EDGES OF EXTREMES By Olga Bannova
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Edge 1: Limitations and labels
Edge 2: Struggle
Edge 3: Allocation
Edge 4: Hidden spaces
Edge 5: Between realities
Edge 6: Affected being
Bibliography
INTRODUCTION I put these thoughts here searching for life elements that may affect living environment pushing it towards the edge of wellbeing. I also hope that this work may help me to understand how a place or situation becomes critical for people and what can be done to make the situation if not fully acceptable but at least less intimidating or menacing to people who have to deal with it. I tried to identify and explore here few “edges” that frame and contribute to conditions become extreme. All of the edges refer not only to spatial conditions or elements but personal and public mentality. There are many more edges, faces, vertices that interfere and affect each other at different levels. This is just a brief overview, the beginning; I will continue exploring most significant ones in my research. Resulting from readings done during the Philosophies PhD course and applying them to my PhD research I noticed that what seemed scattered at the first sight in the beginning suddenly made sense and gave a kick to a new approach and new vision on problems of planning and designing for extreme environments.
EDGE 1: LIMITATIONS AND LABELS
I don't want to label things objects events etc., I see spatial agencies representing life itself and specific to individuals, cultures, places, times… It brings us to understanding of Architecture not as an object but rather a process where everyone finds a way to his niche or reference or himself. Is it really other way of doing architecture (Awan, Schneider, & Till, 2011)or that was always underlying any successful architecture? Probably the goal of architecture is not only creating timeless pieces and objects but also and maybe even more so, about providing means for stimulating for growth and advancement, transformations and modifications. (Petrescu, 2012) That how I find it related to my project and what I’ll use to trace relationships and actions by transforming them into agencies. In the book “Spatial Agency: other ways of doing architecture” authors discuss what seems to be limitations of architectural practice but can be translated into agencies through different processes: Architectural object equals static state (limitation) that becomes dynamic (unlimited) through alternative view approach; Architecture mirrors marketplace (limitation) that becomes spatial through social context; “Architectural exclusiveness” (limitation) that becomes inclusive through multidisciplinary collaborations; Architectural “practice” as a limitation transfers into action “praxis” through critical architecture and understanding of practice itself. Architecture as a collective agency encouraging participants or other agencies to act “otherwise” transferring lines of “agencements” into mapping relationships with time interfering and acting within that web as additional “agency”. If “Consequences of architecture are more important than objects of architecture” (Bruno Latour) than connectivity and “big picture” architecture can be an answer to many problems that architectural practice is facing now and other difficulties.
EDGE 2: STRUGGLE
What would be or what is a theory and definition of “extreme” or “extreme environment” term means? There are definitions based on variety of personal backgrounds or different perceptions (NAI). It turned out that people get confused when hear these terms and many have quite different opinions what they are. Those perceptions usually depend on many factors: social, cultural, behavioral, financial, political, and of course environmental with multiple characteristics included. For example, environmental factors reflect on all life aspects and at the same time depend on them. Misbalance or disturbance in one of these areas can lead to the environment become “extreme” for living or/and to a social or other “struggle” that may also lead to a bigger disturbance and creation of even more extreme conditions than before. It may also lead to deepen disagreements between people and groups of people, affecting political subjects and processes (Lazzarato, 2006). As Jacques Ranciere says in his “Introducing disagreement”: “Of course, there is no such thing as the simple management of common interests or the zero symbolization of the community” (Ranciere, 2004) ‐ there are no such thing as “common interests” unless those interests refer to simple survival but that also depends on the size of the group and level of severity they are facing. Understanding of relationships and influences between different facets of human society and architecture can help to find a design approach which would optimize needs and requirements for various types of people living in different environments, societies and cultures. Although most habitat arrangements in extreme environments cannot be considered “cities”, some of urban assets can definitely be applied to their planning and design practices. Social, cultural, and even political aspects have to be addressed in the overall planning and throughout a design process. Such settings present a high degree of design functionality, with a tendency to demand an adaptation from habitants to the technology. These aspects of human being are corresponded to multi facets of sustainability and of course to sustainable design and planning and architectural practices.
EDGE 3: COEXISTENCE
It may seem that coexistence or harmony is opposition of struggle although coexistence does not necessarily happen with a perfect balance or it may change with time and new players entering the scene. If “the unit of survival is organism plus environment” as Gregory Bateson said, then there always should be found a way of living in the environment without severely alternating it even if the environment is brutal and makes people to struggle to survive. There should be a way to look at habitation unit not like a protective barrier but as part of already existing system balancing between optimization of given tools and requirements and admitting conditions for environment to continue its natural evolution. When Zoe Sofia talks about “container” technologies (Sofia, 2000)and awareness of containers being part of processes and environments she looks at it from different perspectives and argues passiveness of containers. She argued that “neglect of containers and containment functions is only the result of anti‐maternal bias in western thought, but is encouraged by the unobtrusiveness of containers, traces of whose productive roles are not necessarily evident in the final product”. Plato argues in Timaeus: “we should never speak as if any of the things we suppose we can indicate by pointing and using expression ‘this thing’ have any permanent reality: for they have no stability and elude the designation ‘this’ or ‘that’…” (Plato, 1965) ‐ that means that instead of forcing transformations that we would think are “good” we may try to “coexisting” and find layers of transformation where our needs don not contradict natural way of environmental evolution. If there were three distinct realities as “being, space and becoming” architect’s major task may be formulated as finding balance between them that would last for some time and conditions for that balance to happen.
EDGE 4: HIDDEN SPACES
How urban or built environment hides or exposes personalities? Where we may feel safer: within a community or in the middle of nowhere? Is there a compromise between them, where a person may feel most comfortable and productive? I wonder where people hide and why do they do it? How different those hidden places would be in a big city and in the middle of nowhere? When we hide do we create or destroy? I try to investigate these questions in course of my research and see if there are issues that design or architecture can address. It is a common impression that population density creates social, political, health and economic problems. But does opposition to the density necessarily solves those problems? Hectic urban environment offers certain convenience to people living there and as a result pushes its edges further consuming more land, resources, and people. Stress that comes along with urban growth and density requires higher level of adaptation from people living there to its conditions and not everybody can adapt to it or fight it. People start looking for places where to hide, catch a breath, refresh or recoup. One of big cities phenomena is that in spite of the fact that a person living there is usually exposed to thousands around him he may live unrecognizable and unnoticed throughout whole life. That creates a perfectly hidden place for one who seeks it. My research is focused on extreme environments and habitability issues there. Psychological issues that people have to deal with there are similar in a very unique way to many that an urban habitant experience living in a very technologically advanced environment and surrounded by millions of others like him. Would those who come from these different environments even understand each other?
EDGE 5: BETWEEN REALITIES
1. NASA is using in‐house expertise to develop this plant habitat to go on an EXPRESS rack, like the one pictured above, in the International Space Station's Destiny laboratory. It will provide a large, enclosed, environmentally controlled chamber designed to support commercial and fundamental plant research aboard the space station. (NASA)
Fear Fascination Fashion Frustration Focus or determination It seems these are common emotions attached to image of a “cyborg”. But maybe it has been changing for some time and Donna Haraway looks at it much broader and deeper when she is talking about social, political, gender, cultural aspects of cyberology. “A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world‐changing fiction.” After all, wanting it or not but all of us become more or less cyborgs. Even those who fought it and tried to oppose cyborg idea to nature can’t escape fascinating mystery surrounding cyborg identity, perhaps because it denies the idea of identity itself, at least from human perspective. Donna looks at the cyborg theory in details and offers to apply it to our social environment for a better understanding of its phenomenon and where it may lead us (Haraway, 1991). What is happening now and what may happen with us soon? Fiction may become reality but would it be how we imagine it now? The discussion may bring us to an essential question of all humanity: What is “bad” and what is “good”? And if cyboring our lives into fiction is considered to be “no good” why do we keep doing it over and over again? Maybe we see it as an opportunity to change or a game: “Cyborg imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves. This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia.” Katherine Hayles in her ‘Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere’ extends Haraway’s thoughts: “The characteristic dynamic of this formation is the penetration of computational processes not only into every aspect of biological, social, economic and political realms but also into the construction of reality itself, where ‘reality’ should be understood, as Haraway says in a different context, as ‘made’ but not necessarily ‘made up’.” Hayles brings up an example of the surveillance programs under the Bush administration and argues that the fact that the data is collected by machines makes the process less intrusive into personal lives of the US citizens. But those machines are not only designed by humans but also deliver collected data to them which make it a close loop system and a cyber‐system (Hayles, 2006). I like the idea of humans co‐evolving with intelligent machines as they do with animals. A symbiotic co‐existence stirs evolution in a positive direction. After all, we are still humans and we can’t resist from humanizing what we like or get attached to, either it is an animal or a machine and maybe it’s a good thing!
EDGE 6: AFFECTED BEING
There is no such thing as a neutral affect, it is always followed by positive or negative feelings and emotions and then actions (Shouse, 2005). Consequences of affect can be contiguous and unite people in an attempt to accomplish something; included are even actions and movements to destroy what caused that initial affect. Nigel Thrift talks about 4 definitions of affect (Thrift, 2008): 1. “… as a set of embodied practices that produce visible conduct as an outer lining. This translation chiefly arises out of the phenomenological tradition but also includes traces of social interactionism and hermeneutics.” 2. “… usually associated with psychoanalytic frames and is based around a notion of drive. Often, it will follow the Freudian understanding that one physiological drive ‐sexuality, libido, desire ‐is the root source of human motivation and identity.” 3. “… is naturalistic and hinges on adding capacities through interaction in a world which is constantly becoming. It is usually associated first of all with Spinoza and then subsequently with Deleuze's modern ethological re‐interpretation of Spinoza.” 4. “… defined as the property of the active outcome of an encounter, takes the form of an increase or decrease in the ability of the body and mind alike to act, which can be positive and increase that ability (and thus 'joyful' or euphoric) or negative and diminish that ability (and thus 'sorrowful' or dysphoric). Probably most people have some “feelings” what they mean by “affect” and it seems to me that it is often used as an “excuse” of taking some actions that lead to unexpected or expected but somehow shameful consequences. “I was affected by design of this building and stepped on your toe and broke it. I’m sorry but I have a legitimate excuse, don’t I?” Similar situations happened pretty much to all of us from one or another side. It is also interesting how, although initiated by the same reason or subject, affect may transfer from being positive and giving uplift of admiration and inspiration to opposite bringing forward rejection and dismissal. Architecture as a discipline and definitely architectural objects – buildings – serve as sources of such sensational activity affecting on people who are inside and outside of them. Being affected by somebody or something is a proof of us being human that’s all it means we are neutral to what is happening around us and eventually take an action.
Bibliography Awan, N., Schneider, T., & Till, J. (2011). Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture. London: Routledge. Haraway, D. (1991). Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The Reinvention of Natute. New York: Routledge. Hayles, N. K. (2006). Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere. Theory, Culture & Society, 159‐ 166. Lazzarato, M. (2006). The Concepts of Life and the Living in the Societies of Control. In M. Fuglsang, & B. M. Sorensen, Deleuze and the Social (pp. 171‐190). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. NAI. (n.d.). NAI: Ask an astrobiologist. Retrieved December 11, 2012, from NASA Astrobiology Institute: http://nai.nasa.gov/astrobio/feat_questions/extreme.cfm Petrescu, D. (2012). Relationscapes: Mapping Agencies od relational practice in Architecture. City, Culture, Society, 135‐140. Plato. (1965). Timaeus and Critias. London: Penguin Books. Ranciere, J. (2004). Introducing Disagreement. Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 3‐9. Shouse, E. (2005). Feeling, Emotion, Affect. Retrieved from MC Journal (A Journal Of Media and Culture): http://journal.media‐culture.org.au/0512/03‐shouse.php Sofia, Z. (2000). Container Technologies. Hypatia, 180‐200. Thrift, N. (2008). Non‐Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect. London: Routledge.