CONSENSUS IREALE
On reality and construction Amalia Anastasia Gisca Chitac
ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE SECOND YEAR, SECOND TERM HISTORY & THEORY STUDIES TUTOR: ELENI AXIOTI
PART I INTRODUCTION
On devising ideologies Building on the premise of their previous experiences and their power of analysis, the individual reviews the commodities currently in favour with the collective agreement. In an “unhealthily nostalgic lamentation”1, shortcomings and virtues are identified under the scrutiny of the individual’s highly subjective scope. Then, they proceed with fabricating particular versions of one forthcoming reality. Their only spare hope, is that the worlds they envision become physically tangible. Yet, the individual themselves rarely chases towards the fruition of their exercise in imagination. Instead, a cumulative effort is necessary to cause the individual’s gratification to occur. Only then, may the idiosyncratic thoughts and objectives of this freischwebender Intellektueller2 be considered being put into practice. Still, to become an institutionalised concept, these distinctive views need to pass as shared opinion. In other words, they first need to be consumed by the collective, in order to be implemented by it. One ponders then, on the consequences of their passing as common sentiment and the ensuing desacralisation of their value3. By transcending the mythological level, what once was regarded a high objective - a utopian vision, even - seems to transform into a banal condition, having assumed a peculiar character of sobriety; dreams, but dull beliefs lying in the form of forgotten histories. They become a new bottom line upon which to establish other ideologies, and even relationships. be they of hierarchy or of equality, between members of a collective. The process of experiencing, reviewing, and concocting is looped with no signs of procedural discrepancy apparent. It seems then, as though the power of a vision lies precisely within its fictive character, rather than its rooting in a physical existence. Failure to mutate visions into reality does not equal disappointment, but seems to rather represent a process through which the sacred condition of not being realised is endorsed; through which one is able to preserve the dream like condition. The arbitrary constructs, self-imposed, seem to serve as guide to distinguish between such values. Where does the threshold between reality and fiction lie, however?
IDEALIST
CYNIC PART II SCRIPT ACT I REVERIES Time: The Century of Enlightenment Place: The City A door slams open, seemingly by itself; the corridor it reveals is buzzing with people. An unsettled whisper spreads throughout, as a consequence to the “amateurs […] [who] exercise an inspired state of political inventiveness”4. A cynic, thoroughly disturbed by the upheaval, stands observantly on the outskirts of the masses. Meanwhile, an idealist struggles to escape the threshold condition of both outcast and member of the agitated collective. The idealist tries unremittingly to enter the circle, but is obstructed by the continuously moving components. Still, they continue to exhibit their enthusiastic declarations. How boring and plain it must be, to race towards the acceptance of a majority. Support must represent such a greatly desired outcome. For what, exactly? All I see, is a little self-inflation. Does it conjure any other effect, but that great tickling of the Ego? The Idealist grasps the Cynic’s commentary. With calm, optimism even, they turn to respond.
“You are not obliged to understand me, but trust that I understand you, and the delightfully harmless confession you make, well”5. I only ask to be listened to once. If society likes what it hears, it may be very welcome in joining my cause. What we need is not another revolution. We have had enough ideals that faded once engaged. Don’t you see? Don’t they see? We shall never reach a conclusion. To take any stand on the matter, to select, or criticise, is considered yet another ideal. We shall never escape the loop. You, dear idealist, “express yourself only by a contracted phoneme, and the passivity of collective behaviour”6 is let to thrive. Oh, but all you have to do is imagine with me. In my world… Idealist is interrupted as an escape from the confinements of the masses occurs, and a clumsy slip into the empty realm is made. One minute too long, and I would have believed. I must be aware after all, that my “thought cannot do other than oscillate between the awareness of its perfect autonomy and that of its strict dependence”7. Fortunately, I am able to change resolutions of my peep hole, to change perspectives, to move about an idea and another. Pardon my indiscretion, but I am aware of the dialogue that has been in play. If I may be followed into an exploration… I believe I have something of value.
ACT II ADVENTURES SCENE I THE WALL
On the imaginary line and hierarchical divisions Time: Then Place: Between The characters stand before a “wall enclosing a strip of intense metropolitan desirability [that] runs through the centre”8. The nomad invites for the infiltration of the structure. Charges forward, indeed. Yet, as soon as the door’s threshold is crossed, the nomad finds himself in solitude. Glancing back around to their departure point, they find the idealist standing at the entrance - a clear intention to follow, and a subdued uncertainty to be read from their expression. The cynic, however, seems unshaken in their ground. No spark of curiosity transcends them. The idealist, having observed the nomad’s confusion, and in a hurry to shed light upon the situation, carries on to offer an explanation. There is a fine line, we may do well not to cross. To enter the Exodus, I believe we need to be “strong enough to love it”9. I am uncertain of my strength. Slightly affected by the idealist’s statement, they reach up to gaze at the propensity of the structure. On the nomad’s side, an analogy of social conduct had been evenly dispersed throughout the zones between the two walls. On the side of the others, “this architecture is a sequence of serene monuments”10, which carry a familiar, yet intangible memory; a reminder of sorts. Yet, neither character is able to identify where the reminder comes from. Is it bound to the past, or to the future? The nomad, enticed by the possibility of discovering the Exodus, attempts to convince the idealist and the cynic, to sacrifice the precision of their location, and transgress the boundary. “You are sworn to the world as it is, and have this blocked consciousness vis-á-vis possibility […] that I would think is very much connected exactly to the proximity of this utopia”11. Indeed, a dream has been laid down in the blocks of sumptuous materials you see. You will find, nonetheless, not having become alienated if you cross the border. Not the border of the wall, but that of your own inhibitions. The strip in front of you, is not an ideal, or a positive perspective. No, it is simultaneously a simulacrum and a critique of the metropolitan, and ultimately the social, dream. “It juxtaposes in a single, real place, several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible”12. You need to see for yourself, the liberation such contradictions conjure! Idealist starts to progress. Not entirely certain, they take slightly forced steps towards the nomad. The nomad remains to await the decision of the cynic, meanwhile. “Salvation lies no longer in revolt, but in surrender without discretion”13. Cynic, you be wise not to miss this opportunity. I hear there is a mountain, in a certain fourth square called “Earth”, where a cavity sits dauntingly. The faces of great men are to be chiselled in the mountain, but the sculptors never finish as the hierarchy of the society of Voluntary Prisoners allows for nobody to be on higher levels than another for long enough. Skeptical, the cynic goes on to explore why the efforts of the sculptors are irresolute. Hierarchy is little but an assignment of value to people. The certainty of intelligence is not guaranteed, either way. The value is intrinsic. Their values, I am certain, differ from mine. By grace of contingency, certain individuals become monuments. By grace of contingency, others do not. But then again, the ever evolving ideals of the society has little spare time for such nonsense, like placing the bust of somebody on a high pedestal. But each of us is a fragment of something larger. We build upon common ground; upon the same morals, the same ideals, the same relationships. It is clear then, that we are part of the monument no matter who is laid in stone. Yes, we are part of a whole. A whole that is moulded to carry similar concepts, thinking of itself or invigorating with each generation. Only to find that the next is born bored. Exodus; what wonderful place. If only you would enter and see yourself, how it carries both your statements within. In the Baths, it analyses the consciousness of its collective of inhabitants, in order for excited groups [to] elaborate proposals in special rooms, while others continuously modify the model. It brings to the surface of the strip all the nonsense of human desires and hopes. The nomad, clearly unable to move the cynic proposes another visit.
SCENE II THE ISLAND
On the act of construction and desacralisation Time: Eventually Place: Somewhere Eventually, the characters are stranded on an island somewhere in the ocean of the multiplicity of ideals. “[Men] on the Eve of Revolution, that is to say, alone, still blind, on the point of having [their] eyes opened to the revolutionary light”14, stand on the threshold between the water and the sand. Meanwhile, those initiated sit on the island inhabiting their dreams. It is curiously a mirrored image of where men are not and where they are. In the first there seems “something is missing”15. All during the nomad’s speech, the idealist engulfs the picture of the island. Eyes move from object to object, overwhelmingly quick. It is my world! My world! Listen, it is. Everything is as I had it constructed in my mind. How did it come to be? I must be missing something. I don’t understand. This is just another island with houses and institutions. Like any other. No, it is not. It is my world! You see, in my world, the technological advancement has reached its summit. Men no longer dally in factories. The old conflicts, the fear of disease, the question of survival based on capital; all of these are redundant in my world. “It matters little if the conflicts, contradictions, and lacerations that generate this anguish are temporarily reconciled by means of a complex mechanism, or if, through contemplative sublimation, catharsis is achieved”16. Somebody eventually will not find your world amusing, and they will look for somewhere else to spend their time. In isolating the inhabitants of this island, you do nothing but prolong the suffering. One day, an intruder - much like myself, maybe - will push “Chaplin-Man, ensnared in his starvation and always just below political awareness”17, past the brink. Then, what will you do? Now, dear cynic, don’t demolish the idealist’s vision based on a plane of facts. Learn to romanticise, to see that there is an ounce of something sacred in their world. The cynic, exhausted by the incomprehensible optimism of the idealist, wishes to return. But they cannot fathom how to arrived there. The only way, seems to be forward: to the island. As they put foot on solid ground, the idealist breaks off to explore their consciousness. The built artefacts seem to have been the instruments of realisation of their utopia. The urban setting, the materials, the grid, all seem to be the tool to guide the island dweller in the direction of their island’s creator. They shall return soon. They always do. Once the fancy of the new evaporates, once the character of the sublime disappears, they shall be back at this point. Only to loop the anguish. Once this world becomes insufficient and dull, the idealist will devise another world. They are doomed to repeat eternally, the anguish of desacralisation. Indeed, soon after, the idealist returns lacking any of the previous exhilaration. They drag them self slowly back to the nomad and the cynic. In their clenched fist, they seem to be holding something. It is not exactly my world. Maybe it is my fallacy, to think that utopias could ever be constructed. You see, in my world, there should have been no capital. Yet, I found a golden coin. I shall keep as a symbol of what I cannot allow my world to become. Maybe it would have been for the best, to stand suspended on the Heterotopia of a threshold between water and earth. The disappointment bears heavily in the air. Even the cynic retains from commentary. In hope of salvation, the nomad proposes a final destination.
SCENE III THE GLASS
On Alice in Wonderland and nonsense Time: Now and Never Place: Here but There “I present here, a series of paradoxes, which form the theory of sense”18. Everything will be level. We have put away the concept of a hierarchy. “Paradox [will] appear as dismissal of depth”19. The characters stand in sort of a non-space. Their centres of gravity align with those of everything else which is part of the Wonderland. It comes as impossible to the cynic and the idealist, that they are simultaneously part of the earth and the sky, and completely isolated from either. I can see every part of you! And every part of the Wonderland. “It moves in both directions at once. It always eludes the present, causing future and past, more and less, too much and not enough to coincide in the simultaneity of a rebellious matter”20. That you see every part of me, is certainly due that the fact that at any moment you are everywhere. And by being everywhere at all time, you are never really there. The cynic is baffled. It seems this environment reflects their thoughts in form of spatial revelations. Nothing has value. Wertfreiheit21, synchronously becomes cause of panic and relaxation. I see, you are rather dumb-founded. Let me explain, without nonsense. Imagine yourself in a glass. It is full of water. You float in the certainty of the lack of distinctions. To you, it is unnerving. You have been outside the glass, before, where your reality had been clearly structured. Now, in the glass, you have nothing to grasp ahold of; nothing to climb or dismount. Had the situation been the opposite, you would have been just as perplexed. You would have been familiar with the glass, simultaneously void of constructs and full of the liquid in which you float. But the edges of the table it sits upon, or the grain of the wooden floor on which the table is placed, would have been the most unfamiliar sight. That is the power of a priori. Of course, that makes sense. But yet again, once I am used to the Wonderland… will I not create a system of values within here, as well? At least, temporarily, I may say that I am no longer the cynic I have been, when I started this dialogue. I do feel rather hazy. There is never true certainty of anything in here. I think we should leave. No comfort, I assume? “Your utopian views have always been models entirely immersed in the real dynamics of politico-economic processes, and its character of experimental anticipation projected into the future”22. With no past, present, or future, you must certainly feel disarmed of your favourite past-time. The nomad intervenes, urging for departure. It cannot be of good favour, if the cynic grows fond of a space that is and is not. And fairly enough, the nomad needs to tread ground again, before growing lethargic.
ACT III INVENTORY Time: The Century of Enlightenment Place: The City The characters find themselves once more in the buzzing corridor. Discovering the circle as it had been left, the idealist is tempted to chase again the acceptance of the masses. The cynic is prepared to leave the tumult. The nomad puts a final halt in their steps. With a smirk on their face, they point at their hands. I saw you have got a bounty from our little adventure. Not wise, to dally on the spaces we have seen. You need to get move, to progress, to be able to go back and forwards, side-ways, or up and down. These objects will only consolidate the present version of reality. Idealist defends themselves with a hint of guilt seeping through their words. The cynic is surprised by the transparency of their act. But you have seen the coin on the island. Why not tell me to let it go? To leave it where it originated? How did you know? That you carry a monument and a non-object in your pockets? They gain incredible weight in this reality. You might just fall through the crust of the earth. In Exodus, the monument may have been but a trace from the past. But in this reality, it is embedded in the emotions and sensibility of our consciousness, and points to the future with hope glimmering at the edges. The non-object was harmless in Wonderland. Back here, it might just destroy our embellishment, rendering us insipid. As for the coin, dear Idealist; the coin has not much value but the one you like to assign to it. It is a symbol, but it anchors us into the ideals other have fabricated. They oblige you to be part of a collective memory. At this, the nomad breaks off.
PART III CONCLUSION Where does the threshold between reality and fiction lie, but within the arbitrary constructs we impose upon ourselves? As the characters are caught amidst the mysteriously unsettled masses in a corridor, in a city, their attributes are clear. An idealist, who devises their ideologies, and who wishes for the collective to accept it. A cynic, who prefers to stand excluded and whose only remaining activity is that of observation and commentary. The nomad is the most fluid character, shifting with ease between the planes of inclusiveness, threshold, and outcast. They have simultaneously renegaded and accepted society, and are therefore free to roam both spatial and temporal conditions. The nomad guides the idealist and the cynic on an adventure to discover the sense of their reality, and the system by which it is attained. The objects they collect during the journeys, serve as ligatures between past, present, and future. They anchor the structure of reality. But they also transcend it. Monuments, symbols, objects retain the memory of the user, who is only certain of their present experience; to the future, they add a sense of morals and guidance. All of this being possible, only through the initial arbitrary system of values. The built artefact, serves ultimately as an instrument to affirm our ideals.
PART IV CREDITS 1. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture & Utopia: Design and “The lament over the crisis is an indication of an unhealthy Capitalist Development, Chapter 3: Ideology and Utopia, p. 61 nostalgia for the tradition based on Kultur’s ineffectuality” 2. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture & Utopia: Design and “Ideologists, for Mannheim, are nothing other than a class of Capitalist Development, Chapter 3: Ideology and Utopia, p. 52 cultured persons who act as freischwebende Intellektuelle, as thinkers who provide but justification. Their job is solely the consolidation of existing reality.” 3. Ernst Bloch, Theordor W. Adorno, Somthing’s Missing: A T.W. Adorno: “As they have been realised, the dreams Discussion on the contradictions of utopian longins, p. 1 themselves have assumed a peculiar character of sobriety, of the spirit of positivism, and beyond that, of boredom.” 4. Jefrey Kipnis, Perfect Acts of Architecture, in Rem Koolhas “The Reception Area is permanently crowded by amateurs and Elia Zenghelis: Exodus or the Voluntary Prisoners of who through their dealings exercise an inspired state of Architecture, p. 20 political inventiveness, which is echoed by the architecture. The senses are overwhelmed by thought.” 5. Roland Barthes, Blind and Dumb Criticism, in Mythologies, “You don’t want to understand the play of Lefebre the Marxit, p. 29 but you can be sure that Lefebre the Marxist understands your incomprehension very well, and above all [...] the delightfully ‘harmless’ confession you make of it. 6. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture & Utopia: Design and “Munch’s Scream already expressed the necessity of a bridge Capitalist Development, Chapter 1: Reason’s Adventures: between the absolute emptiness of the individual, capable of Naturalism and the City in the Century of Enlightenment, p. 1 expressing himself only by a contracted phoneme, and the passivity of collective behaviour.” 7. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture & Utopia: Design and “In 1924, in the second Surrealist manifesto, André Breton Capitalist Development, Chapter 3: Ideology and Utopia, p. 64 recognised that thought cannot do other than oscillate between the awareness of its perfect autonomy and that of its strict dependence.” 8. Jefrey Kipnis, Perfect Acts of Architecture, in Rem Koolhas “Suddenly, a strip of intense metropolitan desirability runs and Elia Zenghelis: Exodus or the Voluntary Prisoners of through the center of London.” Architecture, p. 19 9. Jefrey Kipnis, Perfect Acts of Architecture, in Rem Koolhas “The inhabitants of this architecture, those strong enough to and Elia Zenghelis: Exodus or the Voluntary Prisoners of love it, would become its Voluntary Prisoners” Architecture, p. 19 10. Jefrey Kipnis, Perfect Acts of Architecture, in Rem Koolhas “From the outside this architecture is a sequence of serene and Elia Zenghelis: Exodus or the Voluntary Prisoners of monuments; the life inside produces a continuous state of Architecture, p. 18 ornamental frenzy and decorative delirium, an overdose of symbols.” 11. Ernst Bloch, Theordor W. Adorno, Somthing’s Missing: A T.W. Adorno: “That people are sworn to this world as it is and Discussion on the contradictions of utopian longins, pp. 3-4 have this blocked consciousness vis-à-vis possibility, all this has a very deep cause, indeed a cause that I would think is very much connected exactly to the proximity of utopia.” 12. Michel Focault, Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias, “The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real p. 6 place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible.” 13. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture & Utopia: Design and “Salvation lies no longer in revolt, but in surrender without Capitalist Development, Chapter 3: Ideology and Utopia, p. 74 discretion.” 14. Roland Barthes, The Poor and the Proletariat, in “Brecht alone, perhaps, has glimpsed the necessity for Mythologies, p. 36 socialist art, of always taking Man on the Eve of Revolution, that is to say, alone, still blind, on the point of having his eyes opened to the revolutionary light by the ‘natural’ excess of his wretchedness.” 15. Ernst Bloch, Theordor W. Adorno, Somthing’s Missing: A “We had already said that utopia refers to what is missing.” Discussion on the contradictions of utopian longins, p. 1 16. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture & Utopia: Design and “It matters little if the conflicts, contradictions, and lacerations Capitalist Development, Chapter 1: Reason’s Adventures: that generate this anguish are temporarily reconciled by Naturalism and the City in the Century of Enlightenment, p. 1 means of a complex mechanism, or if, through contemplative sublimation, catharsis is achieved.”
17. Roland Barthes, The Poor and the Proletariat, in Mythologies, “Ensnared in his starvation, Chaplin-Man is always just below political awareness.” p. 35 18. Gilles Deleuze, Preface: From Lewis Carroll to the Stoics, in “We present here a series of paradoxes which form the theory The Logic of Sense, p. xiii of sense.” 19. Gilles Deleuze, The First Series of Paradoxes, in The Logic “Plato invites us to distinguish between two dimensions: (1) that of limited and measured things, of fixed qualities, of Sense, pp. 1-2 permanent or temporary which always presuppose pauses and rests, the fixing of presents, and the assignation of subjects (for example, a particular subject having a particular largeness or a particular smallness at a particular moment); and (2) a pure becoming without measure, a veritable becoming-mad, which never rests. It moves in both directions at once. It always eludes the present, causing future and past, more and less, too much and not enough to coincide in the simultaneity of a rebellious matter.” 20. Gilles Deleuze, The Second Series of Paradoxes, in The “Paradox appears as dismissal of depth, a display of events at the surface, and a deployment of language along this limit.” Logic of Sense, p. 9 21. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture & Utopia: Design and “Wertfreiheit means precisely freedom from value. It is value that is now seen as an impediment.” Capitalist Development, Chapter 3: Ideology and Utopia, p. 51 22. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture & Utopia: Design and “The contradiction still existing in Mannheim - utopia as model entirely immersed in the real dynamics of politico-economic Capitalist Development, Chapter 3: Ideology and Utopia, p. 54 processes, and its character of experimental anticipation projected into the future - is a part of the whole climate of intellectual work of the avant-garde at the beginning of the twentieth century.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1979 2. Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, New York : Columbia University Press, 1990 3. Roland Barthes, Mythologies, London : Vintage, 2009 4. Gilles Deleuze, Proust & Signs, Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2000 5. Michel Focault, Of Other Spaces: Utopia and Heterotopia, From: Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité, October, 1984 6. Francoise Choay, Utopia and the Anthropological Status of Built Space 7. Ernst Bloch, The Utopian Function and the Art of Literature, 1988