S U B V E RT I N G T H E G A Z E : REDEFINING THE OBJECT ROLE manipulating control and power structures between bodies Pre-Thesis | Tatjana Bianca Crossley
S U B V E RT I N G T H E G A Z E : REDEFINING THE OBJECT ROLE manipulating control and power structures between bodies
TAT J A N A B I A N C A C R O S S L E Y pre-thesis
SECTION I: INTRODUCTION
pre-thesis abstract
SECTION II: HISTORICAL CONTEXT Chapter One: Big Brother Syndrome
creating the object and the subject
Chapter Two: The Spectacle actors and audience
Chapter Three: The Depiction
the gaze in art
Chapter Four: Optic Devices historical manipulations of vision
Chapter Five: Inside and Outside domesticity vs. the city
SECTION III: APPLICATIONS IN ARCHITECTURE Chapter Six: Domestic Voyeurism Loos vs. Corbusier
Chapter Seven: Modernity and the Gaze obsession with transparency
Chapter Eight: Manifestation of the Gaze in Cyber-Space new modes of subject and object creation
SECTION IV: EXAMINING THE GAZE Chapter Nine: Spatial Studies diagrams and models
Chapter Ten: Pre-Renaissance Cities sites for exploration
Chapter Eleven: Architecture and the Gaze architectural precedents
Chapter Twelve: Abstractions of the Gaze design precedents
Chapter Twelve: Subverting the Gaze gaze manipulation helmet
Chapter Thirteen: Key Words definitions
SECTION V: CONCLUSIONS
thesis question
CONTENTS
SECTION I: INTRODUCTION pre-thesis abstract
From the moment this gaze exists, I am already something other, in that I feel myself becoming an object for the gaze of others. But in this position, which is a reciprocal one, others also know that I am an object who knows himself to be seen. Jacques Lacan Historically, cultural norms and accepted laws have defined power relationships, which in turn have affected the way in which buildings and cities are constructed. Private, semi-private, and public spaces are established that either block or invite the gaze of the other and emphasize this power structure of the other over the object of the gaze. The purpose of this thesis is to extrapolate a way in which we can construct buildings and cities that skew these established structures and create different moments of voyeurism and veiling that in turn define or confuse the power dynamic of the gazer and the gazed. The gaze and its associated definition of subject and object can clearly be seen Adolf Loos’ Moller House, his house for Josephine Baker and Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. All three of these examples create particular lines of sight throughout the architecture. The Moller House pushes the gaze inward and confuses the subject and object of the gaze. The House for Josephine Baker frames her in her swimming pool offering her as the object but also as the subject seeing her own reflection in the glass. Josephine becomes both a subject and object of her own gaze and others’ gazes. The Villa Savoye frames the exterior and sends the gaze outward, always making sure that the line of sight exits the building. On the urban scale, the gaze can be explored in the way that traditional Islamic buildings and cities are designed. By narrowing or widening streets and creating pockets within cities a semi private space is constructed that is supposed to act as a veil to outsiders. This semiprivate space becomes an extension of the home and those that belong to the pocket become an extension of the family. All these examples take pre existing power dynamics and further emphasize them in their construction. It is interesting to consider an architecture that works backwards, creating new lines of sights and moments of the gaze that, rather than emphasizing current norms, create their own.
SECTION II: HISTORICAL CONTEXT
CHAPTER ONE: BIG BROTHER SYNDROME creating the object and the subject
Foucault’s description of docile bodies explains how, through surveillance, bodies can be conditioned to follow societies expectations of them. One might compare his idea of a military restructuring of behavior to how society can impose a set of preconceived notions on those participating in that society. He describes a power subject over the object of control and how this structuring establishes itself through discipline. “The human body was entering a machinery of power that explores it, breaks it down and rearranges it.”1 He goes on to explain that discipline has the ability to organize architectural space and that it is inherently cellular and hierarchical, as this is the best way conceive of this total surveillance. “Discipline is an art of rank, a technique for the transformation of arrangements. It individualizes bodies by a location that does not give them a fixed position, but distributes them and circulates them in a network of relations.”2 This disciplinary enforcement becomes “genetic” as the habits are instilled and are passed from generation to generation. This is also reinforced by the permanence of the architecture and its role in actively participating in surveillance and discipline. “All power would be exercised solely through exact observation; each gaze would form a part of the overall functioning of power.”3 Foucault emphasizes the importance of the gaze in establishing a power between a subject and an object. He explains that the ideal apparatus for discipline allows a single gaze the ability to survey everything. Using the example of Bentham’s Panopticon Prison, a design that uses a radial arrangement of cells around a central viewing tower, he emphasizes the importance of the idea of the visible, subject of the gaze (from the tower), but the unverifiable, in that the inmate does not know when he is being gazed upon, in order to achieve control over him. Under the auspice that if somebody is being watched at all times they will behave a particular way, the Panopticon can be applied to other institutions- schools, hospitals, office buildings, etc.- and society in general. Creating cities that
Michel Foucault, “Part Three: Discipline,” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison: 138. IBID, 146. 3 IBID, 171. Fig. 1. Willey Reveley, Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. 1791. 1 2
have the ability for total surveillance would create an environment of docile bodies that carry out their lives following the expectations of their society.
Applying this more intimately, the gaze inherently will always produce a subject and an object. As Lacan explains the development of the ego, when there are at least two participants, there will always be an active one and a passive one, a master of the gaze and a slave to the gaze. While this description primarily focuses on child development, it can be applied to relationships that are established in adulthood as well. Though the idea of the gaze in this “primordial jealousy phase� reverses the power structure that Foucault identifies with his surveillance and power descriptions. Instead of the one watching being in the position of power, he becomes the passive participant, longing to after the active one and the active participant is being watched, perhaps even unbeknownst to him/her. It is interesting to consider how these two different interpretations of the gaze and its power structuring apply to gender and sexuality. It can be argued that a woman in charge of her sexuality might command the Fig. 2. Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Dior Ballgown, Paris. 1950.
gaze, controlling the lust of the watchful other but then on the flip side does she become an object of the other’s lustful gaze? Is she in a position of power or is she objectified? She may or may not realize she is being watched, so can the panopticon idea be applied, as she may not feel the pressure to behave in a particular way? It is important to identify these two very different types of gazes: one being a gaze of surveillance and control, the other being a gaze of longing and admiration. In order for the first to be effective the object must realize that there is a chance they he/she is being viewed. Both structure power but in completely radical ways of each other. However, it is also important to note that these gazes both stem from Lacan’s “Mirror Stage” theory. In child development, this sets the stage for the gaze, The subject objectifies him/herself by looking into the mirror and realizing that he/she is not both here and there. It is at this point that the child realizes separation from all other bodies. It is also from this point onward that the child longs to return to the state before this realization was made where all bodies are one. Obviously this is impossible, since it would mean that we are without identity. This stage is crucial in identity formation and explains both Foucault’s controlling gaze and Lacan’s longing gaze, the act of objectifying but also the desire to return to the idea of one body. “By partitioning, dividing, representing, inscribing the body in culturally determinant ways, it is constituted as a social, symbolic, and regulatable body. It becomes the organizing site of perspective, and, at the same time, an object available to others from their perspectives – in other words, both a subject and an object.” 4 This is the gaze described by Josephine Baker’s objectification of herself in the reflection of her image in the glass. Applying these gazes to the case study of the Josephine Baker house, some might argue that she is objectified by her audience as well as by herself, by seeing her reflection in the pool glass, and others might argue that she is actually put in the position of the master, having full control over her audience. This can be argued for many of Adolf Loos’s houses as they are designed under the auspice of structured surveillance and the ability to manipulate the gaze. His spaces determine what one is allowed or not allowed to view and therefore create very particular subjects and objects that are constantly changing. Using these gazes, is it possible to structure a built environment that has the power to determine and manipulate who ought to be in the position of control, perhaps fooling with societies preconceptions? Can this then be retrofitted into existing spaces to dramatically alter their previous power structures? Can the gaze be completely subverted? Architecture plays an important role in establishing power, especially in the idea of surveillance and panopticonism. It has the ability to physically obstruct the gaze or to frame the gaze, it can create a line of sight or disrupt it and it can structure hierarchies of the gaze.
4
Elizabeth Grosz, “The Ego and the Imaginary,” in Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction. 38.
C H A P T E R T W O : T H E S P E C TA C L E actors and audience
Spectacle. The image. Visual space. ‘Subjective’ space. Gaze. Desire. What might these terms mean to Foucault? In part one of his Discipline and Punish, he addresses the idea of spectacle: the spectacle of torture, the spectacle of execution, the spectacle of the criminal justice pre-prisons. He opens with a very graphic description of a quartering in March of 1757, “Damiens the regicide was condemned… ‘taken and conveyed in a cart, wearing nothing but a shirt, holding a torch of burning wax weighing two pounds’; then, ’in the cart…the flesh will be torn from his breasts, arms, thighs and calves with red-hot pincers, his right hand, holding the knife with which he committed the said parricide, burnt with sulphur, and, on those places where the flesh will be torn away, poured molten lead, boiling oil, burning resin, wax and sulphur melted together and then his body drawn and quartered by four horses and his limbs and body consumed by fire, reduced to ashes and his ashes thrown to the winds’”1. This scene displays the elaborateness, almost theater of an execution in the 18th century, intended to be viewed by an audience for the purposes of their “enjoyment” and as a reminder of what would become of them if they so chose to do something unlawful. Foucault continues this description for three pages in sickly detail. He is trying to convey the image, the scene. We live in a visual culture- a society of the spectacle as Debord accurately uses- where there are subjects and objects, those that watch and those that are watched.
Michel Foucault, “Part One: Torture,” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 3. Fig. 1. Dieric Bouts, The Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus. 1470-75.
1
In the case of this graphic account, we can assume that the townspeople were witness to the events of Damiens’ torture and execution, condemning him further with all of their gazes. This reverse Panopticon effect places the single criminal in the center of the many watchful eyes, as apposed to many criminals circling a single central watch-tower. Damiens is very aware that he is being watched and that his death is being made into a spectacle for the townspeople, emphasizing the fact further that he is a condemned man, someone to be made an example of. This chapter of the book portrays a lot of human emotion, an aspect that Foucault seems to ignore or gloss over in his third chapter, “Discipline.” He describes how public executions were phased out of the criminal system, hiding this spectacle behind prison walls and then making it more humane for the purpose of distinguishing the difference between the condemned and the executioner. Where previously, the executioner becomes almost a criminal himself due to the violent nature of the torture and execution, with the establishment of prisons and the study of more humane means of killing the accused, the executioner can add distance between his role and that of the criminal. One might think of the spectacle, the watchful gazes of those in the crowd, equitable to an in-humaneness that was associated with public death sentences. As mentioned previously, the aspect of compassion is somewhat lost in his third chapter. It assumes that people will do as they are told machinelike, that practice will breed efficient militaries, schools and hospitals. Foucault assumes that throughout generations of practice, we end up with a society of a certain discipline, one where people do as they are told without question. With his description of the panopticon and his confidence that such a system would not even need doors or prison bars he touches again on this idea of the all powerful gaze, condemning these prisoners to their respective cells. It becomes a sort of visual space that only works under the auspice that there are those that are viewed and those that view, objects and subjects respectively. The gaze becomes an aggressive act on its objectit is not a look of longing but rather a violent control over another. Going on a slight tangent, how might this apply to an idea of desire? Desire might be equated to lust and while Foucault’s panopticon is not a lustful gaze, this controlling gaze can also be applied to desire and lust: an objectification of a desirable object. Debord warns against this particular gaze and its use in advertising and mass media of today. He explains how the advertising industry creates sets that make the consumer desire particular products, including those that are modeling said products, in essence objectifying and further dehumanizing the model, her/his sex and sexuality, in order to sell something- whether it is a vacation, a brand, a car, etc.- similarly to how Damiens’ trial is made a spectacle, dehumanizing him in the process. Returning back to that theatrical description of the execution, the design of architecture and space also take on qualities of theater, creating places to be viewed and places to view. Foucault’s panopticon is extremely theatrical and while the “stage” is very different from that of the Damiens execution, it still distinguishes between the stage and the audience, the prison cells and the tower, respectively. In both cases, the gaze(s) are made separate from their person; the people watching are almost insignificant. What is significant is that they have focused a particular attention on the object to be viewed, Damien or the prisoners, model or object to be desired.
Fig. 2. J.R. Eyerman, LIFE magazine, December 15, 1952.
CHAPTER THREE: THE DEPICTION the gaze in art
In “Las Meninas”, Diego Velazquez inverts the subject and object of the gaze. He blurs the distinction between who’s who by creating a plethora of gazes in the scene. In addition to this he engages the gaze with the audience of the painting, us. We are looking at the court people who are looking at the royal couple who then stare back at the court people and who ultimately also stare back at us through the frame of the mirror hanging at the back of the room. This makes us both subject and object of a gaze, the princess and her court people the subject and object of a gaze and the king and queen the subject and object of a gaze.
At first inspection, the painter creates a scene where the princess, her people in waiting and the painter himself are the object of the gaze, emphasized by the diagonals in the drawing that make the princess the focus of the attention. This becomes a painting about her, the young Margaret Theresa and the gaze upon her, by particular subjects in her court and by her parents. It is also creates a gaze upon her by us as the subjects. The king Philip IV’s and his wife’s gazes surround the audience by existing in the foreground unseen by the ultimate Fig. 1. Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas. 1656, Oil on Canvas, 3.2m x 2.76m.
audience, us, and in the background gazing from behind, at their audience, in the painting and outside of it, and back at themselves. This action, having the mirror in the background that shows the couple staring back at themselves, emphasizes the gaze upon the couple because while at first glance it may seem as though the main gaze is that directed upon the focal point of the painting, upon a deeper inspection we realize that the main gaze is truly that upon the royal couple. Not only are they gazed upon by their courts people and their daughter, but they also are gazing at themselves. Their reflections become distinct entities separate from themselves, creating new subjects commanding a gaze. The couple appear to be the main object of the painter’s represented gaze. The mirror emphasizes that they are indeed making themselves the object of their own gazes because while it would normally show the broader scene, the backs of the courts people and the royals in a more understated way, the mirror in fact zooms upon the royal couple, ignoring the others in the room, as if it itself is the finished painting hanging upon the wall. Velazquez is very clever in his positioning and emphasis of characters. He has painted himself, somewhat in the shadows, in the work to ultimately direct the attention of the gaze to the king and queen, showing that while the princess is physically placed in the focal point of the painting, the true focus of the work and the subjects portrayed is beyond what we are privy to see. The first thing one might notice in the painting is the young princess in the glowing light, at the intersection of the two major diagonals created in the placement of characters. However, just above her head, we see the couple’s reflection. The slightly more sinister interpretation of the painting places us, the viewers of the painting, in the position of the object of the gaze by the court subjects and by the king and queen in the reflection of the mirror. So perhaps, ultimately, the purpose of the painting is to put us at this focal point, giving the painting a power over us.
This is quite unusual for paintings as their purpose was to traditionally serve their owner. If you compare this painting to ones like Velazquez’s “Rokeby Venus”, you see a drastically different use of the mirror and the gaze. In this painting, the purpose is to entertain the Fig. 2. Diego Velazquez, Rokeby Venus. 1647-51, Oil on Canvas, 122cm x 177cm. National Gallery, London.
viewer. The woman in the painting is put on display for her “owner” and is revealed both in back and in front totally objectifying her body. She becomes an object of her own gaze in addition to those looking at the painting. In contrast to this, the mirror in “Las Meninas” serves to empower the royal couple. They do not belong to any audience, but instead command a gaze over their courtly audience and the audience outside of the painting. We do not even have the privilege of seeing the royal couple, we merely see their reflection. That is likely the major difference between the use of the mirror in this painting versus “Rokeby Venus.” By placing the Venus in the painting in addition to her reflection, the painting objectifies her, but conversely since we do not see the royal couple in “Las Meninas” they now hold the power and instead objectify us by gazing at as through the mirror. Lacan’s mirror stage theory distinguishes the importance between the person and their reflection, the baby’s first realization that their reflection is separate from themselves. I wonder if it is because of this distinction that in one example by Velazquez, we are the subjects gazing on the objectified Venus, yet in the other, we become the objectified party and the reflection becomes one of the subjects of the gaze? This juxtaposition of multiple gazes creates multiple and alternating subjects and objects. Velazquez plays with who commands in each of these paintings. In the “Rokeby Venus,” this play is more simple and obvious. The intention is to provide a spectacle of the lady on display. She is most definitely the object and the viewer of the painting commands the gaze over her in her physical manifestation and also in her reflection. In “Las Meninas,” it is more difficult to discern who in fact is the subject and who is the object. Depending on how the painting is read this distinction changes. However, there is definitely a hierarchy of these distinctions. On the most superficial and obvious level, the princess becomes the object. Looking deeper, it is clear that the king and queen are the objects. On the deepest level, we are the objects and in fact the subjects are staring at us, critically, through the mirror and in the foreground of the painting. Velazquez’s painting offers a critique to the traditional style of painting making us, in effect, the objectified party.
CHAPTER FOUR: OPTIC DEVICES historical manipulations of vision
Dark versus light, interior versus exterior, light source versus aperture, observer versus object. Optical inventions draw upon these dualities and allow for an established formation of object and subject relationships. It is interesting to consider the emphasis of the sense of sight during the 1800s and early 1900s. This was a time of the optical devices (of the camera obscura, the thaumatropes, the phenakistiscope, the zootrope, the kaleidoscope, the diorama, and the stereoscope). “Vision, rather than a privileged form of knowing, becomes itself an object of knowledge, of observation” 1. “Knowledge was conditioned by the physical and anatomical functioning of the body, and perhaps most importantly, of the eyes” 2. All of these inventions play on ideas of voyeurism and spectacle. They deal with looking, but also deal with an objectifying gaze making the user the subject and the optical device the object. Like Foucault’s description of the execution scene in the first chapter of his Discipline and Punish, the theatricality invites the gaze. And as the execution scene has an object of the gaze and the “big eye” of the crowd being thought of as a mass rather than individual spectators, the optical devices work in a similar manner. While many of the devices can only be used by one person at a time, they create a dynamic where the spectator has a position of control over the scene inside similarly to the significance of the crowd at the execution. We are a society of the spectacle, after all, being drawn and captivated by visual stimuli over that of sound, smell, touch or taste, senses not traditionally associated with objectivity. These optical devices make accessible, en masse, scenes that may only be available to some and rely only on the sense of sight to transport the user to an alternate place. It is a representation, a “virtual” place that takes on a theatrical role. Interestingly, we are still a society of the spectacle, intrigued by flashy images, tricks of the eye and new virtual territories as modern iterations of these devices attempt to completely immerse the user in the space and even have gone so far as allowing entry into a virtual reality, creating environments where one visually feels as though he/she is actually inhabiting and walking around a particular space. These modern optical devices use technology to achieve the same end and while sound has become an important factor in these virtual realities, the other senses are still left to the wayside. What is this fascination? And why the separation of the visual sense from the others? With a greater understanding of the human body and mind, specifically the localization and separation of motor activities from perceptive activities, sight was further isolated. The aesthetic was given status over all else, especially amongst those of intellect and artistry, and therefore, vision became the dominant sense of comprehension. Ironically, given the nature of optical illusions and devices such as the thaumatrope, vision can be manipulated and deceived. Someone can have the sensation of seeing light without actually seeing light, as discovered by Müller, by stimulating the given sensory nerve. Sight, in actuality, cannot always be trusted as true knowledge. In the case of the thaumatrope or afterimage, the idea that the signals are not being sent to and erased from the brain fast enough is fascinating. By seeing two images in rapid succession, one is tricked into seeing the images together even though they do not exist as such. The optical inventions that followed the thaumatrope used deception and the concept of the after image in order to give the appearance of a gradually changing form or a three dimensional space. Objects like the phenakistiscope are the early predecessors of film, creating simple continuous motions from a series of fast moving static images. Through these visual experiences there is a level of tangibility achieved, ownership over the scene. “The prehistory of the spectacle and the “pure perception” of modernism are lodged in the newly discovered territory of a fully embodied viewer, but the eventual triumph of both depends on the denial of the body, its pulsings and phantasms, as the ground of vision”.3 1 Jonathan Crary, “Subjective Vision and the Separation of the Senses”, “Techniques of the Observer”. Techniques of the Observer, On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. MIT Press, 1990. 70. 2 IBID, 79. 3 IBID, 136.
Fig. 1. Abelardo Morell, Camera Obscura. Photograph.
In recent decades there has been a push back against the notion of the full reliance on vision, however. Artists have created “spectacle” that stimulates the other senses. And while society still heavily relies on vision, these installations are so successful because of the mysterious aspect of “the unknown”, the rouse of the veil, and full reliance on the other senses to understand. We are still in a society heavily seeking out visual spectacle but it seems new devices of entertainment are taking form in the sound and smell machines that create certain emotions by triggering memory receptors associated with the sounds and smells, and the tactile installations that persuade the user to experience the space by rolling about in it. One could even go so far to say that the fascination in cooking and fine dining of the last decade is one charged with the desire to stimulate and advance the sense of taste. With the loss of the visual aspect, there is no longer objectivity and subjectivity in the traditional sense but a new interpretation of object and subject relations based on our reactions to smell, touch, taste, and sound. Because we have associated knowing with sight, the removal of sight creates immediate mystery, but it is with this new intrigue that we can discover new avenues of understanding the senses and their implications on the formation of subjects and objects.
CHAPTER FIVE: INSIDE AND OUTSIDE domesticity vs. the city
“For something to be excluded two parts are necessary: something inside, some defined entity, and something outside” 1. This opening statement speaks volumes about the distinction that Agrest explains more thoroughly throughout the article between male and female and the exclusion of the female in architecture. By referencing Di Giorgio, she explains how the building is explicitly derived from the male. She argues that architecture is a representation of the body, more specifically the male body, through examples like Cesariano’s Homo ad Circulum and Di Giorgio’s generation of proportional systems from human physiognomy and anthropometric architectonic elements. She then goes on to explain Di Giorgio’s interpretation of the architect and the city: how the architect, while male, becomes feminized by birthing architecture with the help of the client who is paying for the architecture and again how the male body is feminized to give “nourishment” to a thriving urban environment. Agrest declares, “woman is thus suppressed, repressed, and replaced”2. While Francesco di Giorgio Martini was and still is considered an important Renaissance architect, his interpretation of architecture and the city remain dated and a bit far-fetched. He admits the importance of the “women’s roles” yet excludes her as that who performs them, substituting the male in her place in a way that in fact desexualizes all together those that replace the replaced. He states male’s importance in the creation of architecture and the nourishment of the city so he gives a womb. “Representation of femininity is subsumed by the maternal”2, womanhood is equitable with motherhood. Diana Agrest explains this substitution of the female with the male as a transsexual operation. This interpretation is problematic, however, because it comes from a same line of thinking as Freud’s “castrated male”. Instead of celebrating woman as a what she is, this theory assumes that she is a lesser man, not whole, castrated. Di Giorgio castrates his architect while architecture is being born and again when providing nourishment to the city. He even goes so far as to say that this castrated architect that takes on the feminine role of motherhood, is of lesser status than his male provider or client stating, “ As the woman can do nothing without the man, so the architect is the mother to carry this conception. When he has pondered and considered and thought [about it] in many ways, he ought to chose (according to his own desires), what seems most suitable and most beautiful to him according to the terms of the patron. When this birth is accomplished, that is, when he has made, in wood, a small relief design of its final form, measured and proportioned to the finished building, then he shows it to the father”3. Women are not in the equation at all, in Di Giorgio’s interpretation as well as in Freud’s- the world simply consists of males and lesser males and so therefore the feminine is excluded. This idea of exclusion can perhaps be related to the distinction between public and private, male and female. Elizabeth Grosz elaborates on this point in her chapter “BodiesCities” in Sexuality and Space. “The city orients and organizes family, sexual and social relations insofar as the city divides cultural life into public and private domains, geographically dividing and defining the particular social positions and locations occupied by individuals and groups”4. Historically women have been excluded from the public realm. During the age of the flaneur, if a woman was caught walking down the street alone, she was assumed to be a prostitute. She has always been pushed into the private realm away from the gaze of the public. This is toyed with in Loos’s Moller House. This is intended to be a house for the lady of the family so she may have full control over her realm, that of the home. However, the tables are turned with the idea that while she is surveying her home she is also under surveillance. Referring simply to the architecture and the idea of masculine and feminine. Loos’ intention was that the exterior of the house be fashioned masculine and the interior feminine. He plays with the us1 Diana Agrest, “Architecture from without: Body, Logic, and Sex.” Assemblage, No. 7. October 1988. 29. 2 IBID, 36. 3 IBID, 34. 4 Elizabeth Grosz, “Bodies-Cities,” Sexuality & Space. Princeton Architectural Press. 1992. 250.
ers, drawing them into the interior. Loos’ architecture is very much about bringing attention to the interior. Windows are for the purpose of letting light in rather than letting a gaze out- he wants to direct all gazes inwardly. He creates multiple stages for the purpose of creating different intimacies and control. “In the Muller House, the sequence of spaces, articulated around the staircase, follows an increasing sense of privacy from the drawing room, to the dining room and study, to the “lady’s room” with its raised sitting area, which occupies the center or “heart,” of the house”5. The lady’s room, which is the most intimate room, is also a stage giving the user control over the rest of the house. However, on the other hand, the intruder’s gaze is drawn up to the stage of the lady’s room blurring the distinction of who is the object and who is the subject. Private spaces of the home are made public to intruders. “The inhabitants of Loos’ houses are both actors in and spectators of the family scene-involved in, yet detached from, their own space. The classical distinction between inside and outside, private and public, object and subject becomes convoluted”6. He creates a theatrical architecture and does a similar thing in his house for Josephine Baker, making a spectacle of her in the swimming pool. He uses the same method of directing the gaze inwardly in a way that makes Josephine Baker the object and her visitors the subjects of the gaze. In addition to receiving her visitors’ gazes she also receives her own gaze, as the light from the up-lit pool makes the glass reflective, becoming the object and subject of her own gaze. “She sees herself being looked at by another: a narcissistic gaze superimposed on a voyeuristic gaze. This erotic complex of looks in which she is suspended is inscribed in each of the four windows opening onto the swimming pool. Each, even if there is no one looking through it, constitutes, from both sides, a gaze”7. Again he blurs the distinction of the object and subject relationships as he did in his Moller House, and plays with the realms of private and public.
Beatriz Colomina, “The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism,” Sexuality & Space. Princeton Architectural Press. 1992. 79. 6 IBID, 80. 7 IBID, 90. 5
S E C T I O N I I I : A P P L I C AT I O N S I N A R C H I T E C T U R E
C H A P T E R S I X : D O M E ST I C VOY E U R I S M Loos vs. Corbusier
Le Corbusier once wrote, ‘Loos told me one day: “A cultivated man does not look out of the window; his window is a ground glass; it is there only to let the light in, not to let the gaze pass through.’ ”1 While Loos’s houses direct the gaze inwardly, Corbusier seemed to have disregarded this advice and created a reverse condition that directs the gaze outwardly. Because of this distinction, very different subjects and objects are created that execute particular types of gazes. For Loos, the subject is the stage actor in the space, experiencing the very theatrical quality of the architecture. The gaze in his houses, particularly that of the Moller House, fosters a sense of defensiveness and surveillance. For Corbusier, the subject is the camera eye, the inhabitant becomes incidental in the architecture and only his trace is left in the photographs. His constructed gaze is one of recording and registering, in the case of the Villa Savoye, the surrounding landscape. Loos’s windows are treated like extensions of the walls that enclose the space. They are typically opaque or the curtains are drawn. In addition to this, all the built in furniture is faced to specifically take the user’s gaze to the interior of the space, with their back to any window. Loos’s architecture invites encounters. Much like a play, he orchestrates the path within the space and organizes the bodies within it such that they look back onto where they have come from rather than where they are going. The procession is quite static, the gaze is a stationary one that occurs at each point along the path looking out for “intruders” that may enter at any moment. His interiors are about comfort, that is, comfort in security. He uses the idea of surveillance, theater boxes and intimate spaces in order to achieve this. The theater boxes Loos creates in his architecture are female spaces. They overlook the social spaces of the house but also exist in the threshold between private and public. In the Moller House, the most intimate room is that of the lady’s room, at the end of the procession of spaces; a volume that ironically protrudes out to the street from the main massing of the rest of the house and has the largest window in the house, again intended for light only. The lady who would occupy this space would have the ability to survey the rest of the house but is also back lit by the window behind her, which calls attention to her silhouette to any intruder in the spaces below. She is put on a stage. The gaze of the intruder travels up to the raised alcove and in that action the object and subject exchange places. What once was a position of surveillance for the lady of the house becomes a place from which she is caught and is herself being watched. “The inhabitants of Loos’s houses are both actors in and spectators of the family scene- involved in, yet detached from their own space. The classical distinction between inside and outside, private and public, object and subject, becomes convoluted.”2 Another mechanism Loos uses to direct the gaze to the interior is his play with boundaries, the virtual and the real. For example, in the Steiner House, he uses a mirror placed at eye level just below an opaque window. Interior becomes exterior. Visual space does not necessarily correspond to physical space. His raised rooms create conditions where a visual connection may exist but the physical connection does not. In this way, he breaks down the concept of the boundary condition and what is inside and outside. This is further exemplified in his House for Josephine Baker. The top lit glass pool allows her to be visually accessible to her guests but not physically accessible. Again, Loos directs the gaze to the interior, specifically to this pool where he imagined Josephine Baker to swim when she was entertaining guests. And again, he plays with the subject and object relationships. Josephine Baker becomes the object of the gaze of not only her guests but of herself, as she would be backlit, and the light would cause the glass to reflect her own image. It creates a layering of gazes “a narcissistic gaze superimposed on a voyeuristic gaze.”3 However, she is inaccessible by virtue of the Beatriz Colomina, “The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism,” Raumplan versus Plan Libre. 010 Publishers, Rotterdam. 2008. 32. 2 IBID, 34. 3 IBID, 37. 1
glass panes that divide herself and her guests. In essence he is again creating a theater box like that of the Moller House that “places the occupant against the light. She appears as a silhouette, mysterious and desirable, but the backlighting also draws attention to her as a physical volume, a bodily presence within the house with its own interior. She controls the interior, yet she is trapped within it.”4 Le Corbusier designs his spaces such that the gaze is directed to the windows and to the exterior view. The windows frame the surroundings. The gaze is in motion, constantly being drawn through the spaces and out to the exterior, following another that seems to have inhabited the space prior, contrary to Loos’s static gazes that prepare for an arrival of an other. Interestingly, in the photographs of the Villa Savoye indications of the inhabitant show up and these are all male objects, presumably those belonging to the architect, a pack of cigarettes, a hat, sunglasses. Walking through the visitor is given a voyeuristic look at the house and it’s landscape. Corbusier blurs interior and exterior, he tries to bring the exterior into the space of the house and the interior into the landscape. Even on the terrace particular frames are constructed around the landscape. This gaze becomes one of dominance over the exterior; it is not one of surveillance, as seen in the Loos houses, but of registration. “If the window is a lens, the house itself is a camera pointed at nature. Detached from nature, it is mobile. Just as the camera can be taken from Paris to the desert, the house can be taken from Poissy to Biarritz to Argentina.”5 Compared to Loos’s houses, Corbusier is not trying to achieve comfort; he is specifically crafting a series of views. The occupant of this house is estranged from it, almost irrelevant. The Villa Savoye is merely about the gaze, of the visitor or the camera, and the objectification of the landscape through the ribbon windowed-framed moments. Corbusier’s architecture is much more sterile than that of Loos, the spaces are not intimate. The architecture becomes a means to highlight what Corbusier wants the visitor to look at. Light floods the rooms of the Villa Savoye, contrast to Loos’s Moller House where the theater of the architecture allows for shadows, silhouettes, and light upon certain moments of the procession. For Corbusier, mystery and intrigue is achieved by the notion that the visitor/ camera is following the path of another. For Loos, the mystery is achieved by going through IBID, 40. IBID, 46. Fig. 1. Adolf Loos, Moller House, Living Room. Vienna, Austria. 1927-1928.
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the spaces, uncertain if there will be an encounter with another. In the Villa Savoye, humanism is nearly removed from the architecture, further drawing the attention to the windows and the landscape that is then objectified by the gaze. In the Moller House, each room is crafted in order to create a sense of security for the user, but also creates an interesting dynamic between the user and the would-be intruder. Both Corbusier and Loos specifically refer to the male and female through clothing and its relationship with architecture. Loos thinks of the exterior of the house in terms of male clothing and the interior of the house in terms of female clothing. To elaborate, he sees the distinction between interior and exterior as one of intimacy versus social. The purpose of the exterior of the house is to protect the interior. The exterior is masculine. The interior is the space of sexuality. It is feminine. However, his architecture seems to go against these beliefs. He creates membranes between the exterior and interior and plays with the notion of interiority. Corbusier comments on and celebrates the evolution of women’s fashion, comparing it to male fashion that is uncomfortable. Women’s fashion has changed to be comfortable and to allow women freedom to carry on with modern life. However, by admitting that dominance is no longer based on the “ostrich feathers in the hat” in male fashion and that it is now constituted by the gaze, he objectifies women. “Male fashion is uncomfortable but provides the bearer with ‘the gaze’, ‘the dominant sign’; woman’s fashion is practical and turns her into the object of another’s gaze: ‘Modern woman has cut her hair. Our gazes have known (enjoy) the shape of her legs.’ A picture. She sees nothing. She is an attachment to a wall that is no longer simply there. Enclosed by a space whose limits are defined by a gaze.”6 While both Loos and Corbusier play with notions of the exterior and interior and both have a certain theatricality with their architecture and its documentation, they create very opposing spaces. Loos draws the gaze to the interior. It is a static gaze that is composed in each room to look back upon the path travelled rather than the path to come. The subject and object of the gaze fluctuates between the lady of the house in her room overlooking the rest of the house and the intruder looking up at her silhouette. He creates comfort by using intimacy and surveillance. Corbusier draws the gaze to the exterior. It is in motion that is constantly drawn to the ribbon windows and the panorama of the landscape. The subject of the gaze is the visitor/ camera and the object of the gaze is the landscape that is being framed by the windows. Corbusier is not concerned with comfortable space, but instead is interested in the composition of frames in the architecture. The architecture is there for the purpose of identifying the views. “Architecture is not simply a platform that accommodates the viewing subject. It is a viewing mechanism that produces the subject. It precedes and frames its occupant.”7
Beatriz Colomina, “The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism,” Raumplan versus Plan Libre. 010 Publishers, Rotterdam. 2008. 51. 7 IBID, 35. Fig. 2. Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye. Poissy, France. 1928-1931.
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CHAPTER SEVEN: MODERNITY AND THE GAZE obsession with transparency
Since the Renaissance there has been a desire for lifting the veil. Science, literature, art and architecture pushed the revelation. Leonardo Da Vinci, arguably the most well known “Renaissance man,” turned to human dissections to examine the workings of the body. He sketched in detail the muscle groups, ligament connections and bone structures, lifting the veil of the human skin, in order shed light on the biological mechanisms of the body and to advance the medical profession. There was a passion to expand human understanding of not only itself but of the world and it’s systems. Transparency was and still is equitable to democracy, equality, knowledge and truth. Additionally with greater knowledge and transparency comes greater assumed control. With greater visibility, the gaze can exist more easily and assume its role of power over the object of the gaze. “Should we now generalize and say that what is true of perception is also true in the order of the intellect and that in a general way all our experience, all our knowledge, has the same fundamental structures, the same synthesis of transition, the same kind of horizons which we have found in perceptual experience? “No doubt the absolute truth or evidence of scientific knowledge would be opposed to this idea. But it seems to me that the acquisitions of the philosophy of the sciences confirm the primacy of perception.”1 How does this apply to architecture? By revealing and perceiving how buildings and cities operate, urban planning and architectural design changed dramatically. This motive of transparency continued up through modern time. Haussmann radically transformed Paris by creating his open boulevards that allowed for greater visibility, direct access and urban ventilation. It was a hygienic action that greatly revolutionized living conditions in Paris as well as one of creating specific paths throughout the city that connected important points such as the Arc de Triumph and the Louvre. It was a strategic move to implement greater pride among the Parisians by having constant iconic visual reminders of who they were as well as a way to access greater control of the city and its inhabitants. Architects began to create thin architectures that would reveal their own structures. The purpose of these architectures was to not only be lived it but to be viewed, they called upon the gaze. Building facades, the veil in the case of this argument, became thinner and thinner until they were reduced to the thickness of a pane of glass, again for the purpose of revealing the structural systems. With the advent of technologies that allowed for the structure of the building to be separated from the facade, glass buildings were the next step in creating an architecture that disappeared into the urban fabric while allowing for even greater visibility. The gaze could pass through. Ironically many of these glass buildings are “invisible monuments” or skeletons of monumental forms. Paradoxically, they disappear by virtue of their materiality yet expose aspects of their construction. It seems that this obsession with transparency and visibility has led to an obsession with architectural invisibility. Take for example the glass pyramid by I. M. Pei in front of the Louvre. This building literally exposes all of its structure. It is extremely iconic and monumental but unlike monuments of the past like the Brandenburg Arc, the Eifel Tower, the Arc de Triumph to name a few, the material of the glass suggests a timid monumentality. It sits in front of the iconic Louvre palace but does not want to obstruct it- lets that gaze pass through. Additionally ironic is the Biblioteque Nationale de France by Dominique Perrault. These glass towers are supposed to grant visual access to the books within, suggesting an egalitarian France where all citizens can utilize the national library. However, only certain people can enter the libraries and in order to protect the books, wooden shades have been built in a few feet from the windows blocking that initial visual access. Whereas before the building facade would have acted as the veil, there is a new push towards veiling behind the facade- in this case, with the wooden shutters Architects have been seduced by glass curtain walls and have been experimenting with ways in which to make these invisible architectures. Such structures are the Glass House by Philip Johnson, the Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe and the Maison de Verre 1 Merleau-Ponty, “The Primacy of Perception and its Philosphical Consequences,” The Essential Writings of Merleau-Ponty. Harcourt, Brace. 1969. Alden L. (trans) Fisher. 55.
by Pierre Chareau. Each of these houses has gendered implications. In the Glass House, the architect was able to build his personal space. Because it was his own home and, arguably, because he was a man he was able to inhabit the space very differently from Dr. Edith Farnsworth in her house. She is known for complaining about how she could not live in the space comfortably without curtains, to the dismay of Mies. This points out a very specific gendered distinction between freedom versus exposure caused by visibility. While Philip Johnson could live supposedly freely in his glass home, he still constructed a counter building- the all brick building next to it where he took his more intimate encounters. In both cases it seems, however, some privacy was desirable. So it brings me to the question, why do we strive for total visibility when it causes discomfort? Why does transparency and greater access to the gaze equitable to freedom when it affects how we are allowed to behave? Pierre Chareau created his Maison de Verre with very particular gendered spaces and private and public spaces. This home was all about surveillance and allowing the gaze to exist in very particular channels allowing for Mme Dalsace to watch over her husband and for the secretary to keep an eye on the clients. Going up the floors the house went from most public to most private. Similarly the house from front to back went from most public to most private. There were particular paths for the different users of the building with individual entries and stairways for each the clients, the servants and the family. The man of the house, also a doctor- an ob/gyn to be specific, had his practice on the first floor. The lady of the house could spy on her husband making sure there was no funny business with her husband and his clients through specific apertures. The main spectacle of the house is the glass block facade that let light into the main living area of the home. To allow for greater privacy at night, theater like spot lights were shined on the glass so that the inside would not be as visible to the outside- a method to have some control over the amount of exposure, a way to re-veil an unveiled home. This fascination with glass has certainly not gone away in the 21st century and it has become a means of delineating and creating visible, quantifiable space. Mies’s Seagram building “addresses itself to the eye alone, and the result is a new kind of architectural space and experience. But here I am attempting to interpret opticality not as an ontological threshold but rather as a specific cultural response; the surface is the architectural form adequate to the new mode of production- the production of space.”2 Every major architectural firm is guilty of being seduced by this material. Looking at the skyline of Dubai and now the rapidly growing skylines of many Chinese cities, one thing just about all of these buildings have in common is the glass curtain wall with its aluminum mullions. Each skyscraper tries to be unique while conforming to this material sameness. Each building stares back at the next one. There is a narcissism in the reflections, a voyeurism in the transparencies. The gaze passes through and around objectifying the architecture and its contents.
K. Michael Hays, “Abstraction’s Appearance (Seagram Building),” Autonomy and Ideology, Positioning an Avant-Garde in America. 288.
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Fig. 1. Mies van der Rohe, Seagram Building. New York City, New York. 1958.
C H A P T E R E I G H T : M A N I F E S TAT I O N O F T H E G A Z E I N C Y B E R- S PAC E new modes of subject and object creation
How does the gaze manifest in our technological world? The 21st century has brought with it a wider dispersal of information and access through the internet. People’s lives are constantly on display through platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Our internet searches are being regulated in order to provide us with easier access to information that may be of greater interest to us. Social environments exist in virtual worlds where people can choose their aliases, refine their personalities and exhibit a version of themselves to the public. These aliases provide opportunities for new gazes to form. Instead of one on one personal encounters, technology has provided a rapid fire, visual overload of gazes- glimpses into people’s personal lives through something as easy to navigate and scroll through as a “news feed”. Assuming I accept someone’s “friend request”, that person has access to my entire Facebook history (note: it is the curated history for the created alias which reflects an aspect of the actual individual)- photographs, posts, political disposition, etc. While the gaze before was merely visual confrontations, it now becomes an even more voyeuristic access to the personal histories that go along with the specific alias. “Many people spend most of their day alone at the screen of... a computer. Meanwhile, social beings that we are, we are trying (as Marshall McLuhan said) to retribalize. And the computer is playing a central role. We correspond with each other through electronic mail and... join interest groups whose participants include people from all over the world. Our rootedness to place has attenuated... In Political terms, talk about moving from centralized to decentralized systems is usually characterized as a change from autocracy to democracy... It may, for example, be possible to create an illusion of decentralized participation even when power remains closely held. In terms of our views of the self, new images of multiplicity, heterogeneity, flexibility, and fragmentation dominate current thinking about human identity.”1 We no longer rely on visual encounters but instead turn to understanding individuals though the aliases they create for themselves. The ability to access people through the internet extends much farther than physical appearances or even personal use. It extends to industry and information collection. Google tracks each individual’s search histories and then uses this information to create refined searches for future inquiries. It also uses this information to cater specific adds to the side bars. Moments after looking at a product on a website, my advertisements become images of related products if not the products themselves. The gaze extends to a form of tracking- Big Brother’s gaze, except in this non fiction, Big Brother becomes Google, Facebook, the tech industries that control how we search for information and precisely what information we receive, not to mention our devices. Our phones record our GPS, our service providers keep records of our phone calls and texts. While we have presumed access to the knowledge provided by the internet, it is an extremely curated knowledge. Just as we curate the personality of our aliases, the internet behaves the same way, determining what we should be seeing based on previous interests and personal data. These technologies have created a virtual panopticon. They are the central tower keeping watch and recording our every movement. “Michel Foucault’s work, for example, elaborates a perspective on information, communication, and power that undermines any easy links between electronic communication and freedom. He argues that power in modern society is imposed not by the personal presence and brute force of an elite caste but by the way each individual learns the art of self-surveillance. Modern society must control the bodies and behaviors of large numbers of people. Force could never be sufficiently distributed. Discourse substitutes and does a more effective job... In our day, increasingly centralized databases provide a material basis for a vastly extended Panopticon...From Foucault’s perspective, the most important factor would not be how frequently the agents [of surveillance] are used or censorship is enforced... what matters Sherry Turkle, “On the Internet,” Life on the Screen, Identity in the Age of the Internet. Simon & Schuster, New York. 1995. 178.
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most is that people know that the possibility is always present.”2 It is because of this possibility that we risk becoming docile bodies consumed by the voyeurism and narcissism provided by cyber-space. The gaze manifests in each of these scenarios but takes on different vocabulary in order to present itself in a more politically correct way. It becomes security, surveillance, intended for our safety, patriotic. In reality, this “patriotism” is an invasion of privacy, the gaze has infiltrated not only visual aspects of our lives, but every mundane detail of our lives. It ranges from the voyeuristic aspects of looking at a “selfie” to the obsessive collection of data of everything we do online. The way the system and our society is created, it is impossible to be completely offline- impossible to avoid society’s gaze, whether one is connected via email, credit scores, search histories, residency information, citizenship, hospital records, etc. There is always the Panopticon and we each inhabit our own cell around the all seeing eye. The gaze is everywhere, now how can we subvert it?
Sherry Turkle, “On the Internet,” Life on the Screen, Identity in the Age of the Internet. Simon & Schuster, NY. 1995. 247-248.
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SECTION IV: EXAMINING THE GAZE
C H A P T E R N I N E : S PAT I A L S T U D I E S diagrams and models
Spatial diagrams showing moments of confrontation
Spatial animations showing moments of confrontation
animation can be found at: https://vimeo.com/113975509
Camera Obscura
alluminum backing frosted plexi
The camera obscura works with a controlled light source, the pin hole, and a surface to project upon. It can be achieved at the scale of a room or a hand held device. The smaller the pin hole, the more sharp the image which is reversed on the opposite surface. pin hole
CHAPTER TEN: PRE-RENAISSANCE CITIES sites for exploration
Marrakech, Morocco “The Red City”
Cordova, Spain “The City of Juba”
Seville, Spain “No me ha dejado” (“It has not abandoned me”)
Venice, Italy “The Floating City” “The City of Canals”
CHAPTER ELEVEN: ARCHITECTURE AND THE GAZE architectural precedents
Moller House, Adolf Loos
Josephine Baker House, Adolf Loos
Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier
Maison du Verre, Pierre Chareau
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Peter Eisenman
Salk Institute, Louis Kahn
C H A P T E R T W E LV E : A B S R A C T I O N S O F T H E GAZE design precedents
Hรถvding Helmet, Airbag for Cyclists
Intimacy, Daan Roosengaarde
Stealth Wear, Adam Harvey
Facial Recognition Subversion, Adam Harvey
C H A P T E R T H I RT E E N : S U B V E RT I N G T H E G A Z E gaze manipulation helmet
Premise: The idea behind the Gaze Subversion Helmet was designing a device that would identify the gaze. Initially the design included tracking the heart rate of the user and drawing connections between an increased heart rate and a confrontation, the moment when the eyes lock and the pulse quickens. The concern with this method was that many stimuli could cause an increased heart rate and how to identify when the gaze was the stimuli. Facial tracking offered a more precise way of capturing the manifestation of the gaze. The design of the helmet developed around this, starting out as a pair of glasses in earlier iterations and then evolving into a full head covering. How it works: A facial recognition camera, operated by a raspberry pi, controls the gaze of the wearer by obscuring his/her vision once a gaze is met. This device brings awareness to the gaze. Again, there is a blur between the distinction with who is the subject and object, as the relationship between the two is constantly in flux. The actors are the user, the camera, and the external participant. If a gaze is met, the prosthetic draws attention to the fact and blocks the view of the user while preventing the external participant from engaging visually with the user. The opaque aperture as well as the acrylic materiality of the rest of the form is naturally reflective so when a gaze is met and the aperture becomes opaque both the user and participant are made even more aware of their confrontation by virtue of seeing their own reflection looking back at them. While the visibility of the user and participant is constantly changing based on this identification of the gaze, the camera has a constant gaze as it is in control of the visual confrontation.
video can be found at: https://vimeo.com/113975584
C H A P T E R F O U RT E E N : K E Y WO R D S definitions
au•di•ence: noun a group of people who gather for the spectacle; in Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, the crowd that collects to watch the public execution bo•dy: noun a person’s whole physical self; the object or subject of the gaze Be•a•triz Co•lo•mi•na: noun an architectural historian that explores questions of sexuality and space con•trol: verb to direct the behavior of; to have power over; the gaze in the Panopticon asserts control over its prisoners eye: noun organ of sight; interface for the gaze form: noun the shape of something Fou•cault: noun a french philosopher and social theorist that analyzes docile bodies and the affects of the gaze on behavior gaze: verb to fix the eyes in a steady intent look noun a long and steady look that creates objects and subjects that are in continuous fluctuation gen•der: noun the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with male or female, masculine or feminine glass: noun a hard usually transparent material i•den•ti•ty: noun the qualities that make a particular person or group different from others in•ter•face: noun the area at which different things meet and communicate with or affect each other in•ter•ven•tion: noun an act that influences what happens or how things are perceived in•tru•der: noun someone who goes into a place where they are not welcome know•ledge: noun information, awareness La•can: noun a French psycho-analyst responsible for the “mirror-stage” theory in child development man•ip•u•la•tion: noun an act of control or change mir•ror stage: noun a concept in Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory; the moment at which the child recognizes his/her own subjectivity by self objectification nar•cis•sism: noun love for one’s own body ob•ject: noun the thing on which the gaze is fixated
ob•ject•if•ic•a•tion: noun act of treating as an object ob•ject•iv•it•y: noun ability for being objectified per•cep•tion: noun the way in which you understand something or someone place: noun a specific area po•wer struc•tures: noun a particular hierarchy of control re•flec•tion: noun something that shows the effect, existence, or character of something else sex•u•al•i•ty: noun the sexual habits and expressions of a person so•cial: adjective of or relating to people or society in general so•cial con•structs: noun the social mechanism created by society; the perception of individuals or groups based on cultural and social practices so•ci•e•ty: noun people living together in an organized community with shared laws, traditions and values space: noun an area that is used or available for a specific purpose spa•tial: adjective of or relating to space and the relationship of objects within it spec•ta•cle: noun something that attracts attention sub•ject: noun the person executing the gaze sub•jec•ti•vi•ty: adjective the ability of someone to be a subject sub•ver•sion: noun act of undermining tech•no•lo•gy: noun the use of science in industry and engineering the•at•er: noun a space for a show, spectacle or entertainment trans•par•en•cy: noun a quality or state of being able to see through veil: noun something that covers or hides something else vi•sion: noun the ability to see voy•eur•ism: noun act of seeing something that is considered to be private win•dow: noun an aperture that allows one to see out or in or lets light pass through
SECTION V: CONCLUSIONS thesis question
Why is there a tendency to associate visibility and transparency with truth, democracy and knowledge? Are there other forms of knowledge that come from the veil? How can we avoid the gaze, subvert it? Through the process of creating a device that draws awareness to the gaze, the Gaze Subversion Helmet, many fascinating questions arise. The form of the helmet lends it to be further objectified when the aperture becomes opaque. How does this heighten the experience and the awareness of the objectifying gaze? As a helmet by itself, when the gaze is recorded and the face of the user concealed, it is natural to look at the rest of the user, leaving the body vulnerable to the gaze of the external participant and the user in the dark, so to speak, unable to look out. The body becomes an object for the gaze. What if we were to imagine an entire suit or armor that functions similarly with different forms encasing the body, arms and legs? Each part of the Gaze Subverting Armor would contain facial recognition cameras that could identify when someone was gazing upon particular body parts and make those corresponding encasements opaque to obstruct that line of sight. While this device does not address the digital realm of cyber-space, it focuses on the physical confrontations and a heightened awareness of the moment of which the gaze manifests. Its purpose is to react to this particular physical confrontation of real bodies and gazes. Additionally, this device has only taken into consideration one user but what if there were multiple users. Would this cause it to function differently or would there be a never ending fluctuation of visibilities? These questions ultimately lead me to my thesis, taking these analyses and applying them to a larger scale that still maintains the intimacy of human scale. Ultimately, architecture is for its users but architects have forgotten this. We are a species that requires privacy, yet that privacy has been deprived of us through concepts of total visibility and the ever present gaze. As seen in architectures like the Farnsworth House, despite the freedom associated with the concept of a glass house, security and comfort is achieved by putting up curtains, re-veiling the unveiled. Instead of creating transparent architecture, how can we design architecture that plays with nuances of visibility, allowing for the gaze to manifest at particular moments and then denying it at others? What could we learn from these nuances that we would not learn from a society of total visibility? Or even a society of total veiling? Adolf Loos toys with the dynamics of the gaze. He manipulates its directionality, bringing it inwardly and sets up stages from which different gazes can manifest. While his architecture does not necessarily subvert the gaze, it creates interesting moments and very specific lines of sight. Similarly, Le Corbusier manipulates the gaze by forcing it onto the surrounding landscape but again does not subvert it. For further study Louis Kahn’s architecture does not focus on these lines of sight, typically- though they are definitely apparent in the Salk Institute. Like architecture of the medieval period, the attention is applied to moments and space creation. It becomes more about the user experience at any given time using shadows and light, contrasting the hidden and the revealed, rather than allowing total visual access. Returning to an initial concern of gender and sexuality and its role in city construction, architecture has the ability to change societal habitus. By creating an architecture of visual nuances that allow and deny the gaze, we can greater understand the human psyche and from this begin to create particular spaces that manipulate object and subject relationships.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WORKS CITED
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