John Garrison | The Contemporary Uncanny: An Architecture for [Digital] Postmortem

The Contemporary

Uncanny An Architecture for [Digital] Postmortem John Garrison

ABSTRACT

The architecture of today has consistently followed the common treatise of aesthetics, a dogmatic pursuit of the comfortable, attractive, and beautiful for the masses. Thus, architecture has been most complicit in the concealment of undesirable aspects of our world. In doing so, we are left disassociated away from entire portions and aspects of our lives. This subconscious effort of deterrence therefore leaves us blinded to critical effects of social, political, and environmental issues that physically shape our world.

It is the duty of architects to manifest theory in built form for society to begin to address the underlying issues that affect our lives. If left unresolved, we may fall from these forces that have been alienated away to our periphery vision and suffer estrangement to our conscience leaving us unable to interact with past or future memory. By employing the theory of the Uncanny, we may begin to reveal the grotesque and undesirable aspects of the world and address their implications.

Contemporary and future technologies are continuously developing and cataloging our digital lives as a counterpart to our physical ones. The relatively new typology of the data center now serves a greater purpose and meaning in this dissociative world. Housing a digital duplicate of ourselves, it persists after our death, an impression of our memory that will live on even if we physically perish. By employing the Uncanny, we can begin to reveal the implications of the data center in the contemporary world, as a funerary monument integrated within our built environment rather than hidden away.

Data Center Collage. John Garrison. 2020.

THE DATA CENTER The Data center is a relatively new building typology that is emerging however it is typically hidden away, unseen, and forgotten by the public. It is a typology that acts as a bridge between parallel worlds, an architecture both for humans and yet not for humans. What then becomes of the data center when we incorporate the human condition of physical mortality? In a contemporary setting, we are now seeing the rise of digital graveyards. An effigy to the digitized memories of a deceased clientele, the data center transforms into a sort of data housing columbarium

Community Storefront/Data Center Collage. John Garrison. 2020.

DATA C CATALO

LIFE MEMORIES. ACTIVITIES. EXPERIENCES. PHOTOS. VIDEOS. RECORDINGS. SOCIAL INTERACTION. HISTORY.

DEA

CEREMONY REMEMBRANCE HONOR. RELIG SUBL

DATA C DIGITA

CENTER: OGUE

ATH

Y. FUNERAL. E. RITUAL. BURIAL. GION. NATURAL. LIME.

CENTER: AL LIFE

AFTERLIFE MEMORIAL. RESTING. GRAVE. MONUMENT. MUSEUM. VISITATION.

THE UNCANNY

The Uncanny, or unheimlich, is an almost indeterminate condition much associated to the uncomfortable. Termed by Anthony Vidler in the 1990s as “neither absolute terror nor mild anxiety, the uncanny seemed easier to describe in terms of what it was not, rather than any sense of what it is.” The expression of the uncanny and the odd is a powerful motivator of revealment and change and allows us to decipher the more uncomfortable aspects of life.

Precedent: ART

The Lovers. René Magritte. 1928.

Precedents

FILM / HORROR FILMS

Twin Peaks. David Lynch. 1990.

I’m Thinking of Ending Thing

Architecture is Now. Coop Himmelblau. 1982.

French National Libra

San Cataldo Cemetery. Aldo Rossi. 1971.

Chapel of the Chimes.

ARCHITECTURE

FUNERARY ARCHITECTURE / COLUMBARIUMS

gs. Charlie Kaufman. 2020.

Us. Jordan Peele. 2019.

Midsommar. Ari Aster. 2019.

ary. OMA. 1989.

Parc De La Villette. Bernard Tschumi. 1982.

Temple of Death. Étienne-Louis Boullée. 1795.

C. Baumschulenweg. Shultes Frank Architeckten. 2000.

Sansepolcro Cemetery. Studio Zermani e Associati. 2012.

Julia Morgan. 1928.

OPERATIONS

By combining the methodologies of the uncanny and the typical thematic tropes used in horror films, physical constructs will be generated to understand each category and its implications as a typology for contemporary architecture.

1. DOUBLES AND REFLECTIONS

2. CLONES AND REPRODUCTION

3. MASKING / CONCEALMENT

4. FRAGMENTATION / EROSION

Methodology Constructs. John Garrison. 2020.

FRAGMENTATION AND EROSION Iterations along the top of the cube slowly erode away leaving an asymmetrical form.

DOUBLES AND REFLECTIONS Given a now asymmetrical form, the cubes are doubled and reflected throughout a field.

CLONES AND REPRODUCTION Through multiple iterations, cubes are perforated by cloned blocks resulting in a endless grid of reproduced holes.

MASKING / CONCEALMENT The cubes are each contain a unique form obscured behind a shared shell form.

FRAGMENTATION AND EROSION Iterations along the top of the cube slowly erode away leaving an asymmetrical form.

DOUBLES AND REFLECTIONS Given a now asymmetrical form, the cubes are doubled and reflected throughout a field.

CLONES AND REPRODUCTION Through multiple iterations, cubes are perforated by cloned blocks resulting in a endless grid of reproduced holes.

MASKING / CONCEALMENT The cubes are each contain a unique form obscured behind a shared shell form.

THE DATA CENTER LIFE AFTERLIFE

THE CH

DEA

HAPEL

ATH

THE COLUMBARIUM AFTERLIFE

THE DATA CENTER

THE CH

LIFE. MEMORIAL.

DEA CEREM

HAPEL

THE COLUMBARIUM

ATH. MONY.

AFTERLIFE. BURIAL.

THE DATA CENTER

THE CH

LIFE. MEMORIAL.

DEA CEREM

HAPEL

THE COLUMBARIUM

ATH. MONY.

AFTERLIFE. BURIAL.

Site / Bldg

1. Perfect Grid

4.Grid Eroded by Site

2. Cloned

5. Shifting and Irregu

g Diagrams

d Buildings

ular Interstitial Space

3. Rotation and Variation

6. Removal and Unity

N

DATA C

CENTER

CHA

APEL

COLUMB

BARIUM

THANK YOU