Domestic Wilderness

jure zibret M. Arch II

DOMESTIC WILDERNESS Southern California Institute Of Architecture

Graduate Thesis 2022

Jure Zibret

Graduate Thesis 2022 Provocations Positions Project

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Thesis Statement domestic wilderness disconnect ecology performance

This thesis is about ecology and cinema. This thesis

jects is intimate; one can sense smell, different tex-

is a fantastical and surreal voyage into the world of

tures, or different sounds. I am interested in the jux-

our homes and objects, which are their active ingre-

taposition of these conditions and their relationship.

dients. Becoming ecological is becoming aware of the

I am curious about how objects penetrate through

complexity of events surrounding us regarding their

space and how they address each other's presence.

appearance and performance. To Latour, human action is insufficient due to society's disconnect be-

I believe architecture has the power to respond to eco-

tween the scale of global warming phenomena and

logical problems through cinematic modes of repre-

its events. This thesis will look for the opposite - the

sentation.This involves cinema digitally and physically.

connectivity, a relationship between different human

There will be different human and non-human actors.

and non-human actors.The main goal is to address the

The film set is also included. In addition, the building is

disciplinary question between the inside and the outside

continuously transforming on a physical and digital layer

through the notion of domesticity and wilderness.

through the strategically coordinated script, non-human perspective shots (phantom shots), and other events.

The thesis proposes a large film studio where the

The story gives us an insight into the complex world of

house becomes the protagonist of the ongoing live

our homes and the relationship between the inside and

show. Naturally, therefore, the studio becomes a lab-

the outside of our buildings.

oratory for architectural speculations. The show is an experiment with real objects performing in different conditions. The artificial climate, cinematic lighting, augmented layers, and other physical events change in an ongoing TV show. The relationship between ob

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Provocation

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Week 01 1. Words

Morton,Timothy. Hyperobjects. Minneapolis: University

dissconnect

of Minnesota Press, 2017.

domestic ecology

Morton,Timothy. Black Ecologies. Columbia University

performance

Press, 2018.

wilderness Rosen, Philip, Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader, Columbia University Press, 1986.

2. Texts Banham, Reyner. A Home is not a House.Volume 2. New

Tarkovsky, Andrey. Sculpting inTime: Reflections on the

York: Art in America, 1965.

Cinema. London: Bodley

Bratton, Benjamin.TheTerraforming. Moscow: Strelka

Tschumi, Bernard. Architecture and Disjunction. MIT

Press, 2019.

Press, 1996

Farocki, Harun. Phantom Images. 660, 2004.

3. Projects Gage, Mark. Aesthetics Equals Poltics. MIT Press, 2019.

Koolhaas Houselife Mon Oncle

Ghosn, Rania, and El Hadi Jazairy. Geostories. NewYork: Actar Publishers, 2019.

4. Works outside of the field of architecture Harman, Graham. Object-Oriented Ontology: A New

Photography, Cinema, Land Art

Theory of Everything. Penguin UK, 2018.

Latour Bruno. Essay. InWhat Is Cosmopolitical Design:

5 . Technique s,

Design, Nature, and the Built Environment. Farnham,

The thesis will have a strategically coordinated script,

t echnology

ma t e r i a l s

Surrey: Ashgate, 2015. Head, 1986.

occurring on a larger time scale. The project will be rendered in Cinema4D and presented in a movie.

Markopoulou, Areti. Ecologies and Ecosophies: A Con-

There will be various techniques, including xparti-

versation. IaaC Bits. Barcelona: Institute for Advanced

cles, which will allow me to depict the architectur-

Architecture of Catelona, 2019.

al object in an everchanging form and conditions.

Morton, Timothy. “Guest Column: Queer Ecology.”

PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 125, no. 2 (2010): 273–82. https://doi. org/10.1632/pmla.2010.125.2.273.

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6. Contemporaneity What makes the thesis contemporary is the use of modern technologies while exploring reality.The combination of existing cinematographic experiences, recaptured in a digital medium, can transcend the dualism between the content and its structure by flattening them and then understanding them as one momentum. This momentum is artificial, weird, irrational, uncomfortable or even awakening.

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Week 02 Dissconnect "One of the reasons why we feel so powerless when asked to be concerned by ecological crisis, the reason why I, to begin with, feel so powerless, is because of the total disconnect between the range, nature, and scale of the phenomena and the set of emotions, habits of thoughts, and feelings that would be necessary to handle those crises—not even to act in response to them, but simply to give them more than a passing ear."

"So what do we do when we are tackling a question that is simply too big for us? If not denial, then what? One of the solutions is to become attentive to the techniques through which scale is obtained and to the instruments that make commensurability possible. After all, the very notion of anthropocene implies such a common measure.

If it is true that “man is a measure of all things” it could work also at this juncture."

Architecture and Ecology Buildings as ecosystems within ecosystems which actively adapt to momentary changes in their physical reality.The metaphor should be left behind now. "we envision architecture as a new living organism in synchronization with multi-species inhabitants and the environment itself, adapting to nature and evolving with it, co-existing with bacteria, animals, humans and augmented humans" ... to quote Haraway: "To be one at all you must be a many, and that's not a metaphor."

"The ecological wisdom of architecture cannot be a metaphor."

Fig 1

Truman Show.USA: Paramount Pictures, 1998.

Ref 1 Bruno Latour, What Is Cosmopolitical Design?: Design, Nature and the Built Environment (Surrey: Ashgate, 2015), 22 .

Ref 2 Markopoulou, Areti. Ecologies and Ecosophies: A Conversation. IaaC Bits.

Barcelona: Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catelona, 2019.

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Phantom Shots in House of Bears by Dmitry Kokh In 2021 Russian wildlife photographer Dmitry Kokh

What is fascinating about the images is the connection

discovered a group of polar bears living at the aban-

between collective human behavior and its effect on

doned meteorological station on Kolyuchin Island.

other species and the environment.These images show

The drone took photos and videos from a position

us the inevitable realness of climate change phenomena

that a human being cannot usually occupy. In the fol-

and their impact in an almost surreal manner. I want to

lowing document, I will refer to these photos as so

address climate change and the notion of Latourian

called phantom shots, a term borrowed from Harun

disconnect through different scales of time and space in

Farocki.

the form of phantom shots and various actors coexisting and inhabiting the stage - a specific place like an abandoned meteorological station on the Kolyuchin Island.

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13 Fig 1 Frame of Polar Bears Occupying the Abandoned Building Fig 2 Phantom Shot of Polar Bears Taken by the Drone Ref 2 Farocki, Harun. Phantom Images. 660, 2004.

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Week 03 What is Nature or How to be Ecological?

The first task of the thesis is to define that nature and

Fig 1 Zizek at the Landfill

humans are not separate from each other but rather the

Fig 2 Exomind by Pierre Huyghe

same thing. As described in Dark Ecology, to preserve our environment, the idea of nature needs to be abolished. Here Zizek goes even further by claiming that "to confront the threat of a new ecological catastrophe is to cut off our roots in nature and become more artificial."

Fig 3 Disneylands by Thomas Struth (next page) Ref 1 Examined Life. Canada: Sphinx Productions, 2009.

Ref 2 Morton,Timothy. Dark Ecology. Columbia University Press, 2016.

Ref 3 Bratton, Benjamin. The Terraforming.

Moscow: Strelka Press, 2019.

"Diagnosing how climate change is anthropogenically artificial is not to redraw borders between human culture and nature, but to recognize that technical intelligence is what makes anomalously regular patterns regular.

Climate change’s epistemic challenge to everyone is that the entire world has become an exercise in interpreting artificiality.The implication is that our response must also be resolutely anthropogenic.The plan is and must be artificial.”

Fig 1

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Week 04 Workshop with Casey Rehm 1. How does the use of platforms and AI for the

Input Text: One of the reasons why we feel so powerless

automation of intellectual labour impact the agency

when asked to be concerned by the ecological crisis, the

of individual designers?

reason why I, to begin with, feel so powerless, is because of the total disconnect between the range, nature, and

It gives a certain kind of freedom of expression, es-

scale of the phenomena and the set of emotions, hab-

pecially when it comes to results. A designer can

its of thoughts, and feelings that would be necessary

hybridize or invent new aesthetics or visual con-

to handle those crises not even to act in response to

cepts. This kind of aesthetics could potentially

them, but simply to give them more than a passing ear.

develop new ideas which are not bounded to current dogmas. To me, a more interesting question is how to interpret this data and what to do with it?

2. How does the investment of labor, energy, and capital in the production of design technology influence power structures it creates?

It can destroy the systematic hierarchy if the AI serves its users rather than users serving the AI. But, on the other side, it has a dangerous power to create a platform owned, constructed, and designed by its owner, in the sense that all the infrastructure is owned by one entity, which dictates the reality of that specific world. I think this is a dangerous threat to democracy and the freedom of speech, if they even exist.The real potential of moving away from certain constructed dogmas with AI loses its primary meaning if the process does not have a certain amount of freedom.

3. What opportunities does automating repetitive tasks in architectural production have for reshaping contemporary practice.

It helps to concrete certain processes, which are a part of the common workflow.

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Output Text: We cannot even imagine how such vast,

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How is the politics of the future going to be different?

overwhelming events must feel, or why we should want to stop the bleeding, or the suffocation, just because of

The big differences are going to be that people don't

some trivial, trivial, insignificant changes in our life. But

live their lives by the rules of people who've been dead

we are all very familiar with these things.We understand

for centuries and generations.

the importance of an adequate diet, adequate exercise, adequate sleep. We understand that if we can afford

That's the biggest difference, isn't it?

to do more for the planet and ourselves than we're al-

Yes.

ready doing and if the Earth is still ours and we're still in this world—well, we're not going do anything else

The old forms of thought and the superstitions

for the next hundred years, at least not unless we want

that the ancient societies had about their place in

the planet to be completely destroyed. It's going to be

a universe that was very different from their lives

earth in the hands of us, and it's going to be a planet

in Europe were very different from today's view.

of us, unless we're going to keep it the way it is now,

Their lives were very narrow because they could

we're going to keep ourselves in charge. It's a given.

only know their own society and their own history.

There's a sense in which, if you're thinking about the problems of planet earth, what you don't do is just to look at the problems and not start a project of change.

You look at the problems that are there, and at the ways, it might be possible to address them, and you start going from some specific problem to the more general problem—which becomes your project of change.

But if you start with the abstract problem, your task is to identify the specific problem. Your goal can't be to change a million, a hundred million, a billion or a thousand million people as to how they deal with a problem, because they're going to be completely paralyzed and unable to deal with any problems. That's not the job; it's to focus on one, to start with one. We can only be involved in politics right now when we find out what, exactly, the problem is, and to find ways to deal with it that are not so specific as to make it very difficult for the people to be responsible for their own lives.

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Fig 1 AI Image 01 Fig 2 AI Image 02

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Week 05 Notion of Inside and Outside One of the ongoing disciplinary questions in architectur-

Reyner Banham, A Home is not a House, the opposition to

al academia has been the notion of inside and outside.

a house as an empty shell brings a whole new dimension,

For example, where is the border between domestic and

which goes beyond Banhma's technocratic approach.

wilderness, and what kind of environmental perception

The world is not built from one or the other, but many,

does it trigger? Gregory Crewdson's work is one of the

simultaneously juxtaposing in constant flux. Dellegret's

most provocative ones addressing a particular type of

anatomy reduces house to two conditions, which helps

relationship between exterior and interior.With Crewd-

us to understand the complexity of technology, which

son's own words, "There's tension between some sense

is needed to operate our homes but does not diminish

of stillness and some sense of unease. Ultimately these

the connection between the inside and the outside of

pictures are about a search, attempting to make a con-

our domestic environments.

nection to something larger than yourself." Crewdson's images are anthropogenic, depicting highly detailed,

Humans are an active ingrediant of the environment,

fantastical worlds, which are open to interpretation.

with all its dirty truths and realities. By accepting the idea, there is no real border between us and nature, we

By intervening between the two conditions, Crewdson's

could allow unexpected things to happen, which occur in

work transgresses beyond the standard perception of

Crewdson's art as an example. I will take these images

what is (not) nature. In relation to well-known text by

as an inspiration to the upcoming project for my thesis.

Fig 1

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Fig 2

Fig 1 After Life Ahead by Pierre Huyghe Fig 2 Mother and Daughter by Gregory crewdson Fig 3 Home and Mood by Gregory Crewdson (next page) Ref 2 Epson Print Your Legacy | Photographer Gregory Crewdson. YouTube. YouTube, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=bp_bA7eJexo.

Ref 3 Banham, Reyner. A Home is not a House.

Volume 2. New York: Art in America, 1965.

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Fig 3

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Week 06 Domestic vs Wilderness wilderness - wild, undomesticated, unrestrained, out of control, disorderly domestic - domus, house, home, oikos, home economy, ecology, homemaking, homelife While Latourian disconnect addresses the condition in

Wild and domestic conditions are the key to explore the

which one feels 'out of place' in the current world, this

notion of connectivity. Different objects are penetrat-

thesis project explores connectivity. In Queer Ecology,

ing through space, juxtaposing in the uncanny matter.

Morton cites Shell by explaining, "All life-forms, along

Creating a strange or somewhat mysterious world in

with the environments they compose and inhabit, defy

which one inhabits a domestic environment. What is

boundaries between inside and outside, at every level.

the relationship between different objects, human and

When the environments become intimate - as in our

non-human actors occupying the space, exploring their

age of ecological panic and scientifically measurable

relationships and boundaries? How are they connected,

risk (Beck) - it is decisevely no longer an environment,

and how do these forms break the hierarchy of our daily

since it no longer just happens around us."

perception?

Fig 1 House with Plants by Junya Ishighami Fig 2 Ca'n Terra House by Ensamble Studio Fig 3 Ca'n Terra House by Ensamble Studio Ref 1 Morton,Timothy. “Guest Column: Queer Ecology.” PMLA/ Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 125, no. 2 (2010): 273–82. https://doi.org/10.1632pmla.2010.125.2.273.

Fig 1

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Positions

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Week 07 & 08 House in a Movie Screen Koolhaas Houselife is a film project by Ila Bêka and

My Uncle is a comedy directed by French New-Wave

Louise Lemoîne portraying one of the masterpieces of

director Jacques Tati. Tati shows how the modern age

contemporary architecture - Maison à Bordeaux. The

affects and dramatically changes the way that people

film lets the viewer enter into the house's daily intima-

live. All the new technologies at that moment are incor-

cy through the stories and daily chores of Guadalupe

porated in the scenes, were the interaction between

Acedo, the housekeeper, and the other people who look

this new concept of “modern spaces” and people is an

after the building.

element present in most of the movie.

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33 Fig 1 Scene from the Koolhaas Houselife Movie Fig 2 A replica of Villa Arpel at the Cent Quatre in Paris Ref 1 Koolhaas Houselife. DVD. France, 2013.

Ref 2 Mon Oncle. (My Uncle). Film. France: Dist.

National Cinema Service, 1958.

Fig 1

Fig 2

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Week 09 Film Studio as a Laboratoy for Architectural Speculations The Hill House is one of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's

Fig 1 Hill House Rennovation

most significant works, built in 1902.The domestic mas-

Ref 1 González, María Francisca. “The Hill House

terpiece was, at the time, immensely innovative with its structure. Unfortunately, its unusual hybridization of tradition and invention in the construction of the building has led to some fundamental long-term problems of prolonged water damage that require a significant conservation project to help the house survive.

To preserve the house, a radical proposal of its restoration has been proposed by the British firm Carmody and Groarke. In addition, a fifteen-year-old extended plan for its preservation has brought to a suggestion of a large box, which protects the building from the weather.

The walls of the box are covered with a stainless-steel chain-mail mesh, which allows the circulation of air and different entities like bees to maintain the ecosystems inside the box.

This particular project calls for an idea of a large film studio in which the building takes the main spotlight.

This studio could potentially become a place of physical and digital speculation, where the building becomes a protagonist of a television show. The everchanging conditions, which could become highly constructed, could simulate environmental and cultural speculation.

Potentially the building itself could become an object with human-like qualities, through which the audience could relate on many different scales of time and space .

The performance of the building and its inhabitants becomes a laboratory for new environmental imagery based on specific conditions and their reactions on a physical and digital layer.

Box Museum / Carmody Groarke.”

ArchDaily. ArchDaily, March 8, 2021. https:// www.archdaily.com/920640/the-hill-housebox-carmody-groarke.

Ref 2 “The Giant Chainmail Box That Stops a House Dissolving.” YouTube. YouTube, February 7, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=9XSzwbFCFtc.

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Fig 1

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Fig 2

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Fig 1 Glasgow School of Art on Fire in 2018 Fig 2 Burned Interior of the Glasgow School of Art built by Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Fig 2

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Fig 1

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Project

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Week 10 A Story About a House The thesis proposes a large film studio, where the house

the story gives us insight into the complex world of our

becomes the protagonist of the ongoing live show.There-

homes and the relationship between the inside and the

fore, the studio becomes a laboratory for architectural

outside of our buildings. An artificial climate, cinematic

speculations, with artificial climate, cinematic light, all

lighting, and human and non-human actors constantly

sorts of actors, which constantly perform in an ever-

perform in ongoing architectural events. In addition, the

changing architectural event.Through strategically coor-

building is continuously transforming on a physical and

dinated script, phantom shots, another fake conditions,

digital layer through the strategically coordinated script,

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non-human perspective shots (phantom shots), and

Fig 1 Collage, House as a protagonist

other events.The show occurs on a larger scale, reflect-

Fig 2 Interior Space 01

ing the longer lifespan of the building about human beings.What the project tries to achieve is to decentralize

Fig 3 Inerior Space 01 Render Shots Fig 4 Interior Space 02

human beings from their own homes. The fantastical world is presented in thegenre of surrealism, with highly detailed shots on various different scales.

Fig 1

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Fig 2

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Week 11 House and The Movie Set The camera and the film set are continually removed

surrounding events. This comes from a deep in-

from the visual content by any specific rules.To Baudry,

terest in the very structure behind our daily reali-

the apparatus controls the content. I am interested in the

ty. I am interested in behind-the-scenes, dirty lit-

camera as an active ingredient of theTV show. I want it

tle secrets, the invisible infrastructure, or literal

to be raw, infrastructural, there for the viewer as one of

shit behind the content and its superficial meaning.

the actors, through which lens we can also absorb the

Infrastrucutre will be visible and part of the story.

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Furthermore, I am interested in how the content's disclo-

Fig 1 Film Set by Gregory Crewdson

sure in the form of its structure changes its perception.

Ref 1 Rosen, Philip, Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A FilmTheory

So the challenge here is not to treat them in a dualist

Reader, Columbia University Press, 1986.

sense - content and the structure, but to flatten them down into one single moment, which is far more literal, weird, and awakening.

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Fig 1 Gregory Crewdson's Film Set Fig 2 Burned Interior of the Glasgow School of Art built by Charles Rennie Mackintosh Fig 3 Mandalorian Film Set 01 Fig 4 Mandalorian Film Set 02

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Week 12 Thesis Statement domestic wilderness disconnect ecology performance

This thesis is about ecology and cinema. This thesis

I believe architecture has the power to respond to eco-

is a fantastical and surreal voyage into the world of

logical problems through cinematic modes of repre-

our homes and objects, which are their active ingre-

sentation.This involves cinema digitally and physically.

dients. Becoming ecological is becoming aware of the

There will be different human and non-human actors.

complexity of events surrounding us regarding their

The film set is also included. In addition, the building is

appearance and performance. To Latour, human ac-

continuously transforming on a physical and digital layer

tion is insufficient due to society's disconnect be-

through the strategically coordinated script, non-human

tween the scale of global warming phenomena and

perspective shots (phantom shots), and other events.

its events. This thesis will look for the opposite - the

The story gives us an insight into the complex world of

connectivity, a relationship between different human

our homes and the relationship between the inside and

and non-human actors.The main goal is to address the

the outside of our buildings.

disciplinary question between the inside and the outside through the notion of domesticity and wilderness.

The thesis proposes a large film studio where the house becomes the protagonist of the ongoing live show. Naturally, therefore, the studio becomes a laboratory for architectural speculations. The show is an experiment with real objects performing in different conditions. The artificial climate, cinematic lighting, augmented layers, and other physical events change in an ongoing TV show. The relationship between objects is intimate; one can sense smell, different textures, or different sounds. I am interested in the juxtaposition of these conditions and their relationship.

I am curious about how objects penetrate through space and how they address each other's presence.

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