Spectralative Making

Spectralative Making

Spectralative Making

Chair // Levent Kara

Committee // Steve Cooke

Stanley Russel

Robert MacLeod

Margaret Winter

Caleb Rivera

School of Architecture and Community Design

Terminal Masters Project

University of South Florida

2023

Dedication

To Mom, Dad and my family. Without your support none of this would have been possible.

To Conor, who taught me the meaning of perserverance.

To my friends, and conversations too numerous and strange to recount.

To Sylvie and Charlie, for their invaluable perspectives.

To Lauren, my constant inspiration, for whom I hope.

Acknowledgements

Kara. Thank you for the years of guidance, headbutting and opportunities. Teaching Design Theory with you has been one of the great pleasures of my academic career.

Steve and committee members. I owe you all thanks for your constructive encouragement. Your belief in this project was integral in bringing it to fruition.

Dawson. No pressure, no diamonds.

1. Thinking Through Making

0. Figures

2. Conceptualizing a Rhetorical Nature

3. Formal Tension

4. The Rhetorical Map

5. Conclusion

iv

v

Preliminary Speculative Drawing 11”x17”

Shadow Based Spatial Speculation 11”x17”

SHA//I.D.//ING 1 Mechanized Shadow

SHA//I.D.//ING 1 Side View

Rhetorical Plexiglass Assemblage Exercise

Playtime Realism Analog Sketch

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Aldo Van Eyck’s Play Structures

Aldo Van Eyck’s Playground Drawings

Large Glass in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

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xii Fig. xiii Fig. xiv

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Fig. xix

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Fig. xxiv

Fig. xxv

Breeding Dust (Man Ray)

Sketch at Stata Center/Boston Museum of Fine Art

Spectral Cyanotype 1 (Pre Wash) 11”x17”

Spectral Cyanotype 1 (Post Wash) 11”x17”

Nuts and Bolts Cyanotype 18”x24”

Rhetorical Plexi Assemblage Negative 11”x17”

Spectral Cyanotype 2 (Post Wash) 11”x17”

Figure Ground Fluid Cyanotype 18”x24”

Pure Plaster Cast 1

Plaster Cast 2 - Grid Tensions Top

Plaster Cast 2 - Grid Tensions Front

Plaster Cast 3 - Wire Punctures Top

Plaster Cast 4 - Grid Tensions Punctured Wire Side

Plaster Cast 3 - Wire Punctures Rotates

Plaster Cast 5 - Grid Tensions Punctured Wire Top

Chance Plaster Cast Top

Chance Plaster Cast Top

Plaster Cast 2 - Grid Tensions Front

Plaster Cast 3 - Wire Punctures Front

Plaster Cast 4 - Grid Tensions Wire Punctures Rear

Plaster Cast 4 - Grid Tensions Wire Punctures Front

Time’s Joints Collage

Cancelled Future Collage

Systems Arising Collage

Plaster Assemblage

Giulo Camillo’s Memory Theatre

Daniel Libeskind’s Memory Machine

Daniel Libeskind’s Memory Machine Detail

The Rhetorical Map

The Rhetorical Map - Suspended Potentials

The Decoded Frame

The Decoded Frame Detail 1

The Decoded Frame Detail 2

The Spider Arcades

The Spider Arcades Detail 1

The Punctures

The Punctures Detail 1

Spatial Speculation 1 of The Rhetorical Map

Spatial Speculation 2 of The Rhetorical Map

Ghosts in the Conceptions

An affirmative belief of the author is that architecture should be perceived as a lived reality for everyone. It is necessary to understand this as it opens avenues to employ architectural thinking to begin analyzing cultural problems through the lens of architecture. This project comprises a series of speculations that represent a thinking in the making of architecture. It is not a project which lays out a specific design, but rather a system for thinking through architecture.

In a lecture given at USF in 2018, Thom Mayne described his conviction that there is a need for a new spirit in architecture. He described staying up all night recreating the drawings of James Stirling. It was something which arose out of a kind of love or perhaps a fascination. Today, it seems that making has lost its ability to be thought through. It is subordinated, lost in the outcome and devalued by an obsession with image. It is a tool that has been dulled.

Thinking Through Making

Speculation is the breeding ground of that which might be. These drawings begin to analyze thought surrounding two elements; long term nuclear warning messages, and Rhetorical Figures. Utilizing an architectural making lens allowed for a direct investigation into the powers of these “Rhetorical Figures”, that began an unlocking of their essential qualities. The driving thought behind the making was the optimism behind the warning messages. The implication that someone would be there to read something thousands of years from now.

Fig. i

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1.

Rhetorical Figures are opposite to Representational Figures. A Representational Figure points to its absence externally, it is representative of the thing not present that explains its existence. Conversely, a Rhetorical Figure points inward to its absence, it is the nonexistent entity in itself. These are linguistic devices that were discussed in the 1980s by theorists. Peter Eisenman explains the function of Rhetorical Figures in architecture as follows in response to Michael Graves design efforts:

“What Graves does not acknowledge is that columns and capitals did not always exist in the conventional vocabulary of architecture. They were invented out of the rhetorical potential of architecture.” (Eisenman)

This small machine was an early attempt at the construction of such a figure that would stand for its absence. The mechanistic features are drawn from a thinking through of pessimism of industrialization leading to a necessity for long term nuclear warning messages, contrasted with the optimism of believing that the messages are worth sending and that they will be received.

Titled SHA//I.D.//ING 1, it is an identification of itself, and is the proverbial tree whose shade we will never sit in.

Fig. iv

There is then a unique power to Rhetorical Figures. They communicate themselves, often as concepts which defy a singular interpretation. They allow the reader to be, in a Post-Structuralist sense, more active in decoding meaning. There is a pluralism to it. As Terry Eagleton explains:

“The reader or critic shifts from the role of consumer to that of producer [of meanings]. It is not exactly as though “anything goes in interpretation, for Barthes is careful to remark that the work cannot be got to mean anything at all; but literature is now less an object to which criticism must conform than a free space in which it can sport.” (Eagleton)

It was necessary at this point to develop a set of precedents to engage in a more in depth research of the methodologies used in creating a rhetorical figure.

Aldo Van Eyck’s playgrounds were the first to be analyzed. 17 playgrounds designed in Post World War II Amsterdam where prescient examples of rhetorical figures being employed in an architectural sense. Van Eyck utilized a mixture of rhetorical and representational figures to create the playgrounds. They find their value formally here as the purely formal suggestions allow children to engage on their terms. Conceptually the project is one of profound hopefulness, it is difficult to say anything other than they are a playground designed in a city being rebuilt after a war.

In analyzing the playgrounds I formulated the idea of Playtime Realism. It is a thing which does not exist as children do not have a regimented logic for play. Games and activities flow freely one to the next, and Van Eyck’s use of rhetorical figures and their open readings facilitate this kind of behavior. They become the ground for which imaginative activity can take place.

a Rhetorical Nature

2.

Conceptualizing

Fig. v

Fig.

This work consists of trying to bridge the gap between a 2 dimensional speculation and a 3 dimensional one. Figure v suggests a kind of form development, utilizing the broken grid to contrast the fluid curves. Film and acetate are used throughout.

The development of each marks a difficulty in creating an entity which can only point to itself for a meaning, without gesturing outwardly at the world for a representational interpretation.

Fig. vii

Fig. viii

In trying to develop a rhetorical figure to Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (referred to as the Large Glass from this point) proved a great formal precedent for study. His work on the glass spanned 8 years and bred a large collection of notes, drawings and preliminary studies which served to guide him through the Glass. It was this notion that led me to seeking a body of work which might help me to explore the extraneous threads of ideas that constitute the larger mass.

In this part of the whole relationship manifested in the Large Glass, an overall driver is supplemented by smaller systems.

2.

Fig. ix

Fig. xi

The Large Glass manifests as a mechanized understanding of human sexuality. These cyanotypes follow the artists’s techniques and employ a meshing of curation and chance in their making.

Cyanotypes developed with thrifted X-rays over speculative graphics gave rise to ghostly figure ground conditions. They are preliminary gestures at establishing a Duchampian system of translating thought. Duchamp proceeded with a driving idea which was necessary to establish a ground for his making.

(Mink)

2.

Fig. xii

Fig. xiii

Fig.

Whereas Duchamp proceeded with conceptions on desire and sexuality, I returned to my fascination with the pessimistic-optimistic dichotomy of long term nuclear warning messages. Broadly, the undertaking was in analyzing the idea of potential futures.

Conceptually, the ghostly images developed in the cyanotypes call upon the idea of specters. This coupled with thinking through frustrations with the present lack of direction and hope for the future introduced Mark Fisher’s dedicated work on cultural hauntology. This hauntology is in essence the tendency of the past to cycle back into the present. It is a kind of melancholic nostalgia that is the echo of our inability to conceive of a future. These nuclear warning messages could be seen as the past returning as a trauma, as a sense of regret for our handling of the atomic age.

2.

Fig. xvi

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2. Formal Tension

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The cyanotype sequences precipitated a kind of organic contrast to the machinic regimentation in previous graphical work. The dynamic movements of the pieces are contrasted by a regimentation and symmetry of form. This formed the organizational logic for plaster casts. Moments of tension between regimented grids and harsh lines and the unstable textural nature of the plaster highlight a tension important to the whole of the project.

This plaster series was developed out of ground conditions laid in the cyanotype and expressed with the intention of an immediate lived experience in their spatial qualities. It employs the idea of architecture as a lived reality or rather a living reality that extends beyond the bounds of a discipline.

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2.

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2.

Fig. xxx

The final piece in the series was cast around a regimented grid form with an explosive concentration of wire pieces that run along a datum. Score lines run down exterior channels bringing the regimentation into the organic form of the cast while the grid is folded to engage the form. A tension between forces is again represented, as in the cyanotypes.

The driving conceptual thought was of Fisher’s hauntology and lost futures. The idea of a Lost Future is that of a promised land that never arrived. This is the malaise under which we operate today. How then might architecture play its role in reigniting the spirit which gave rise to a culture sympathetic to the conception of a future?

Fig. xxxi

Mechanized Drawing

“What it is to be in the 21st century is to have 20th century culture on higher definition screens.” (Fisher)

This sequence of collage immediately preceded the development of a large-scale rhetorical figure. The driving ideas were that of the “lost future” and the hauntologies that pervade modern culture.

Paper from the 20th century is reorganized into a kind of opaque collection of moments that communicate a dissatisfaction with this current cultural logic.

3.

Fig. xxxii

Fig. xxxiii

3.

Fig. xxxiv

A final collage was produced along with an assemblage of small plaster casts. This collage reintroduces the machinic motifs used earlier in communication about industrialization of progress, and exploring the romanticization of the past. Assembled as a kind of schematic for a rhetorical map, its syntax suggests a system.

Fig. xxxv

4. Angels and Future Memory

Daniel Libeskind’s Memory Machine became a precedent for a final large-scale figure. His machine examines the facets of a renaissance mind, modeled on Giulo Camillo’s Memory Theatre. Situated in the context of the 1980’s and the work emerging from Cranbrook, the machine is an example of a project that engages with the fascination of medieval machinery as well as with contemporary architectural problems. It functions as the backstage to Camillo’s Theatre, it is where the thinking happens. In Libeskind’s own words, it is a mechanism for “projection, concealment, and illusion” in relation to the function of memory. (Libeskind) It plays with ideas of subordination and proliferation by employing a system of spectacles such as the “cloud machine” and the “schizophrenic forum”. (Woods) It mirrors Duchamp’s Large Glass as a physical representation of a complex network of ideas that defy simple interpretation.

Fig. xxxvi

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Whereas Libeskind employed Camillo’s Theatre, my analysis utilized Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History. Benjamin proposes that the Angel views history not as a sequence of events as we do, but rather as one large continuous catastrophe.

“Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet.”

Benjamin explains that though the Angel would like to stop, and render some kind of aid, but that there is a storm which causes him to be unable to close his wings. That storm, says Benjamin, is progress.

Utilizing the angel’s view in the Rhetorical Map reveals the conditions that gave rise to the imaginative potentials of the future that have been lost. The view then would appear as a mass of elements locked in opposition with the forces that contend to herald this storm of progress.

It is in this moment of tension that something new can emerge, a spark of intuition about what the future might be that does not obey the narrative of progression. This is represented in the Rhetorical Map as the clash between Enclaves and Institutions.

4.

Fig. xxxix

Fig. xL

4.

4.

Fig. xLi

The Decoded Frame is dissected by a grid, which is further subdivided and pulled apart. Its division of elementary shapes introduces repetitions and differences to the Institutional qualities of the pulleys and datum lines which extend past the intersection of the wooden frame metal rods.

Conceptually this is the first explanation of an enclave of new elements which occurs by subverting the organizational order of the map. It is a tectonic breaking down and reassembly of systems that results in a new system branching out from the top, growing.

The Decoded Frame

Fig. xLii

Fig. xLiii

The Spider Arcades feature small wires running through miniscule pulleys that counter the larger set. They plunge their way into the plaster base and form a system that touches the base in a contrasting way to the harsh rigidity of the bolts. A tension arises between the heaviness of the base and the floating qualities of the pulleys. They hover in opposition to the secure fixed system of pulleys secured to the wood panel.

The Spider Arcades

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The Punctures explode from the plaster in a lesson learned from earlier studies. These are broken moments that arise to differentiate themselves by suspending imagery over the binary leakage of the plaster. These moments are disjuncted and tendril like forming groups that disrupt their grid.

The Punctures

Fig. xLvii

4. Institutions and Enclaves

The development of the Rhetorical Map utilized the lessons derived from previous studies in the project. From formal aspects of tension and concentration to the conceptual drivers of rhetorical making. The map is a culmination of this research into a Spectralative Making technique that hunts for the origins of the ghosts and how we might resurrect them following the cravings of the Angel of History.

Following the making of The Rhetorical Map, two final speculations were created that have been described as “advertisements for Lost Futures”. These speculations further spatialize the map and overlap its qualities in varying intensities. The resulting graphic conversations guide a pluralistic idea of enclaves over taking institutions, while resisting the progression narratives that would seek to simply turn them into replacements. They echo thematically the idea of hauntings and specters.

4.

Conclusions

This project is one born of an anxiety about the future. Presently, there exist all manner of existential threats that populate popular discourse. It was explained by Mark Fisher that there was a “slow cancellation of the future” (Fisher) taking place, coinciding with an inability to conceive of anything beyond contemporary conditions. This is of course intimately tied to the economic and social conditions that constitute today’s society. The default attitude towards these overwhelming problems seems at best passive, and at worst willfully ignorant of our present standing. However, this undertaking was optimistic. In fact, I will plant my feet firmly and declare that making is itself a hopeful act. Of course, this project was itself based on trying to relocate the conditions to imagine the future. Beyond just this though, making as a practice to think through frustrations proves fruitful as it introduces new things to the world, and can at its best begin to alter lived experience. This is what is needed in these days of confusion and listlessness. There is a need for a new spirit that carries with it what Fisher called a “tendency” and a “visual trajectory”. A cultural energy that is marked by a pluralism of living, in contrast to our current default operational logic.

Architecture cannot upend Fisher’s Capitalist Realism. It cannot outmode neoliberal ideology, or turn the mass of American individuals into any kind of collective. It simply lacks the necessary agency. However that does not mean it doesn’t operate within its territory.

Architecture is a lived reality. The built environment is pervasive, and therefore there must be analysis into its cultural impact. Equally there must be an analysis of contemporary issues through the architectural lens. If the relationship is not symbiotic it fails. For a symbiotic relationship to form, there must be exchange. Effective exchange between architecture and culture.

The necessary question to answer is this: How can architecture locate its contextual relevance? The start is in the making, and specifically in making with all the ferocity of thinking. This making is where the project’s title originates, a portmanteau of specters and speculation; Spectralative Making. I believe it carries the potential to open a dormant faculty of architecture. This project has led me to developing a name for this faculty; the architectural imaginary. Whereby architecture’s lived reality would shine and acknowledge that it is an effect on the immediacy of phenomenological experience. This is the first piece of the equation in the making of that imaginary that communicates the ideas of architecture, and situates them within the larger cultural imagination.

I believe this is what Thom Mayne was gesturing towards all those years ago, and what a love of thinking through making might once again locate.

Fig. L

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