Ghost in a Shell: march

Ghost in a shell: the dissection of my memory palace Maxime Berets

Studio Drawing Architecture Riet Eeckhout Master of Architecture, KU Leuven Brussels 2020-2021

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Table of Contents Introduction

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Conventions of Architecture

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Property

Surgical Architecture

Collecting

Inhabitation

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Close Encounters/Caress

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Introduction “Ich war das, was mich umgeben hat.”7 These words, spoken in the movie “Raume sind Hüllen, sind Häute” (1981), form the starting point for my referential landscape, concerning the exploration of my memory palace related to the home. Translated, this sentence states that ‘I am what is around me’. To me, this means essentially that the home has shaped me to the person I have become now. In search of the definition of home, I would not specifically link a certain site to the home, as home changes in definition throughout our progress in life. Home becomes an accumulation of different spaces and meanings.

Once, I considered my parents’ home as my home, but then I moved away to Brussels, which I now consider my home. But I still, however, regard certain elements of my old home as a definition of home. The spatial memory that is embedded in the associations when we think about home, is one that goes beyond the visual. Elements which are sticky, or even magnetic, structured in a way to attract and hold memories. When I walk through the memory palace of my home, it is shredded, deconstructed. Traces of the elements that I link to home form separate yet connected entities, ripped from the site as I know it.

Rich (2012) states that the philosopher Edward S. Casey defines a “place”—as distinct from a “site”—as a physical location where memories can be contained and preserved. An empty lot, for example, would be considered a site—a generic, boundless locale which “possesses no points of attachment onto which to hang our memories, much less retrieve them.” By contrast, a place is “full of protuberant features and forceful vectors— and distinct externally from other places…We observe this when an indifferent building lot, easily confused with other empty lots, is transformed into a memorable place by the erection of a distinctive house upon it.”9 In that thought process, my site of the memory palace, has yet to transform into a place, by the construction of spatial recollections.

According to Rich (2012), from an architect’s perspective, the transformation of a site (or you could call it a space) into a place is a two-way process. Erecting a structure enables the space to contain memories, and the installation of memories

turns that structure into a place.9 What started as an attempt to grasp the ghosts of tactile memory, is my work for Studio Surrender/ Resistance at KU Leuven. The project involved wrappings of plaster bandage, once hardened leaving only the skin and negative imprint of the object it once embodied. This booklet aims to investigate further references that relate to the preservation of spatial memories. In particular, the artist Heidi Bucher shows this process in great similarity and formed an important reference to my current work.

The preservation process in remembering a building expresses itself to me as dissecting or skinning the building. The meditative act of skinning allows a certain performativity that the physical body cannot. Covering, wrapping, declining use or muting the object, rubbing, drying process, cutting, peeling, preserving.

These recursive actions guide me through different stages of bonding with the fragments and claiming them. The moment of coverage causes a moment to freeze in time, generating a muted object, passive in its performance.

Marks or traces are made of the element, rather than by the element. It is the technique that attracts me to these apparitions. The images are dictated by chance, as much as by choice and emerge onto the surface of the paper. Removing the wrapping involves a sense of mourning, as I become aware of the presence of the object and the fact that the conditions will never go back to that instance of appearances. When the skin has shredded, all that is left is the shell which is somehow relating to its original body, but yet again is not. It has been eliminated from its transience. Skinned fragments of my home appear autonomous as they are disconnected from it and made more abstract. It reforms in its own matter, contains form, yet it embodies no form.

The approach involves several thematic concerns that I will further elaborate on, next to the references presented in this booklet.

Firstly, this involves my fascination with the disassociation of architectural components.

The act of skinning releases architecture from its constrained conventions, as it makes no difference in them. The skin unifies. This

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unification arranges a collection of artefacts, a family in a sense. As I am the collector of these artefacts, there is the question of authority. They contain my intimate bond, which assures my claim to these objects. All of these themes raised a sense of awareness, which, at this moment, I call Surgical Architecture. There is a certain curiosity in approaching architecture as if you were a surgeon.

Dissecting the building as if it were a body, exploring beyond the surface. There is no doubt the linguistic connection between skin and dwelling makes it possible that these feelings evoke naturally.3 The themes mentioned above will, in no particular similar order, support the field of references that has been collected so far. The written sections aim to guide through these references, but refer to the collection of images as a whole. Therefore the chapters should not be considered as seperate entities, but internally linked on atmospheric, detailed and substanced level.

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Berets, M. (2019). Architectural Cosmetics. Studio Surrender/Resistance, KU Leuven.

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Berets, M. (2019). Architectural Cosmetics. Studio Surrender/Resistance, KU Leuven.

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Berets, M. (2019). Architectural Cosmetics. Studio Surrender/Resistance, KU Leuven.

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Berets, M. (2019). Architectural Cosmetics. Studio Surrender/Resistance, KU Leuven.

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Heidi Bucher, Hautraum (1980) [film still]

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Conventions of Architecture “The ‘doubling’ or multiplicity of the monstrous building may take other forms besides adjacency … In this case, a disassociation or rift occurs between the contents of a building and its expression.”2 When the skin has been removed, it causes aggressive conceptual delinking as body, interior and exterior become seperated from its original anatomy. The object is freed from its traditional conventions of our architectural perception.

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Heidi Bucher, Hautraum (1980) [film still]

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Heidi Bucher, Bellevue, Kreuzlingen (1990) [film still]

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Heidi Bucher, Bellevue, Kreuzlingen (1990) [film still]

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Property Frottage or wrapping as a technique of rubbing and touching genates images, dictated by both chance and choice. The unwrapping process is my claim to the object and the tactile connection that is associated with it.

Rendell, J. and Wells, P. (2001). The place of prepositions.

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Rendell, J. and Wells, P. (2001). The place of prepositions.

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Surgical Architecture There is something ‘human’ present in this method of looking at architecture. The architecture in itself becomes human. In a certain way, we even perform chirurgical actions to the building. My roommate who works as an architect, performed a punctureresearch on a facade for an adaptive reuse project last week. As a result, it could show the layers hidden behind the facade(skin) and whether it needs more support(bracing?), filling up junctures(stitching of wounds?) and so on. The architect acts as a surgeon, researching its patient and predicting its result.

The process of constructing my memory palace of the home involves a curiousity to look beyond superficial aspects of architectural components. As Es Devlin presents in her stage design for Betrayal (p. 24-25); the X-Ray of a space, the repetition of doors and windows as a mapping of passage within that body.

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Caravaggio, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (1601)

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Es Devlin, Betrayal by Harold Pinter (1998)

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Heidi Bucher, Raume sind Hüllen, sind Häute (1981) [film still]

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Collecting “At the same time it was the point at which the adaptation of old buildings for a new use started to be discussed, industrial archaeology came into existence as a discipline in its own right, and the general public was alerted to the finite nature of resources, natural or manmade. Like many artists Bucher took up the cause of what was in danger of disappearing, of the material signs of an architectural substance that was under constant threat.”10 A reoccuring theme which I recognize in this line of work, is the act of collecting. Building a compilation of artefacts is something particularly invested in the preservation of memories. What appeals to me about it is the accumulation and stacking as fundamental and essential feature of preservation and loss. The collection of skinnings eliminates objects from their transience.

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Heidi Bucher, Raume sind Hüllen, sind Häute (1981) [film still]

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Heidi Bucher, Raume sind Hüllen, sind Häute (1981) [film still]

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Heidi Bucher, Raume sind Hüllen, sind Häute (1981) [film still]

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Inhabitation “In Pettenkofer’s later works, the relationship between skin, clothing, and dwelling came into sharp focus. In an 1858 speech, he identified clothing and dwelling as primary media through which the body controls the effects of the environment: “We moderate and change the effects of the atmosphere on us through clothing [Kleidung] and dwelling [Wohnung].

Both serve toward the same purpose: to maintain a consistent exchange with the atmosphere. In no sense are they meant to block such an exchange, but to limit it to the necessary levels. We can call our clothing a house [Haus] that we carry around with us, and our dwelling a wide dress [Gewand] in which we walk around. The nomad tent, so to speak, is half way between a cloak and a house.”3

Heidi Bucher, Raume sind Hüllen, sind Häute (1981) [film still]

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Kiessler: https://vimeo.com/122899505

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Jedediah Caesar, Geode

Alfred Joseph Frueh

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Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Blue), 2012

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Lebbeus Woods, Refugee

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Lebbeus Woods, Breaking Strain

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Christo, Wrapped Fountain and Wrapped Medieval Tower (1968)

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Mark West

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D_301220, drawing of home dissection, pencil (own work) Ghost in a Shell

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Do Ho Suh, Rubbing/Loving Project: Kitchen, Apartment A, 348 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011, USA (2014)

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Do Ho Suh,Toilet Bowl-04 (2016)

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Faustzimmer (1899)

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Close Encounters/Caress Alongside the referential research, I performed a practical exploration of mapping my home and elements related to the construction of my memory palace.

This involved the rhythm of wrapping, rubbing and skinning as described in the introduction of this booklet, and recorded on film (https://vimeo.com/507142699).

Stitched together, the yellow tape marks the original edges of the body, and forms a slight structural aspect of the removed skin. I know each object as it is part of my daily passage through my home, but the charcoal rubbing defined the imprint.

Raised surfaces, pressing harder, marking borders.

What is left are fragile, ghost-like traces of the passive objects that were used to make marks of, rather than making marks themselves.

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Close Encounters/Caress: door detail (own work) Ghost in a Shell

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Close Encounters/Caress: door, dissected (own work) Ghost in a Shell

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Close Encounters/Caress: sink (own work)

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Close Encounters/Caress: stove (own work)

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Close Encounters/Caress: baby dresser (own work) Ghost in a Shell

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Sir John Soane Museum, section (1837)

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Closer Encounters ‘I am what is around me.’

With these words I started my research into the meaning of domesticity and memory. Intrinsically linked to the memory and definition of home, is the accumulation of meaning as a consequence of time.

In my viewpoint, domesticity is about surrounding yourself with familiar things. Through recursive encounters we develop a relationship with the things that surround us. May it be small objects, doorhandles, views, it probably exists of things you are not even aware of as you encounter them on daily basis. It is when you remove yourself from it that we get confronted with the accuracy of that memory. Raw and deconstructed, spatial memory consists of endless collections of fragments, where certain elements appear more clearly than others and the edges remain blurred. This fascination for the deconstructed, for the traces of things we once encountered in moments of time is still a present factor in my work. It is in repeating that recursiveness by drawing, that the objects of domesticity I have chosen, start to change in perspective and gather a new familiarity. Using these traces have enabled me to acquire a sense of authority or possession over these encounters.

I enjoy seeking tension between the borders of recognizable or deformed. Maybe this is the time that the accumulation needs. Is that accumulation about getting to know this object on a deeper level? Is it still about the object? The multiple angles or viewpoints gain access to knowledge or memory inhabited in the object, that I didn’t even know existed.

My feelings about skin, dwelling, habitation, property, have slowly turned. I feel more inhabited in the skin in relation to the last drawings, as I feel that this is now fully mine, there is no more in between.

There is a tension between a closeness that I have to the drawing and at the same time a distance I take to the original object. I have stepped out of that object. The drawing becomes a place to enter, a space connected to me. In reflection to an earlier mourning process which I mentioned in the act of skinning, I am now not so sure about that mourning process anymore. First, I believed the mourning was inhabited in the skinning, but I believe it actually exists in the drawing out.

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Close Encounters/Caress (own work) Ghost in a Shell

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Close Encounters/Caress (own work) Ghost in a Shell

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Close Encounters/Caress (own work) Ghost in a Shell

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Close Encounters/Caress (own work)

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Shifts (own work)

ISSUES LIGHTING

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Shifts These drawings present the two orthogonal projections of the traced cabinet from my home. The transformations, dictated by the wind, were photographed midmotion and caught my attention for its ongoing deformation. The gravitational consequences are clearly visible in the dominating lines and contours of the traced cabinet. These were the lines that I followed as I started tracing the photographs. By overlapping the traces, I can catch the object in its motion, allowing the lines to align and cross. Sometimes the objects become one, sometimes they steer away from each other. It is this tension which I enjoy in the deformation of the whole. Some parts overlap, become magnetic, dominate. Others rip away in gravity, autonomously. I like to see how the objects drift, move, deform, those are the moments of insecurity. The parts that prove security are the shadows. The shadows manifest the substantial presence of the object and the position it takes.

To me, there is both familiarity and disconnection with the drawing, as I recognize parts of the original and sometimes actually let go of the recognizable. This fact makes me aware of the process of mourning I discussed in an earlier stage, and makes me wonder if it is this instance where I truly encounter the loss.

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Shifts, detail (own work) Ghost in a Shell

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References 1. Bucher. H. (1980). Hautraum [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=WbHhMMPyGXo&t=93s&ab_channel=Elephant 2. Comaroff, J., Ker-Shing, O. (2013). Horror in Architecture. ORO editions.

3. Ekici, D. (2016). Skin, Clothing, and Dwelling. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians , Vol. 75, No. 3, 281-298 4. Janssen, L. (Producer), & Boonstra, M. (Director). (2019). Home Away From Home (Do Ho Suh) [Motion Picture]. Netherlands: AVROTROS. 5. Koechlin, M. (Producer) (1990). Heidi Bucher Skinning the Bellevue, Kreuzlingen, Switzerland [Motion Picture]. Switzerland.

6. Pallasmaa, J. (2007). Space, Place, Memory and Imagination: The Temporal Dimension of Existential Space.

7. Reinhart, G. (Producer) (1981). Raume sind Hüllen, sind Häute [Motion Picture].

Switzerland.

8. Rendell, J., Wells, P. (2001). The Place of Prepositions: a place inhabited by angels.

London: Routledge.

9. Rich, S. (2012, August 6). The Architecture of Memory. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-architecture-of-memory-14396375/ 10. Ursprung, P. (2005). Interiors – Heidi Bucher and the Fragile Rooms. Zurich: JRP|Ringier, 119-125.

11. Berets, M. (2021). Close Encounters/Caress. https://vimeo.com/507142699

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