Concerning Visual Poetry: A playful demand for ‘language-games’ in today’s digital architecture Nikolas Ettel Every sign by itself seems dead. What gives it life? - In use it is alive. Is life breathed into it there? - Or is the use its life?1
QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE RELEVANCE of visual poetry to today’s digital architecture have led me to seek a deeper understanding of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ‘language philosophy.’2 I have chosen to focus on communicative aspects of his philosophy, especially the mode of gesture, to discuss the potential of visual articulation in today’s digital architecture. I introduce his concept of Sprachspiel, or ‘language-game,’ as a contemporary method of representation in computational design language. Following Wittgenstein’s arguments about nonsense in language use – briefly, whether a word has a meaning depending on how it is used – this thesis introduces his concept concerning language-games in communication. In so doing it engages a debate between diverse interpretations of Wittgenstein scholars to re-examine the poetic capacity of today’s architectural production. This allows for an unusual way of interpreting applied architectural rules in digital design and, therefore, understanding different ways of approaching architecture as a medium of visual communication. This interpretation does not mean to exaggerate the similarities of languages or to minimise certain differences in language-games across the media of language and architecture. Moreover, this thesis aims for a particular understanding of language-games not limited to spoken or written language. Here the term ‘language-game’ is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a life-form.3 Alice Crary’s introduction to ‘The New Wittgenstein’4 argues that philosophy is a fruitful tool for focusing on individual 40
language and rule inventions, and offers an understanding of various representational interactions. The ways in which architects communicate with a calculative language can be understood to articulate a playful engagement with philosophical concepts in architectural applications; Neil Spiller’s ‘Communicating Vessels’5 and Patrik Schumacher’s ‘Parametric Semiology’6 are prime examples. Interpreting these diverse game adaptations allows me to explore their important spatial aspects, following Benjamin Bratton’s suggestion of architecture as a ‘[carrier] of information.’7 This application of a philosophical concept to architectural theory interprets Spiller’s method of spatial articulation as a form of adding a player to his language-game. In broad terms, this additional player represents its ‘imaginative;’8 in other words, the poetic abilities of his developed ‘surrealistic’9 drawing technique elaborate an applied use of ‘fiction as reality.’ 10 This is important because it explains how nonsense fits into Wittgenstein’s work on language-games. Wittgenstein defines nonsense as a necessary part of philosophy for discovering ‘the limits of language,’11 either in the form of ‘elucidatory nonsense,’12 which, according to Crary, highlights the ‘therapeutic’13 as well as José Medina’s ‘polyphonic’14 abilities of language, or in the form of ‘patent nonsense,’15 referring to its application. My own understanding of advanced nonsense is elaborated through Schumacher’s simulation method ‘Parametric Semiology,’ 16 which interprets this approach as a mode of deleting via replacing a player from his language-game. Following Wittgenstein, it is possible to speak to oneself, ‘ask yourself a question and answer it,’17 but my debate refuses the term