Remembering Anticipation

R E M E M B E R I N G A N T I C I PAT I O N Jo hn Be rgm an | A lexa n d ra C h r i s t m a n s s o n | Al l a n Burrows

A memorial of future aspirations.

I do believe in beginnings, middles, and ends - but not necessarily in that order.

- Jean-Luc Godard

01 Memorial and Science Fiction as agents of Anachronism

02 Legitimizing Virtual Space, and the Originality of Copies

02

01

Memorial and Science Fiction as agents of Anachronism “Nostalgia for the Future, Waiting for the Past.”

Spoliation is an anachronistic act. It is simultaneously a preservation and a distortion of an object or idea, that initiates a continuation of that object or idea into a time or place, outside of its original vision. Whether its content is dismantled, or elevated, the spolia is multi directionally extended.

“Lines imply beginnings and ends; they also imply continuity, inferring from the reality of a past the probability of a future. If, then, as this first version of post-modernism maintains, we are not entitled to such claims, then time must be discontinuous, unmotivated and we are talking here of separation not only between periods of time (years or generations) but between moments or instants, where even personal identity becomes and arbitrary and mystifying fiction.”

Privileging endpoints; “...the statue: recognized, destroyed, silenced, elevated, assimilated�.

If a spolia is privileged for its endpoint, new outcomes and trajectories can be formed.

It also invites readings, and misreadings between moments or eras, in a non-linear, palimpsestic manner.

Memorial

The House of the Future (1956) Alison & Peter Smithson

The Einstein Tomb (1980) Lebbeus Woods

Monument to the Battle of the Nations (1913)

Science Fiction Science fiction can be an replicant of non-linear historicizing. This parallel provides a basis for form making, where the intent of science fiction is appropriated for its aspiration, and amplified through a series of formal operations.

Science Fiction Films Film provides a fictional space and material from which it projects an idea or story, similar to a fictional history.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Alien (1979)

Moon (2009)

Film Stills reinterpreted as 3-Dimensional Space

2001: A Space Odyssey

Alien

Moon

Spolia: Kit of Parts

2001: A Space Odyssey

Alien

Moon

Scaffolding as Filler

Parthenon Preservation

Reveal the Absence, the Unbuilt Guillaume Mazars Architecture

Pavillion Humanidade Carla Juaรงaba

Fragmentation and (Re)figuration

Excavation of incomplete structure

Schaustelle J.Majer H. Architects

The Museum of Copying FAT

3D Printed Spolia

Composition

02

Legitimizing Virtual Space, and the Originality of Copies “All those terms— singularity, authenticity, uniqueness, originality, original—depend on the originary moment of which this surface is both the empirical and the semiological instance.

If legitimacy is given to versions born “close to the aesthetic moment”, then we may see an anachronistic exposure of what we deem ‘original’ in film.

Interpreting film builds a legitimate virtual ‘original’ in our minds. Which suggests that film sets, perhaps begin as catalyst, or image, and can subsequently be judged as ‘copy’ despite its chronological establishment.

The aim is then a return to originality for each copied piece, in the same way triplets are considered to be copies from birth, and slowly regain originality.

Composition An image of ‘sponteneity’ is built with repeated blocks, set on slightly varied orientations.

Rodin’s Three Nymph’s

Front

Rear

Legitimacy and Originality of Copies

VIRTUAL Film Set

REAL Perceived Reality

If Originality is derived through chronological occurance

ORIGINAL

COPY

If Originality is derived through Legitimacy

COPY

ORIGINAL

Amalgamation of Volume and Surface / Space and Image By dissolving the components into a mixture of surfaces and volumes, “real” becomes interlaced with “virtual” as volume, becomes interlaced with image. The copy is then nullified when neither image or volume is read as the most legitimate spatial agent.

Solid Volumes

Fluid Volumes

Becoming Original The copies remain largely intact with minor differences appearing between them through varied allocation of 2-dimensionalised components. The slippage between the copies is then reconciled through distorted components, further concealing the recognisability of the copies, without completely concealing their duplication.

Solid Volumes

Fluid Volumes

Volume and Image

Solids marked in Red Images marked in White

Parti Study

Anachronism, Palimpsests, and Interpretations

Spoliation and appropriation, are acts of preservation. Whether by physical or ideological means, preservation sets into motion, anachronistic effects and interpretations. In becoming non-linear, history likens itself to a palimpsest, where its value is derived from overlaid and distorted information. Ultimately, it is when spoliation becomes non-specific, and unclear, that we can assume multiplicity of readings and misreadings.

The Memorial of Future Aspirations aims to celebrate and amplify anachronism, and invite multiple readings and misreadings, both through narratives, and spatial qualities.

The memorial is a project of Spoliation in Re, but it was the simpler process of Spoliation in Se that shaped our attitude to recovering elements, and arranging them in a larger composition, in the anticipation that these parts would be “recognized, destroyed, silenced, elevated, assimilated�.

Through the composition of the parts, the introduction of a grid, and the fusion of 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional spaces; the project results in a haze of spatial information with a continuously shifting legibility, which is perhaps emblematic of a non-linear, palimpsestic history.

This palimpsestic approach has also been mirrored in the process, where the initial stage of investigation of anachronism, was layered with an investigation of legitimacy and originality. Between the two processes there is both alignment, and misalignment of ideas, thus in reading the final composition, the chronology of processes becomes irrelevant.

If legitimacy is given to versions born “close to the aesthetic moment”, then we may see an anachronistic exposure of what we deem ‘original’ in film.

Simultaneously, we find an alignment between the first, second processes.

Interpreting film builds a legitimate virtual ‘original’ in our minds.

Which suggests that film sets, perhaps begin as catalyst, or image, and can subsequently be judged as ‘copy’ despite their chronological establishment.

The inability to access the structure physically as majority is built from 2-dimensional planes does not impede ones ability to inhabit the structure virtually. This idea is in misalignment with the first process, and can be read as residue within the palimpsest of the project as whole, but it is also inseparable from the final result.