; the chair-backs are clear acrylic, like the walls. It's as if you're sitting on a bookshelf, like a book.
:: Stephanie 9:20 AM [+] ::
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WALL MACHINE. 1993. Storefront for Art & Architecture, New York, NY

Site: a narrow triangular space that serves as an alternative gallery for architecture and art.
Program: an artist / architect collaboration that results in a new façade for the gallery.
Project: an adjustable and variable façade, a usable wall.







The wall is white-painted plaster inside, and supra-board (a concrete-like panel) outside.The wall is divided into segments. Vertical seams separate the wall into panels that pivot, like revolving doors, side to side; the pivoting wall-panels can be fixed at various points, at different angles to the fixed wall - a wall-panel can be turned inside-out. Horizontal seams separate the all into panels that pivot like louvers, up and down; the higher panels function as windows, transoms, open at different degrees - the lower panels can be turned and fixed at right angles to the fixed wall, so that they function as tables and benches.
When all the panels are rotated, and turned on an angle, there's continuity between inside and outside: the gallery becomes part of the street, and the street becomes part of the sidewalk - the wall is an instrument to be used (turned and sat on and stepped through) in the middle of a continuous space, with no inside or outside.

When all the panels are pulled shut, flush with the fixed wall, light from the inside seeps outside, through the seams, and vice versa. The closed panels might all be supra-board, so that the gallery presents itself shut off, like a fortress; the closed panels might all be white plaster, so that the gallery is turned inside-out; or the panels might be a mix of gray supra-board and white plaster, a patchwork of inside and outside on a single surface.


:: Stephanie 8:55 AM [+] ::
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i think this image throws numerous obscurities on things like structural integrity, the nature of nature, the landscape, the integrity of elements, the notions of the ground plane, the concept of context, gravity etc...
:: Stephanie 8:52 AM [+] ::
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LIGHT BEAMS THROUGH A CORRIDOR. 1995-2000.
San Francisco International Airport





some of the light comes from the slit in the floor above while the others are actual translucent columns or beams which give off light. oh the illusion!!!!!
:: Stephanie 8:49 AM [+] ::
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acconci
:: Stephanie 8:36 AM [+] ::
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very interesting the work of vito acconci... check it out
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vito acconci GARDEN BETWEEN GARDENS. 1993.Metro-Tech Center, Brooklyn, New York (unbuilt)




PROGRAM: An urban garden, between the two existent gardens.

PROJECT: The existent gardens give birth to a new garden, in between them. The new garden feeds off the old gardens; the enclosed gardens result in an open garden.

The new garden is a horizontal plane of ivy, four feet off the ground. A system of pathways makes a maze through the plantings. From the sidewalk, an eight-foot wide pathway cuts through the center of the chain-link, across three-quarters of the garden. From this central pathway, four-foot-wide paths branch off to each side, and to the back. The smaller paths branch off into still smaller paths, two-foot-wide corridors, like vestibules into a room, that dead-end in seats made from the steel poles that support the fence. Some of the corridors lead to a single seat, embedded inside the green plane, some to a pair of face-to-face seats, and some to a triangle of seats for three people.

The garden is lit from below: at the bottom of each vertical fence, from each side, a line of spotlights casts a glow beneath the horizontal chain-link, up though the plantings.

As you walk into the garden, you're embedded in the garden; the garden is all around you, at chest-height. As you go inside, further and further, the garden comes in toward you, closer and closer. When you sit down, the planting is at your head, over your head, you sink down into the garden. Whereas the old garden is a garden for the eyes only, this new garden is a garden for the body.

how do we traditionally view a garden or more importantly, how are we accustomed to experiencing the world around us? through the realm of sight. this project then erases that or rather challenges that so that a new relationship is formed. unlike surveillance which re-analyzes the context of viewing or monitoring, based on a cultural impact, this readjusts existing or accustomed relationships. to test the familiar perhaps? is this the unfamiliar? and how does it then relate back to the essay?
:: Stephanie 8:32 AM [+] ::
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vito acconciCITY OF TEXT. 1997.
Page for The New York Times Magazine (September 28)


Assuming that the technology of the later 20th century has devalued material space, assuming that space, in the early 21st century, is not " in place" but "in mind"; assuming that computers and E-mail have reintroduced and revised and revitalized "writing" - what we have produced is a page that becomes building, lines of text that bend and fold into buildings, a city built up out of words. In the beginning there was the word, but then again, it's only words.

Cities Of Text


:: Stephanie 8:21 AM [+] ::
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