VoidChris
PenninoGraduate Thesis 2022
Hyperstition &
Graduate Thesis 2022 Glossary of Terms p.06 Provocations p.08 Positions p.-Project p.--
4 Thesis Statement
The terms of techno-capitalist austerity are those that exist in infinitely expandable multiplicities. Contemporary culture is informed by both nothing and everything. The noise of cultural production has reached an untenable din. Contemporary ideas of development incentivize the interplay of public and private entities in the creation of independent mega "zones" that attempt to operate on their own codified ideas of political and economic void. This thesis is proposing opposition in the form of active contrast. The void extrapolated. Through studying the systems that define the systems of the cities of the future, this thesis will produce an urban response in the form of active counterbalance. A new organism or network of organisms capable of production within itself. This thesis will study the characteristics of counterspace through a cultural, political and aesthetic lens. A new idea of counterspace emerges as something that not only imposes itself physically on the built environment, but serves as a space of organic cultural programming, through the subversion, editing, etc of algorithmically, consultant generated contemporary spaces
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Glossary of Terms
Visions - Something which is apparently seen otherwise than by ordinary sight; esp. an appearance of a prophetic or mystical character, or having the nature of a revelation, supernaturally presented to the mind either in sleep or in an abnormal state. beatific vision: see beatific adj. Constructivismb. - An artistic movement, originating in Moscow in 1920, concerned mainly with expression by means of constructions (construction n. 4a); the type of art produced by this movement. Hyperstition - Hyperstition is a positive feedback circuit including culture as a component. It can be defined as the experimental (techno-)science of self-fulfilling prophecies. Superstitions are merely false beliefs, but hyperstitions – by their very existence as ideas – function causally to bring about their own reality. Capitalist economics is extremely sensitive to hyperstition, where confidence acts as an effective tonic, and inversely. The (fictional) idea of Cyberspace contributed to the influx of investment that rapidly converted it into a technosocial reality.
Romance - The character or quality that makes something appeal strongly to the imagination, and sets it apart from the mundane; an air, feeling, or sense of wonder, mystery, and remoteness from everyday life; redolence or suggestion of, or association with, adventure, heroism, chivalry, etc.; mystique, glamour. Cf. Asceticism - The principles or practice of the Ascetics; rigorous self-discipline, severe abstinence, austerity. Gothic - Belonging to, or characteristic of, the Middle Ages; medieval, ‘romantic’, as opposed to classical. In early use chiefly with reprobation: Belonging to the ‘dark ages’
Gestell - Enframing → see Heidegger Utopia - An imagined or hypothetical place, system, or state of existence in which everything is perfect, esp. in respect of social structure, laws, and politics.
Beauty - Beautiful; highly pleasing to the sight. Chiefly in the superlative. In later use regional or nonstandard.
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Divine - Partaking of the nature of God; characteristic of or consonant to deity; godlike; heavenly, celestial. Esoteric - Of philosophical doctrines, treatises, modes of speech, etc.: Designed for, or appropriate to, an inner circle of advanced or privileged disciples; communicated to, or intelligible by, the initiated exclusively. Hence of disciples: Belonging to the inner circle, admitted to the esoteric teaching Poetry - The expression or embodiment of thought or feeling in a manner regarded as characteristic of a poem; (also) the products of this expression. Frequently opposed to verse, prose, etc Epics - A poem, typically derived from ancient oral tradition, which celebrates in the form of a continuous narrative the achievements of one or more heroic characters of history or legend.
Vorticism - A British art-movement of the early twentieth century, characterized by abstractionism and machine-like forms. Also applied to similar tendencies in literature.
Metaphysics - The branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things
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Graduate Thesis 2022 9 Provocations
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Void Void, in the context of this project, will be represented thorugh a range of ideas both physical and theoretical. This thesis will understand the void not necessarily as just the absence of space of the singular move of reduction, but rather a new space of infinite capacities. A space that stands in stark contrast to it's environment not just in the sense of the built environment but in the sense of opposition to larger political forces and actors. Understanding and studying the void as image, the aesthetic sensibilities that define a void and bring it into the realm of "otherspace" is paramount to the project. The basis of these studies is the Clermont Ferrand Cathedral. Commissioned in the 12th century and constructed entirely from black lava stone, it's towering gothic spires provide the perfect basis for establishing a new language for the presence of the void inthe built environment. It can be understood as paper thin, or packed full, it can be understood as having otherworldly properties. It is the blank slate in that it holds within itself the absence of everything in it's context. It is the ultimate arbiter of energy, and it's relationship to it's surroundings can be understood as either imposing or none at all.
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12 1. Clermont Ferrand Cathedral - France (prev.) 2. Georges Seurat - Foal (Le Poulain) 3. Albrecht Durer - Heavenly Body in the Night Sky 2. 3
This thesis proposes opposition to technocapitalist austerity both in the realm of cultural production and the built environment. The convergence of captialism with the new technologies of the digital age has created a new, decentralized and infinitely expandable power base, ruling through the iron fist of the consultant class and their half baked algorithms. The resulting globalized world is made to not only look the same, but is presented with the same set of outcomes and choices for people to engage politically and culturally with the world around them. The built environment is complicit in this global language, through the conception and proliferation of Free Zones. These spaces serve as havens, both econmically and politcally, from their host states and provide a new, network driven model for decentralized violence, a collaboration between private and public sectors.
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14 Culture
Graduate Thesis 2022 15 3.2. 1. Samuel Beckett - Quad 2. Delphi Carstens - History of Science Fiction 3. Jean Baudrillard - America
16 1. Keller Easterling - Extrastatecraft 1.
Graduate Thesis 2022 17 1. Songdo International Business District - South Korea 2. Sweatshop Dormitories - China 1. 2.
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Vortex
"Like an imaginative whirlpool, Blake's use of the term "vortex" in The Four Zoos and in Milton has drawn appreciators to it without their satisfying its demand for explication or filling its void with meaning. Much of this image's alluring complexity stems from Blake's graphic represen tation ofvortices, spirals, and circular forms throughout his work. 2 While less frequent than its visual counterpart, the term "vortex" in his poetry is nevertheless polysemous. It signifies the selfhood, jealous and consuming. And it represents an individual's existence within mental states, as well as passage through thresholds of consciousness. Any attempt to establish the lim its of this image only serves to reduce its meaning, to blunt the rich suggestiveness which invites imaginative participation in it as a symbol, and ultimately to destroy the subtlety that, Blake tells us, "rouzes the faculties to act," and is essential to his art. Reconsidering the possible sources of the vortex, its connection with the uroboros as a cultural archetype, and the several ways in which this important concept is transmuted, however, reveals in part that art's genesis and its intended relation to the perceiving mind"
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Alternative spaces are understood through the energetic potentiality of the vortex. They are not something that takes energy, but rather something that extolls it. The energetic capabilities of the vortex give autonomy to both person and object, and in the Blake sense, serve as a threshold for alternative modes of production Blakes Vortex - Mark Greenberg
THE NATURE of Infinity is this: That every thing has its Own Vortex; and when once a traveller thro’ Eternity Has pass’d that Vortex, he perceives it roll backward behind His path, into a Globe itself enfolding, like a sun, Or like a moon, or like a universe of starry majesty, 5 While he keeps onwards in his wondrous journey on the Earth, Or like a human form, a friend with whom he liv’d benevolent. As the eye of man views both the East and West, encompassing Its vortex, and the North and South with all their starry host, Also the rising sun and setting moon he views, surrounding 10 His corn-fields and his valleys of five hundred acres square. Thus is the Earth one infinite plane, and not as apparent To the weak traveller confin’d beneath the moony shade. Thus is the Heaven a Vortex pass’d already, and the Earth A Vortex not yet pass’d by the traveller thro’ Eternity. 15 Graduate Thesis 2022 23 1. William Blake - Milton 2. 1. 2 . 3.
24 1. Edward Wordsworth - Ship in Drydock 2. Lorem Ipsum Dolor — Eicidentist 3. Tesequo Sitioratur Rehent 4. Volut Perem Ex Dolum 1. 2. 3. 4.
Graduate Thesis 2022 25 1. Edward Wordsworth - Ship in Drydock 2. Mario Gooden - The Refusal of Space 1. 2.
26 Counterspace - Technological 1. Riot Blockchain - Mining Facility
Graduate Thesis 2022 27 3. Rackspace Server Farm - Morrow County, Oregon 4. Tesla Giga Nevada 3. 4.
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Counterspace Mystical
Graduate Thesis 2022 29 1. Arkhip Kuindzhi - Moonlight on the Dnieper 2. Still images from Frank Capra's 1937 film Lost Horizon 2.
TSA Checkpoint
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Counterspace - Public
Graduate Thesis 2022 31 1. Denver Airport - Aerial View 2. Ukrainian asylum seekers being held in airport detention facility - Greece
Counterspace can also be understood through the flow and exchange of capital through various uniquely demarcated territories. Analyzed through legal casino gaming, zones like Native American tribal reservations become a spatial and legal void. Their designation as semi-autonomous territories allow them to operate under a different set of rules and regulations when it comes to things like gaming, hospitality, policing etc. More interesting however, is how these territorial ideas become mapped without representing any particularly notable chunk of population, square footage, etc. of Native American Tribal Reservations
(1883)
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Counterspace - Capital
Map
Graduate Thesis 2022 33 1. Commerce Casino - Commerce, CA 2. Morongo Casino - Cabazon, CA 3. Foxwoods Casino - Ledyard, CT 1. 2. 3.
Located at the gateway of Los Angeles, the Commerce Casino and hotel (est. 1983) operates as the largest cardroom in the world. Established under the friendly economic condtions of the Commerce free zone, with dubious ties to the local Armenian mafia, the casino funnels in huge amounts of capitol in the form of both cash to it's investors and tax revenue/political power to its munincipality and those in power within it. Cardrooms in California operate outside of what most people typically understand gambling to look like (Las Vegas, Native American reservations). Licenses, under special circumstances, are doled out to privately held entities to operate cardrooms throughout the state. Suitability is determined by a number of factors including but not limited to the applicant's honesty, integrity, general character, reputation, habits, and financial and criminal history. The casino also has on it's grounds a 200 room hotel, a full suite of entertainment and hospitality as well as huge amounts of onsite parking, making it a fascinating destination to those coming, going, or escaping to the fringes of the greater Los Angeles area.
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Site - Commerce Casino
36 1. Aria Resort and Casino - Plan
Graduate Thesis 2022 37 2. Programmatic Voids Convention Center Parking Theater Casino Floor Hotel Lobby Casino Circle
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40 Four of a Kind
Graduate Thesis 2022 41 Straight Flush
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Graduate Thesis 2022 43 Typical game of blackjack - mapped
44 Cae Lique Dolest Abo
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48 Cartography
The City of Commerce, by the very nature of it's name can be understood as a void. Conservative accounts have the casino pulling in at least 60% of the cities annual revenue, with countless other, service based businesses surrounding it, the number is surely much higher. The remainder of the land use and tax income is industrial, leaving the city with one of the lowest population densities in the state (1,858 people per square mile). By mapping it's relation to the city of Los Angeles, the city and the casino within it can be isolated as nested void spaces in which the standard means of cultural and economic production of the larger entity (LA County) become obscured
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