Benjamin Risby Architecture Dissertation

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Architectural and spatial concepts as defined by past, present, and future manifestations of the human body ■ Benjamin Risby, 120548309 ■ Newcastle University ■ BA Architecture, Stage Three ■ ARC 3060



Contents ■ Introduction

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■ Manifestation One: The Vitruvian Man The divine body

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■ Manifestation Two: The Modulor Man The industrialised body The idealised body

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■ Manifestation Three: The Cyborg Man The cyborg body

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The acsending body

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■ Manifestation Four: The No Man  The transcendant body

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■ Conclusion

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■ List of illustrations

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■ Bibliography

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Benjamin Risby, 120548309 Newcastle University BA Architecture, Stage Three ARC 3060



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Introduction Our historical understanding of and relationship with architectural space is closely connected to the human body, but as time and technology progress our understandings of space have changed. Over the centuries, from the invention of stone tools to the internet, humanity has used technological advancement to further itself. Technology has become so intrinsically woven in to what makes us human that we rely upon it daily. Just as it has woven itself in to our daily lives, it has redefined the way we design and consider space. The aim of this dissertation is to explore how, throughout time, ideas concerning the body in architectural and spatial thinking have evolved. There will be a heavy focus on the technological influence as it is the ability to adapt through technology that has allowed us to become the dominant species we are today. The discussion is grounded in the core architectural principles of the Vitruvian Man and the Modulor Man, with an interpretation of what characterises these ways of thinking. It will then move in to more theoretical ground, proposing the Cyborg Man and the No Man as what the next two manifestations of the body may be, in relation to spatial understanding. The first two parts provide a historical context to this dissertation. The first is deals with the use of the body as a tool in the design of architecture, focusing on the divine aspect. Here a recurring theme is introduced, that there is a disassembly of the body throughout time, as well as a history of idealising the human body. Part two is based around the Modulor Man, discussing Le Corbusier’s interest in standardisation, the fundamental principles of the Modulor, and introducing the idea of the body as a system. At this point the technological influence begins to saturate. From here the manifestations of bodily idealism within architecture are explored in depth. The last two parts propose a present and future manifestation of the body, starting with the ‘Cyborg Man’. From here, the influence of technology is heavy, beginning by establishing the cultural context behind the cyborg. The argument is that we are already cyborg, setting about proving this by exploring the idea of technology as prosthetic extension. Next it looks at how, by being cyborg, we are able to explore a new form of space. This is supported by looking at technologies we use on a daily basis, and how they might connect us to the cyberspace. Here the idea of an ascension is introduced. The final chapter jumps forward and speculates upon the next evolution, the ‘No Man’. This chapter explores the idea of complete transcendence of body in to cyberspace via certain technologies, and support this with examples of modern research and technologies. The hope for this dissertation is that it raises questions and promotes thought regarding our current connection to architecture and space, specifically when considering the ever more relevant role of technology in modern society. It refers to sources across multiple disciplines in order to give a well rounded picture, as well as combining historical, theoretical, and personal writing. It also presents itself in chronological order as a means


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of building a running narrative, exploring our ever evolving bodies. Before beginning, lets briefly discuss the relevance of the body in regards to thinking about architecture and space. It is through the five senses of the human body that we are able to understand ourselves and our place in the environment. ‘Every touching experience of architecture is multi-sensory […] Architecture strengthens the existential experience, one’s sense of being in the world’ claims Pallasmaa.1 This claim is supported by Zumthor, who explains: ‘To experience architecture in a concrete way means to touch, see, hear, and smell it.’2 It is clear to see that the body is the single most relevant topic when discussing architectural and spatial concepts. Some believe that this focus is being lost in contemporary architecture because of the rise of technology; our continuing ocularcentrism is strengthened by the proliferation of digital visual media. In light of this, an exhibition at London’s Royal Academy explored the sensual element of architecture by constructing human scale spaces that provoke a psychological response: ‘It is about visitors experiencing real spaces rather than staring at iconic images of famous buildings’ explains Kate Goodwin.3

1 Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses, 3rd edn (United States: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated, 2012), p. 45. 2

Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, 2nd edn (Switzerland: Birkhauser Verlag AG, 2006), p. 66. BBC, ‘Sensing Spaces: Emotional Buildings’, BBC, 2014 <http://www.bbc.com/culture/ story/20140130-can-buildings-be-emotional> [accessed 17 December 2015]. 3


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Manifestation One: The Vitruvian Man The divine body: This exploration of our understanding of architecture and space through manifestations of the human body, begins in ancient Rome. This first chapter aims to explore what the Vitruvian Man, as a concept, represents. Due to the vast number of writings on this topic that are focused within this early period of history, this chapter will provide a brief overview. It discusses how certain key architectural figures used manifestations of the human body in architectural design in pursuit of harmony and beauty. Then offers an analysis of their principles and discuss similarities between them. Next it looks further in to the dominant theme of the divine by providing examples of the body in the design of places of worship. Finally, this chapter will briefly look at how this connection to the divine manifests in the body, and consequently the universe. Early historical significance of the body in architecture is based upon the concept that the human body is divine. The oldest of surviving writings on architecture belong to the ancient Roman, Vitruvius. De architectura, or Ten Books on Architecture discusses how nature, and consequently the ancients, designed the human bodies’ members to be proportional of the whole and that this same rule should therefore apply to architecture.4 As well as discussing this it sets the fundamental principles of proportion in architecture: ‘Proportion is a correspondence among the measures of the members of an entire work, and of the whole to a certain part selected as standard’, and again connects these to the human body: ‘[…] as in the case of those of a well shaped man.’5 Vitruvius states these proportions and explains that measures such as the foot, which are integral to architectural design, also originate in the human body. The middle ages bring the sketchbooks of Villard de Honnecourt, a French master builder. Villard uses a geometrical system that is also based on human form; however, this system consists of geometric shapes projected onto organic forms as opposed to proportional figures. This can clearly be seen when superimposing two of Villard’s drawings from the same sketchbook page upon one another (fig. 1). This interpretation of the body considers directions of movement, but neglects the plasticity of the body and the relationship of its limbs to one another.6 Leon Battista Alberti was the definition of a renaissance polymath, being extremely knowledgeable across multiple disciplines yet consistently focused upon the concept of beauty. His theories of architectural form and function are found in his book, De re aedificatoria or On the Art of Building, and it is here that he states his theory of beauty as a ‘harmony of all the parts […] fitted together with such proportion and connection, that nothing could be added, diminished, or altered, but for the worse.’7 As well as Alberti’s treatise on architecture he wrote De statua, focusing on his theories of sculpture. Within

4 Vitruvius, Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture, trans. by Morris Hicky Morgan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914), p. 73. 5

Ibid,. p. 72.

6 Hanno Walter Kruft, Ronald Taylor and etc., A History of Architectural Theory: From Vitruvius to the Present (United Kingdom: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), p. 37. 7 Leon Battista Alberti, The Ten Books of Architecture: The 1755 Leoni Edition (New York: Dover Publications, 1986), p. 113.


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Fig. 1 Wrestlers superimposed upon a plan

Fig. 2 Caryatid Porch at Erechtheion


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this is the ‘Tabulae dimensionorum hominis’, which states the dimensions of an ideal male body.8 These dimensions were gathered by taking the measures of many bodies, all deemed beautiful, and calculating their mean values.9 He took this approach from the Greek painter, Zeuxis, who believed that ‘nature has not refined to perfection any single object in all its parts.’10 There are obvious similarities between Vitruvius, Villard de Honnecourt and Alberti, but there are also less obvious similarities. They all make a connection between the body and a building; Villard makes a more literal connection evident in how some of his plans relate directly to the body in motion, whilst Vitruvius and Alberti disassemble the body into a system of measurement that is then used. It is evident that Vitruvius and Alberti both focus on nature, and therefore the divine, in their quest for perfection. There is perhaps an inherent problem here, the divine image in which Vitruvius bases his theory is an idealised form of man and does not represent all shapes and individualities of man. Alberti is just as guilty of idealising the human body by taking it further and metaphorically dissecting his subjects. Therefore, seeming to reveal that in order to attain perfection, a disassembly of the body needs to occur, and more so than that, modifications must be made. Piecing back together parts that are in a sense, prosthetic. Both Vitruvius and Villard also disassemble the body: Vitruvius breaks it into measures such as the foot, while Villard, by neglecting the relationship of the limbs to one another, disassembles the body into separate dissected parts. However, these similarities between Vitruvius and Alberti are to be expected considering Alberti studied the works of Vitruvius. This fascination of the body and its relation to the divine becomes particularly apparent when looking at the design of places of a worship. For example, the Erechtheion is an ancient Greek temple in Athens. One of its most notable features is the Caryatid Porch (fig. 2); a caryatid is a supporting column sculpted in the female form. The column is physically supporting the temple, a metaphor that one could claim to represent the relationship between the divine and the body. The people support the temple and the temple will support them back. Later in the Medieval period, the French liturgical writer, Guillaume Durand, describes the plan of a church: ‘The disposition of the material church answers the human body in the articulation of its parts, since the chancel, where the altar is placed, represents the head; the transepts to the left and right – the arms and hands, while the other part, which lies westward, is the rest of the body.’11

And later still in the Renaissance period, Italian painter and architect, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, positions a human figure over the plan of a church to illustrate the concept (fig. 3). Rudolf Wittkower states: ‘Francesco di Giorgio demonstrates by means of the inscribed human figure how to weld together organically the centralized and the longitudinal parts of such a church design.’12 This relationship between the divine, the body and the building is explained by Phillip Steadman: ‘Since man was made in the image of God, so it was believed the proportions exemplified in the human form would reflect a divine and cosmic order.’13 This leads into the following discussion of the concept

Leon Battista Alberti and Cecil Grayson, On Painting and on Sculpture: The Latin Texts of de Pictura and de Statua (London: Phaidon, 1972), pp. 129 – 133. 8

9

Ibid,. p. 135.

Harry Jr. Berger, The Perils of Uglytown: Studies in Structural Misanthropology from Plato to Rembrandt (Fordham University Press, 2015), p. 221. 10

Joseph Rykwert, The Dancing Column: On Order in Architecture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), p. 39. 11

Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, 4th edn (London: Academy, 1988), p. 20. 12

Philip Steadman, The Evolution of Designs: Biological Analogy in Architecture and the Applied Arts, revised edn (United Kingdom: Routledge, 2008), p. 16. 13


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Fig. 3 Church plan


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of the microcosm. The term ‘microcosm’ is the equivalent of a Greek term meaning ‘little world’; the term ‘macrocosm’ means ‘great world.’14 Historically, the idea of the microcosm associates the body with the rest of the universe. The body being microcosm and the universe being macrocosm. Dalibor Vesely picks up on this relationship, linking it with the ‘problem of human existence’ and concluding that through ‘human, corporeal, and sensible realities […] the human body becomes a manifestation […] of reality as a whole.’15 The idea of the body as the center of the universe is prevalent throughout architectural history, and has influenced ideas regarding architecture for centuries. By studying the theories of these three architectural figures from different time periods, it is clear to see the focus of the body as the driving force in the pursuit of beauty. This focus comes as a result of the idea that the body is divine, and can obviously be seen in the design of places of worship throughout history. But in addition to this there is a strong sense of disassembly, achieved by the division of the body into units and proportions. This disassembly allows the piecing back together of the body in an idealistic way, and along with the idea of body as microcosm and center of the universe, idealism becomes a strong element of the Vitruvian Man. As a concept, the Vitruvian Man is defined by a divine influence, and a search for perfection through disassembly of the body. This idealism continues until the modern day in the form of the Modulor Man.

George P. Conger, Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the History of Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1922), p. xiv. 14

Dalibor Vesely, ‘The Architectonics of Embodiment’, in Body and Building: Essays on the Changing Relation of Body and Architecture, ed. by George Dodds and Robert Tavernor (The MIT Press, 2002), pp. 28 – 43 (p. 31). 15


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Fig. 4 League of Nations sketch


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Manifestation Two: The Modulor Man The industrialised body: We are now situated in the early twentieth century, the focus upon the divine has dwindled and we are starting to design and understand space differently. The Modern era has seen the field of architecture changed dramatically, as well as our entire understanding of the world due to industry and technology. This chapter explores a contemporary use of the human body in architecture: the Modulor, influenced by the industry, technology and the changing face of the world. The chapter will begin by briefly introducing Le Corbusier and his interest in standardisation, before explaining his Modulor, and ending by offering an interpretation of the Modulor Man as an industrial system, before posing a question that leads in to the next chapter. Swiss architect Le Corbusier, born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, is regarded as one of the twentieth century’s most important architects. Born 6 October, 1887 in Switzerland, Le Corbusier was often referred to as the frail brother and regarded as the least gifted of the two.16 Despite this he went on to help pioneer the modern movement and leave a lasting legacy. Alan Plattus explains how the culmination of works regarding Le Corbusier has ‘dissolved him into the collective bloodstream of the century [becoming] not so much an object for our discourse as part of the very ground upon which that discourse must be founded’.17 Le Corbusier is famed for his pioneering approach to architectural design, perfected in his Villa Savoye (1929–31), his utopian urban development schemes epitomised by his 1922 plan for a ‘Contemporary City’ (Ville Contemporaine) and 1935 plan for ‘The Radiant City’ (La Ville Radieuse), as well as his significant contributions to architectural design theory. One such contribution was Vers une Architecture, or Toward an Architecture, a 1923 collection of essays in which Le Corbusier explored the concept of modern architecture; advocating for a new approach in response to the zeitgeist of the industrial age and dismissed contemporary trends. ‘A house is a machine for living in’ states Le Corbusier;18 he fills the book with numerous images of airplanes, automobiles and ocean liners and states ‘The creations of machine technology are organisms tending toward purity’.19 As well as that, a sketch by Le Corbusier regarding the League of Nations project (fig. 4) illustrates his thinking from ocean liner to building; making it clear that technology is an important influence to him. Peter Blake supports this by explaining, Le Corbusier ‘found his major sources of aesthetic inspiration in the technology of our time.’20 The section of the book dedicated to the automobile proclaims that to achieve perfection there is need of standardised forms in architecture. Le Corbusier makes this connection by first explaining how the Greek temple has been standardised in all its parts, he then argues standardisation fuels progress. Next he states that achieving an efficient standard requires exhaustion of every practical and reasonable possibility, leaving you at ‘a manifestation

Allen H. Brooks, Le Corbusier’s Formative Years: Charles-Edouard Jeanneret at La Chauxde-Fonds (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 10-16. 16

Alan Plattus, ‘Le Corbusier: A Dialectical Itinerary’, in The Le Corbusier Guide, ed. by Deborah Gans (United States: Elsevier Science, 2014), pp. 9-25 (p. 10). 17

Le Corbusier and Jean-Louis Cohen, Toward an Architecture, ed. by Jean-Louis Cohen, trans. by John Goodman, 2nd edn (Los Angeles: Getty Trust Publications, 2007), p. 151. 18

19

Ibid., p. 158.

Peter Blake, The Master Builders: Le Corbusier, Mies van Der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: Norton, W. W. & Company, 1997), p. 26. 20


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not only of perfection and harmony, but of beauty.’21 For Le Corbusier, the automobile epitomises this. This search for perfection through standardisation is continued in his discovery, the Modulor. Twenty-five years later, Le Corbusier releases the first of two books concerning the Modulor, entitled, Le Modulor. In 1926, The Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR) was established with the task of standardising all objects in the construction industry.22 Having seen the first standardised construction series of AFNOR, Le Corbusier began development of the Modulor. The book proposes a new anthropometric scale of proportion with the aim of unifying the metric and imperial unit, creating a standardised system for both architects and engineers. Le Corbusier clarifies the difference between the Modulor and imperial systems, explaining: ‘The “Modulor” is a scale of measures; the foot-and-inch and the metre are numbers.’23 These measures originate from numbers but ‘they are facts in themselves, […] the effect of a choice made from an infinity of values.’24 He generates these measures by using the Fibonacci numbers, the double unit, the golden ratio, and human measurements. Le Corbusier has great faith in mathematics, defining mathematics as ‘so near to divine that it will always be elusive in its infinite withdrawals.’25 Initially the height of the Modulor stands at 1.75 metres tall, but using this height made it impossible for Le Corbusier to find whole values in both the metric and imperial system. To solve this, it was changed to 1.83 metres and from here the body is broken down into its constituent measures.

21 Le Corbusier and Frederick Etchells, Towards a New Architecture (New York: Dover Publications, 1986), pp. 133 – 138. 22 AFNOR, ‘AFNOR Timeline of Key Dates’ <http://www.afnor.org/en/group/about-afnor/ afnor-timeline-of-key-dates> [accessed 22 December 2015].

Le Corbusier, ‘The Modulor: A Harmonious Measure to the Human Scale Universally Applicable to Architecture and Mechanics’, in The Modulor and Modulor 2, 2 vols. (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2000), p. 178. 23

24

25

Ibid., p. 60.

Ibid., p. 183.

26

Ibid., p. 17.

The Modulor classifies a new way of thinking about the human body in architecture, moving from an aesthetic principle based in ‘divine’ proportion, to an industrial, mechanical, and technologically based ideal. Le Corbusier is still searching for harmony and therefore beauty, just as Vitruvius and Alberti were, but for him this is found through the standardisation that is needed in times ‘when high-speed means of communication have worked a profound change in the relations between men and peoples.’26 His admiration for industry, in particular the automotive industry, confirms his faith in the need for standardisation, as well as his embrace of technology. The measures of the Modulor are a disassembly of the human body, but instead of a metaphorical dissection, once can consider it as taking parts from an old machine and repurposing them to make a modern, more efficient machine. They converge the human body into an industrial system; thus the body could be considered a cog in the engine of perfection, but what happens when the cog does not fit? Discussing Le Corbusier’s anthropometric scale – the Modulor, has introduced the relevance of technology in relation to bodily understanding of space. Including an analysis of his interest in standardisation has illustrated that the focus of the body in architecture has evolved. However, one aspect did not, idealism of the human body.


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The idealised body: The human body in architecture is often idealised. The latter half of this chapter will approach this topic by providing examples of idealisation in architectural thinking, therefore establishing how common this theme is. It will then be explained how bodily idealism is a weakness and investigate how removing this might change our approach to architectural design, thus demonstrating that thinking of the body as an idealised concept has come to an end. Perhaps the most famous depiction of an idealised human body is that of the Vitruvian Man (fig. 5). Inspired by Vitruvius’ ideas regarding the divine proportions of the human body being imperative to the perfect building, and drawn by Leonardo da Vinci during the Renaissance, it depicts a man with arms outstretched and legs parted in two positions. The points defined by his limbs dictate the position of a circle and square, signifying a correspondence between perfect proportions and geometry. Having already rejected the female form, it continues to alienate men and the disabled with its depiction of a muscular, masculine and able-bodied physique. The Architect’s Pocket Book, is a book often relied on by architecture students as an aid to designing, providing diagrams of objects and human figures, alongside numerical data for them. The book’s purpose is to give rationalised dimensions for these to help in the design of spaces. One of the earliest books in this style was Ernst Neufert’s, Architects’ Data. Published in 1936, Neufert was a former student of Gropius at the Bauhaus.27 The book’s depictions of the body are again, all male, with a healthy physique (fig. 6). An analogy of ‘a cog in the engine of perfection’ was previously presented earlier in this text, and the question asked ‘what happens when the cog does not fit?’ In Le Corbusier’s Modulor it is forced to change. As stated, the height of the Modulor Man changed to 1.83 metres in his search for an idealised and unified set of measures, but this height was inspired by an idealisation of human figure in itself. Le Corbusier had discounted 1.75 as a ‘rather French height’,28 and stated this change of height because ‘in English detective novels, the good-looking men, such as the policeman, are always six feet tall.’29 As well as that, Michael J. Ostwald paraphrases from Robin Evans’, The Projective Cast, stating ‘the female body was only belatedly considered and rejected as a source of proportional harmony.’30 In Le Corbusier’s Modulor 2, a response to feedback and critique of the Modulor, he comments on a depiction of the Modulor as a woman: ‘his man is a woman 1.83 metres tall: brrrh!’.31 Emphasis on the ‘brrrh’ indicating the thought alone making Le Corbusier shudder. Despite these rejections of real bodies, the stylised drawings of the Modulor Man (fig. 7) stand as extreme abstractions of a man’s body, a further idealisation.

Bauhaus Online, ‘Ernst Neufert’ <http:// bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/personen/ernstneufert> [accessed 27 December 2015]. 27

28

Le Corbusier, The Modulor, p. 56.

29

Ibid., p. 56.

Michael J. Ostwald, ‘Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret), The Modulor and Modulor 2 – 2 Volumes. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2000’, Nexus Network Journal, 3 (2001), 145–48 (p. 146) <http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00004-000-00150>. 30

Le Corbusier, ‘Modulor 2, 1955 (Let the User Speak Next): Continuation of “The Modulor” 1948’, in The Modulor and Modulor 2, 2 vols. (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2000), p. 52. 31

The 1955 depictions from industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss recognise that there is no one average body type. In his book, Designing for People, Dreyfuss introduces Joe and Josephine (fig. 8), his two main models that act to remind him of the importance of people at the core of his work.32 He states that the ‘concern of the industrial designer is

Henry Dreyfuss, Designing for People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), p. 26. 32


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Fig. 5 The Vitruvian Man

Fig. 6 Diagram from Architects’ Data


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Fig. 7 The Modulor

Fig. 8 Joe and Josephine


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with the mass public […] After all, people come in assorted rather than average sizes.’33 Later in 1974, Henry Dreyfuss Associates released Humanscale 1/2/3, a collection of anthropometric data covering wheelchair uses, the ‘handicapped’ and the elderly (fig. 9). A later book titled, The Measure of Man and Woman, goes as far as ‘large’ and ‘small’ men (fig. 10). Whilst these works take steps towards a more progressive way of thinking, Léopald Lambert argues that this attempt to include these different bodies is not for inclusivity, but for the ‘optimization of each body’s attributed function in society.’34 Citing a quote from Dreyfuss regarding the daily roles of Joe and Josephine, of who could be ‘squeezed into an armored tank’ or ‘push a vacuum cleaner around a room’, respectively.35

33

Ibid., p. 27.

Léopald Lambert, ‘The Constraining Mensurations of Joe and Josephine’ (THE FUNAMBULIST MAGAZINE, 2014) <http://thefunambulist.net/2014/12/08/ topie-impitoyable-human-engineeringthe-constraining-mensurations-of-joe-andjosephine/> [accessed 27 December 2015]. 34

35

Dreyfuss, p. 26.

Thomas Carpentier, ‘The Measure(s) of Man’, in Beautiful Users: Designing for People, ed. by Ellen Lupton (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2014), pp. 32 – 45. 36

37 Daniel Libeskind, ‘We Mustn’t Forget the Deep Emotional Impact of the Buildings Around Us’, CNN (CNN, 5 October 2015) <http://edition. cnn.com/2015/06/30/architecture/daniellibeskind-architecture-emotions/> [accessed 28 December 2015].

Philippe Rahm architectes, ‘Jade Eco Park - Philippe Rahm Architectes’ <http://www. philipperahm.com/data/projects/taiwan/index. html> [accessed 28 December 2015]. 38

Serpentine Galleries, ‘Catherine Mosbach Phase Shift Park’ (Vimeo, 2012) <https://vimeo. com/45696535> [accessed 28 December 2015]. 39

40

41

Pallasmaa, p. 62.

Jos Boys, Doing Disability Differently (Routledge, 2014), p. 1.

All of these different iterations are guilty of idealisation. Dreyfuss made attempts to progress but these are still inherently flawed. It is impossible to meld all different bodies into one idealised normative body. There is too much variety: tall, short, fat, thin, strong, frail, male, female, disabled, able, elderly, young, even living or dead. A contribution by Thomas Carpentier takes it further by depicting how a door might change to accommodate Arnold Schwarzenegger (fig. 11), or how Jabba the Hutt might inhabit the Barcelona Pavillion (fig. 12).36 An interview with Daniel Libeskind discusses the emotional impact of the buildings around us, he talks about the importance of variety in our built environment, stating: ‘Stalin or Hitler or Mussolini. They tried to rebuild the world in their image, and their idea of playing God failed because of our irrepressible individuality.’37 This individuality is rejected the minute you disassemble all bodies, and try reassembling them into one idealised form. However, attempts are being made to divert from this approach. The next two recent examples illustrate a rejection of an idealised normative body and instead demonstrate using bodily connection to inform design. The Jade Eco Park (2012-16) was the winning entry of the Taichung Gateway Park International Competition and was designed by Philippe Rahm architectes and Catherine Mosbach. 38 The design is influenced by three factors: heat, humidity, and pollution. Using meteorological technology, they gathered relevant data and created a map showing where these factors overlap, the areas dictated by this are then spaces.39 Pallasmaa states: ‘The cool and invigorating shadow under a tree, or the caressing sphere of warmth in a spot of the sun, turn into experiences of space and place.’40 This shows that a space does not have to be defined by brick and mortar, it can be defined by a bodily experience. Diagrams from the proposal (fig. 13) illustrate this consideration of environmental factors on the body, placing the body as the central focus of the design rather than a means to achieve it. In his 2014 book Doing Disability Differently, Jos Boys investigates the relationship between disability and architecture. It places disability as a creative starting point in the design process and questions whether this could generate new and experimental architecture. He argues that ‘being more attentive to disabled and deaf people […] can split open our common-sense assumptions about how the world “normally” works, and make new opportunities for creating different kinds of designed spaces.’41 Rather than


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Fig. 9 Handicapped and elderly diagrams


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Fig. 10 Handicapped and elderly diagrams

Fig. 11 A doorway for Schwarzenegger


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Fig. 12 Jabba the Hutt in the Barcelona Pavilion

Fig. 13 Bodily consideration diagrams


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designing architecture to disembodied figures that satisfy the legal requirement for the disabled, it places the body within the space, considering the experience of the disabled user. The driving factor behind why idealisation occurred has changed as time has progressed. For most of history it came from a belief in the divine, but the Modulor marks a turning point in which the divine focus is dramatically lessened. The pinnacle of the Industrial Age at the hands of technology spurring a lust for standardisation that culminated in these impossible, idealised bodies. Also interesting to note is how over time the cultural paradigm has shifted our perceptions of the idealised body, from widespread belief in a god, to a ‘good-looking’ British policeman, to the rightful positions of men and women in society. Each changing how these ideal bodies manifest. We live at the beginning of the age of acceptance, same-sex marriages are legal in twenty-one countries,42 celebrities are raising awareness by telling their stories about mental health,43 women are beginning to see signs of true equality.44 This acceptance is manifesting itself as a rejection of idealised bodies, in architectural design it is seen in the Jade Eco Park, in architectural theory it can be seen in the writings of Boys. All of this indicates a rapid acceleration in architectural thinking; demonstrated by an embrace of technology and the beginnings of the rejection of idealism. And so the Modulor Man is defined by an embrace of technology and the beginnings of the rejection of idealism. The Modulor Man represents the ultimate ideal and a technological manifestation of the body in architectural theory. Through its failings, the failings of other idealised forms, and a new approach, the era ends at the beginning of the age of acceptance and ends with the rejection of idealism. Having discussed what is represented by the Modulor Man, the next chapter shall explore how this connection to technology progresses, resulting in the Cyborg Man. Raziye Akkoc, ‘Mapped: Where Is Same Sex Marriage Legal in the World?’, The Telegraph (Telegraph.co.uk, 21 May 2015) <http://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ ireland/11621812/Mapped-Where-is-same-sexmarriage-legal-in-the-world.html> [accessed 30 December 2015]. 42

Laura Barton, ‘2015: When Music Destroyed Mental Health Stigma’, The Guardian (The Guardian, 30 December 2015) <http://www. theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/ dec/30/mental-health-illness-stigmadepression-amy-winehouse-brian-harvey-2015> [accessed 30 December 2015]. 43

Noreen Farrell, ‘Top 2015 Women’s Equality Moments’, Huffington Post (The Huffington Post, 30 December 2015) <http://www. huffingtonpost.com/noreen-farrell/topwomens-equality-moments_b_8890178.html> [accessed 30 December 2015]. 44


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Manifestation Three: The Cyborg Man The cyborg body: We now live in the Information Age. Technology has progressed from analogue, mechanical and electronic to digital. Mobile phones, computers, and the internet have rapidly altered the way we live our daily lives, as well as the way our bodies manifest in a new age. We have surpassed the Modulor Man and need a new concept, this chapter aims to explore what this concept is characterised by and represents it as the Cyborg Man. This chapter is concerned with firstly establishing what a cyborg is, pulling from various media, providing a cultural context to the concept as well as an academic one. A discussion into how this concept applies to us by exploring our bodily relationship with tools will follow, where my conclusion will support why the Cyborg Man is a relevant metaphor for our current bodily state. In A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway, she states: ‘I am making an argument for the cyborg as a fiction mapping our social and bodily reality and as an imaginative resource suggesting some very fruitful couplings.’45 The idea of the cyborg is used as a way of thinking differently about how the body can be conceptualised, and this is why it is used in reference to our current technologically enhanced bodies. The term ‘cyborg’ derives from the English words cyber and organism, and originated in the 1960s when coined by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline in reference to adapting man to space exploration. They described it as incorporating ‘exogenous components […] in order to adapt it to new environments.’46 As the journal states, one of the first organisms referred to as cyborg was a rat with an osmotic pump under its skin, issuing chemical injections at a controlled and sustained rate.47 The 11 July 1960 issue of LIFE Magazine featured an article about this new concept, along with a fascinating illustration (fig. 14), and the cyborg has since become synonymous with science-fiction in various media.48 Perhaps the most famous cyborg in popular culture is the T-800 from the film, The Terminator. A robotic endoskeleton wrapped in living tissue, sent back in time on an assassination mission. The T-800 is incredibly fast, strong, tough, and accurate. It almost fits perfectly with Clynes and Klines ideas regarding treacherous environments, but as Clynes stated in an interview: ‘Schwarzenegger playing this thing– dehumanized the concept completely. […] creating a monster out of something that wasn’t a monster.’49 Other famous cyborgs from film and television include: Darth Vader (Star Wars), RoboCop (RoboCop), the Borg (Star Trek), the Cybermen and the Daleks (Doctor Who), and many more. The varying protagonists of the Deus Ex video game series use augmentation to extend their capabilities. The plot of Deus Ex: Human Revolution centres around the global politics and ethics of human enhancement, questioning the role of multinational corporations and how poverty could factor in to such a distinction between the poor and elite classes; ultimately leading to espionage, murder and terrorism.50 From

Donna J Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 150. 45

Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline, ‘Cyborgs and Space’, Astronautics, 1960 <http://web.mit.edu/digitalapollo/Documents/ Chapter1/cyborgs.pdf> [accessed 31 December 2015], p. 27. 46

47

Ibid., p. 27.

‘Man Remade to Live in Space’, LIFE Magazine, 11 July 1960, p. 77. 48

‘An Interview with Manfred E. Clynes’, in The Cyborg Handbook, ed. by Chris Hables Gray, Heidi J. Figueroa-Sarriera, and Steven Mentor (United Kingdom: Routledge, 1995), pp. 43–54 (p. 47). 49

‘Deus Ex: Human Revolution’, by Square Enix, Deus Ex Universe <https://www.deusex.com/ game/dx-hr> [accessed 1 January 2016]. 50


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Fig. 14 Cyborgs exploring space


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comic books, Iron Man is an interesting example. The billionaire turned superhero in his suit of high tech armour (fig. 15). Craig This paraphrases the words of John Hogan; Tony Stark has three storylines that explore his relationship with technology: ‘technology to keep Tony Stark alive. […] technology as a status symbol. […] technology and the human become cyborg.’51 Although it could be argued that at all stages Stark is cyborg because even before he dons his armour, technology sustains him. In The Invincible Iron Man #19 he received an artificial heart,52 and the modern revival Tony Stark survives because an electromagnet in his chest protects his heart from shrapnel.53 If anything, his armour makes him more cyborg than before. There are numerous other examples of cyborgs; the concept permeates our culture, and next I will explain how we too are already cyborgs. Iron Man’s armour is an extension of his body, it is a tool that allows him to fly and fight in unwinnable scenarios. Just as he dominates the battlefield, humanity dominates the planet through technology. Our overwhelming success as a species is attributed to several great discoveries, but as many anthropologists believe, our understanding and use of tools was an extremely important step in the evolution of mankind.54 Anything from a rock to a computer can constitute a tool because, as Tim Ingold states: ‘A tool, in the most general sense, is an object that extends the capacity of an agent to operate within a given environment.’55 Pick up a pen and hold it, now write your name; this pen is a tool and without it you could not write a letter. The pen is also an extension of your body, we have a prosthetic relationship with tools. In well designed tools a fusion occurs between body and technology, Martin Heidegger describes how a hammer effectively disappears when swung, only to be felt through the hand and arm upon striking a nail.56 The hammer becomes embodied. Another example of this technological embodiment would be glasses, a tool to repair a malfunction in the ‘seeing-engine’ that sit directly on the face.57 Yet they go unnoticed by the wearer and by those around them, and it in fact comes as more of a surprise when they are not there. My best example of this fusion – albeit an extreme one – is artist Neil Harbisson, a self proclaimed cyborg (fig. 16). Harbisson was born completely colour blind but a colour sensor attached to his head detects the colour frequency in front of him, sending it to a chip in the back of his head that allows him to hear the colour through bone conduction. The fusion is so intense that as Harbisson adjusted to this new environment and learnt how certain colours sounded, he was eventually able to dream in colour.58 His eyes are limited, but as Sigmund Freud stated: ‘With every tool man is perfecting his own organs, whether motor or sensory, or is removing the limits to their functioning.’59 This concept of embodying technology extends beyond our relationship with external objects. Today more than ever we are fused with technology in a symbiotic relationship through prosthetic extensions of the body. As we have evolved our technologies have evolved at an accelerating pace to sustain us and without them we would be vulnerable, weak, and unproductive. Modern life calls for constant connectivity and instant gratification in the interest of efficient time use. As a result, we have smartphones; laptops; the internet; digital cameras; microwaves; the list is endless. Now reconsider Clynes’ and Kline’s

Craig This, ‘Tony Stark: Disabled Vietnam Veteran?’, in The Ages of Iron Man: Essays on the Armored Avenger in Changing Times, ed. by Joseph J. Darowski (United States: McFarland & Co, 2015), pp. 17–28 (p. 20). 51

‘Iron Man #19 - What Price Life?!’, by Gamespot, Comic Vine <http://www.comicvine. com/iron-man-19-what-price-life/4000-10515/> [accessed 1 January 2016]. 52

Jon Favreau, Iron Man (USA: Paramount Pictures, 2008). 53

Sam Lilley, Men, Machines and History: The Short of Tools and Machines in Relation to Social Progress (London: Cobbet Press, 1948), p. 1. 54

Tim Ingold, ‘Tool-Use, Sociality and Intelligence’, in Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution, ed. by Kathleen R. Gibson and Tim Ingold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 429–46 (p. 433). 55

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 98–107. 56

Samuel Butler, Erewhon: Or, Over the Range, 2nd edn (London: Trübner & Company, 1872), p. 196 <https://books.google.co.uk/s?id=hI9IAQ AAMAAJ&dq=erewhon&source=gbs_navlinks_ s> [accessed 2 January 2016]. 57

Neil Harbisson, ‘I Listen to Color’ (TED, 2012) <http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_harbisson_i_ listen_to_color#t-117579> [accessed 2 January 2016]. 58

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, trans. by James Strachey, 1st American edn (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1962), pp. 37–38. 59


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Fig. 15 The power of Iron Man’s armour

Fig. 16 Neil Harbisson sporting his ‘eyeborg’


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original definition of a cyborg. Our modern environment is hectic and our ‘exogenous components’ are our means of ‘adapting’ to it. Technology is an extension of our self, it makes us human – perhaps a ‘prosthetic God’ – but it also makes us cyborg.60 Explaining the origin and providing cultural significance of the term cyborg has established the relevance of the concept, as well as laying the foundations for my explanation of us as cyborgs. The cyborg represents the fusion of our body and technology through prosthetic extensions. The next chapter explores how these extensions affect our ideas about space.

The ascending body: The inherent connection between body and space remains – even as cyborgs – but can being cyborg change our ideas about this? If so, then what form might these changes take? The aim of this chapter is to explore this question by focusing on how interaction via prosthetic extension affects ways we think about space. It will focus on the new digital manifestation of space, cyberspace. Exploring the origins of the term and theories regarding it. Then, by looking more specifically at two technologies that connect us to cyberspace we begin to understand more the relevance of cyberspace and how it manifests in physical space. Finally, this chapter will come to a conclusion by defining the characteristics of the Cyborg Man. Our modern day fusion with technology takes place through our use of prosthetic extensions of the body. Because of technology we live in an ever more connected world, or as Marshall McLuhan stated: ‘a global village’.61 The whole of the connected world, just a few taps and swipes away. Our understanding of a network has changed, it no longer only applies to the ‘meatspace’ but also cyberspace.62 Through technical appendages we connect to this new age manifestation of space, the mobile phone, the computer, the satnav, even modern televisions have a position in cyberspace. The term ‘cyberspace’ was coined by cyberpunk author William Gibson in a short story entitled Burning Chrome, it later appeared in his award-winning debut novel, Neuromancer.63 Use of the term developed until – with the rapid evolution of the internet – the term became commonplace during the 1990s.64 This growing interest with cyberspace can be seen in culture through movies like TRON (fig. 17) and The Matrix (fig. 18), as well as literature. It is a growing field of study in academia, leading to different definitions of cyberspace. Gibsonian cyberspace relates to Gibson’s coining of the term and is a fictional conception where all worldly information is collated and accessed via disembodied consciousnesses through a computer.65 Balovian cyberspace reflects our current relationship and is named after essayist and founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, John Barlow.66 It is understood as referring to ‘the existing international networks of computers’ and consequently the space in which they connect.67 The concept of cyberspace has become synonymous with our time, the result of our daily explorations within it via prosthetic means.

60

Ibid., p. 39.

Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (United States: Gingko Press, 2001), p. 63. 61

William Mitchell, Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City (United States: The MIT Press, 2004), p. 3. 62

Scott Thill, ‘March 17, 1948: William Gibson, Father of Cyberspace’, Wired (WIRED, 2011) <http://www.wired. com/2011/03/0317cyberspace-author-williamgibson-born/> [accessed 3 January 2016]. 63

Lance Strate, ‘The Varieties of Cyberspace: Problems in Definition and Delimitation’, Western Journal of Communication, 63 (1999), 382–412 (pp. 382–383) <http://dx.doi. org/10.1080/10570319909374648>. 64

Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows, ‘Cultures of Technological Embodiment: An Introduction’, in Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/ Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment, ed. by Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows (London: SAGE Publications, 1996), pp. 1–20 (pp. 5–6). 65

A History of Protecting Freedom Where Law and Technology Collide’, by EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2015) <https://www.eff. org/about/history> [accessed 3 January 2016]. 66

Featherstone and Burrows, pp. 1–20 (pp. 5 – 6). 67


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Fig. 17 The cyberspace of TRON


25

Fig. 18 The cyberspace of The Matrix


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Two technologies have revolutionised the way we approach our daily lives – the mobile phone (especially the smartphone), and the computer. Global population penetration of mobile phones increased dramatically from 1% in 1995 to 73% in 2014, with 40% of those being smartphones.68 In the UK a recent report concludes we spend an average of over two hours per day online via desktop and laptop computers, although it is important to note this does not include time spent working at computers.69 These prosthetics are our everyday gateway to cyberspace, the key. Let us first consider the computer because through it we connect to the internet, cyberspace personified.

Mary Meeker, 2015 Internet Trends (KPCB, 27 May 2015), p. 5 <http://www.kpcb.com/ internet-trends> [accessed 3 January 2016].

68

69 ‘UK Adults Spend More Time on Mobile Devices than on PCs’, by eMarketer, eMarketer, 2015 <http://www.emarketer.com/Article/UKAdults-Spend-More-Time-on-Mobile-Devicesthan-on-PCs/1012356> [accessed 3 January 2016].

‘online, adj. and adv.’, by OED Online (Oxford University Press) <http://www.oed.com/ viewdictionaryentry/Entry/131453> [accessed 3 January 2016]. 70

Department of Homeland Security, The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, February 2003, p. viii <https://www.us-cert.gov/ sites/default/files/publications/cyberspace_ strategy.pdf> [accessed 4 January 2016]. 71

Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), pp. xi – xii. 72

73 Charles W. Moore, ‘Plug It In, Rameses, and See If It Lights Up. Because We Aren’t Going to Keep It Unless It Works’, Perspecta, 1967, pp. 32–43 (p. 35) <http://dx.doi. org/10.2307/1566932>. 74

Mitchell, p. 31.

When using the internet, we are considered as ‘online’. The word in itself indicates a position in space relative to another physical attribute, something is on a line. This becomes clearer when looking at early uses of the word being used in regards to carts on tracks, or when considering the use of the phrase ‘my neck is on the line’, in probable regard to the executioner’s block.70 There is a physicality to being ‘online’, when asking what somebody is doing they may reply that they are, for example, ‘on’ Facebook. And much in the same way as physical space, you can shop online. This relationship is unique to the cyberspace; we are subject to books, movies, and magazines, but the internet and cyberspace are subject to us. The internet plays host to numerous digital locations, some dangerous, some illegal, some entertaining; the more computer savvy and privacy minded among us might visit the darknet, effectively the long dark alleyway of the internet. As the Department of Homeland Security reported: ‘It is that same Internet that today connects millions of other computer networks making most of the nation’s essential services and infrastructures work. These computer networks also control physical objects such as electrical transformers, trains, pipeline pumps, chemical vats, radars, and stock markets, all of which exist beyond cyberspace.’71

Cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling described cyberspace as ‘The place between the phones. The indefinite place out there, where the two of you, two human beings, actually meet and communicate.’72 Today mobile phones are more prevalent than ever, they personify our modern culture of instantaneousness through a network. As Charles Moore observed: ‘We have, as we all know, instant anywhere, as we enjoy our capacity to make immediate electronic contact with people anywhere on the face of the globe […] Our new places, that is, are given form with electronic, not visual, glue.’73 This instant connection shrinks our sense of the world’s scale, the Earth folds and contorts placing two people in the same space, a cyberspace. There is no embrace, no face-to-face contact, just a digital reproduction of voice. William Mitchell compares this to ancient cities where this interaction would previously take place in the agora, before stating: ‘But we now live at the nodes of networks that allow a great many of our interactions to be remote and asynchronous. With the continued shift from enclosures to networks, we have bolted beyond modernity’s spatial and temporal extensions to a condition of global hyperconnectivity.’74


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The fusion of body and technology has led us to the Cyborg Man, with the term ‘fusion’ specifically indicating a coming together, a mutualism between the two. Technology accelerates at an ever faster rate, so fast that we have embodied technology more and more, and consequently gained access to a new form of space. A digital space, a networked space that allows instant connectivity to almost everyone and everything around us through an extension of our body. An extension that we are spending more time than ever before with. As Mitchell expresses: ‘Increasingly, my sense of continuity and belonging derives from being electronically networked to the widely scattered people and places I care about.’75 We are beginning to ascend into the cyberspace, beginning to become one with the network, and so a disassembly of body occurs. Our growing interest with the cyborg and cyberspace is becoming ever more prevalent in daily affairs, mobile phones in everyone’s pocket become the cultural artefact of our time. As Jonathan Hale paraphrases Heidegger: ‘We live in the space opened up and revealed by technology.’76 The concept of the Cyborg Man is defined by the accelerating pace of technological development and our relationship with it, leading to a fusion of body and technology through prosthetic means. We have become cyborg, allowing us to ascend from physical space into cyberspace, where our body is becoming disassembled and reassembled as ones and zeroes in a new digital frontier. Now to speculate on our complete transcendence of body into the No Man.

75

Ibid., p. 17.

Jonathan Hale, ‘Architecture, Technology and the Body: From the Prehuman to the Posthuman’, in The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory, ed. by C. Creig Crysler, Stephen Cairns, and Hilde Heynen, 2012, pp. 513–26 (p. 513). 76



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Manifestation Four: The No Man The transcendent body: The fusion between us and technology through prosthetic means has led us to the Cyborg Man where we explore cyberspace through prosthetic technologies. Technology continues to develop at an ever increasing pace, as does our dependency upon it. But what comes next? This chapter aims to explore this next stage and is purely speculative. It will begin by looking at transhumanism, specifically the theory of the technological singularity. It will then explore how this might lead to complete disembodiment and therefore transcendence from physical space. Finally, examples of current technology and research provide evidence to support why this might be the ultimate direction we are headed in. Transhumanism is a relatively new movement that has its roots in humanism, but instead of only focusing on the belief that humans matter, it focuses on the potential of the human being. In transhumanist thought, this potentially is reachable through technology and science. Philosopher and futurist, Max More, describes transhumanism as: ‘A class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology’.77 The transhuman philosopher and futurist, FM-2030, used the term ‘transhuman’ as shorthand for ‘transitional human’, it was his way of defining the transitional stage between human and posthuman.78 The potential of these transhuman beings in relation to our own means they could be considered posthuman, although whether our cyborg selves could already be considered transhuman and consequently posthuman is debated.79 Many transhumanists believe we are approaching a pivotal time in the evolution of mankind and civilisation – the technological singularity. The singularity is a term used to describe the point at which technology becomes so advanced that it can begin to selfimprove. It is believed this will manifest in the form of a man built artificial intelligence that is capable of thinking significantly faster than any human brain.80 Irving John Good expressed the idea that: ‘Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an “intelligence explosion,” and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.’81

The futurist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Near, believes a merging of ‘the vast knowledge embedded in our own brains with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our technology’ will allow us to ‘transcend the human brain’s

‘Philosophy’, by Humanity+, 2010 <http:// humanityplus.org/philosophy/philosophy-2/> [accessed 14 January 2016]. 77

‘Transhumanist FAQ’, by Humanity+, 2010 <http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/ transhumanist-faq/#answer_22> [accessed 16 January 2016]. 78

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, ‘Engaging Transhumanism’, in H+/-: Transhumanism and Its Critics, ed. by Gregory R. Hansell and William Grassie (Xlibris Corporation, 2011), pp. 19–47 (p. 32). 79

Vernor Vinge, ‘The Coming Technological Singularity’, 1993 <http://groen.li/sites/default/ files/the_coming_technological_singularity.pdf> [accessed 19 January 2016]. 80

Irving J. Good, ‘Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine’, Advances in Computers, 6 (1965), pp. 31 – 88 <http:// philpapers.org/rec/GOOSCT> [accessed 19 January 2016]. 81


30

82

Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: The Viking Press, 2005), pp. 20 – 28.

Richard Gray, ‘Dawn of Human 2.0? Nanobot Implants Could Soon Connect Our Brains to the Internet and Give Us “God-like” SuperIntelligence, Scientist Claims’, MailOnline (Daily Mail, 2 October 2015) <http://www.dailymail. co.uk/sciencetech/article-3257517/human2-0-nanobot-implants-soon-connect-brainsinternet-make-super-intelligent-scientist-claims. html> [accessed 17 January 2016]. 83

84 Qusay F. Hassan, ‘Demystifying Cloud Computing’, The Journal of Defense Software Engineering (CrossTalk), 2011, pp. 16–21 (p. 17) <http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/ f/702523/10181434/1294788395300/201101Hassan.?token=rCJQnu41AkDpG%2B%2B0vjSsH 3lXo9I%3D> [accessed 17 January 2016]. 85 Kevin Kelly, Out of Control: The Rise of NeoBiological Civilization (Addison-Wesley, 1994), p. 185.

Sim Bamford, ‘A Framework for Approaches to Transfer of a Mind’s Substrate’, International Journal of Machine Consciousness, 4 (2012), pp. 1 – 5 <http://www.sim.me.uk/neural/ JournalArticles/Bamford2012IJMC.pdf> [accessed 17 January 2016]. 86

87 Kendrick N. Kay and others, ‘Identifying Natural Images from Human Brain Activity’, Nature, 452 (2008), 352–55 (p. 1) <https:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC3556484/pdf/nihms374370.pdf> [accessed 17 January 2016].

‘A Simulated Mouse Brain in a Virtual Mouse Body - Press Release’, Human Brain Project, 2015 <https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/de//a-simulated-mouse-brain-in-a-virtual-mousebo-2> [accessed 17 January 2016]. 88

Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom, ‘Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap’, by Future of Humanity Institute, Technical Report #2008‐3, 2008, p. 5 <http://www.philosophy.ox.ac. uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/3853/brainemulation-roadmap-report.pdf> [accessed 17 January 2016]. 89

90

Ibid., p. 30.

91 Nick Bostrom, ‘The Simulation Argument FAQ’, Simulation Argument, 2011 <http://www. simulation-argument.com/faq.html> [accessed 17 January 2016].

limitations of a mere hundred trillion extremely slow connections.’ He later questions what one-thousand of these ‘enhanced’ scientists, that are one-thousand times smarter and one-thousand times faster than the average scientist would be capable of; concluding that ‘one chronological year would be like a millennia for them.’ He continues by stating he believes one of the first things they would do, is to develop technologies to make themselves yet more intelligent. Kurzweil focuses heavily on one these technologies throughout his book, claiming that nanotechnology will make us more intelligent and reverse aging.82 In a recent lecture given by Kurzweil, he discussed how nanobots implanted in the brain could connect us to the Cloud.83 Cloud computing is an ‘on-demand computing model composed of autonomous, networked IT (hardware and/or software) resources.’84 It allows for instant access to everything and everyone through internet connectivity. And so we find ourselves positioned in cyberspace again, only this time in a far more permanent and ever more networked way than ever before. The prosthetic extension of the mobile phone is no longer an extension, it is within you. You are no longer connected through a node in a network, you are the node in the network. Always online, you inhabit cyberspace permanently, constantly interacting with it, through it, and calling upon it. At this point your body is redundant, it is no longer necessary to interact with people and space by being there, as John Perry Barlow states: ‘Nothing could be more disembodied than cyberspace. It’s like having your everything amputated.’85 But in the future this disembodiment could quite literally manifest as us leaving our bodies vacant, and living inside a digital environment, a cyberspace, through the technology of mind uploading. To upload one’s mind is to transfer or emulate the function of the brain in to a computational device.86 Contemporary research in related fields is substantial, a team of scientists from the University of California were able to identify natural images from brain activity, concluding that they thought it eventually possible to ‘reconstruct a picture of a person’s visual experience from brain activity measurements alone.’87 More recently in 2015, neurorobotics engineers from the Human Brain Project are building a simulation of a mouse brain and placing it into a virtual mouse body, with the aim to eventually replace lab mice with digital counterparts.88 The futurists, Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom, believe mind uploading is the ‘logical endpoint of computational neuroscience’s attempts to accurately model neurons and brain systems’, however it could also be the end of our relationship with our bodies, and mark the point at which we transcend physical space and begin to roam cyberspace as digitised beings.89 The general belief is that the uploaded mind would settle within a virtual reality or simulated world.90 Although some believe our reality is already a simulated world.91 Consider what living in a digital virtual reality could mean. As long as technology continues to advance, and computing power continues to grow exponentially, the space could be infinite, the laws of our reality need not apply. Virtual space opens us up to infinite possibility, physics are irrelevant, everybody would be equal. Could we, through complete disembodiment


31

and digitisation of the self, find true utopia? It is this connection to virtual reality (VR) that allows one to believe complete disassembly of the body is the ultimate direction we are heading in. There are technologies available today that support this. For example, virtual reality headsets are hitting the mass market this year. Some are just headsets that visually immerse you in a virtual world, such as Oculus Rift. Others do the same, but some, such as the HTC Vive enhance the experience with sensors placed around the room that allow you to walk and move around within that space without the need of a controller in hand (fig. 19). These technologies will find use in medicine, education, therapy, training, the military, architecture, even pornography, the list is endless. But the real driving force behind development is the video game industry. The video game industry is estimated to be worth $113 billion by 2018.92 Gaming is a disembodied experience, you leave your own body behind and enter another, and through this jump you are able to explore impossible worlds and experience impossible things. In a video game, the laws of the universe do not have to apply. In many roleplaying games you create a bespoke character of your choosing and are encouraged to embody that character – literally playing a specific ‘role’. You can be almost anything you want to be, you are transcending your own reality and entering the cyberspace. Martti Lahti makes a connection to the cyborg aspect, stating: ‘They accustom us to the newness of new technologies by coupling the game world’s cyborg bodies and subjectivities (reassuringly) with our own bodies, making the virtual and the physical complementary rather than mutually exclusive realms. Joysticks, game controllers, pedals, and various steering systems further foreground haptic interaction and simultaneously encapsulate players in a game world complete with bodily sensation.’93

Perhaps a good example of how all of this ties together is the online game Second Life. In Second Life, players create digital avatars that become ‘residents’ of a virtual world (fig. 20). Here they can socialise with friends, explore landscapes, build, and even design and create artificial property portfolios or clothing, all of which can be sold for in game currency and then converted to real world currency. The documentary, Life 2.0, follows the stories of several Second Life ‘residents’, one woman makes thousands of dollars annually designing in-game clothing, a couple met and fell in love via Second Life, divorcing their current partners and marrying one another in reality.94 This all comes back to the idea that constantly ‘events in cyberspace are being reflected in physical space, and vice versa.’95 When you add VR to the mix, what is there to separate this cyber reality from our physical reality? This chapter began by discussing transhumanism, specifically the concept of the singularity. The singularity epitomises the idea of bodily fusion with technology, but takes it a step further than prosthesis. As Kurzweil states: ‘The Singularity will allow us to transcend these limitations of our biological bodies and brains.

‘The Games Industry in Numbers’, by UKIE <http://ukie.org.uk/research> [accessed 17 January 2016]. 92

Martti Lahti, ‘As We Become Machines: Corporealized Pleasures in Video Games’, in The Video Game Theory Reader, ed. by Bernard Perron and Mark J. P. Wolf (United States: Taylor and Francis, 2013), pp. 157–70 (pp. 168 – 169). 93

Jason Spingarn-Koff, Life 2.0 (United States: Virgil Films & Entertainment, 2010). 94

95

Mitchell, p. 3.


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Room-Scale Tracking Fig. 19

HTC Vive room tracking diagram

Fig. 20 A user-created world in Second Life


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We will gain power over our fates. Our mortality will be in our own hands. We will be able to live as long as we want (a subtly different statement from saying we will live forever). We will fully understand human thinking and will vastly extend and expand its reach. By the end of this century, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will be trillions of trillions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence.’96

Technology is no longer an extension of our body, it is one with our bodies. As we become one with technology we become permanently networked, placing us permanently within cyberspace. Our bodies become more and more redundant, limiting, until the technology to completely transcend our bodies is available. We can upload our mind to a virtual reality with infinite possibility, our physical body has become digitised. We are the No Man; we have left our bodies behind. This belief is justified by referring to current day technologies as a step in this transformation from the Cyborg Man to the transcendent No Man. The measures of the No Man are not in centimetres or metres, but in terabytes, petabytes, exabytes.

96

Kurzweil, p. 9.



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Conclusion The purpose of this dissertation was to explore how, throughout time, ideas concerning the body in architectural and spatial thinking have evolved. The relevance of the body was established during the introduction by examining the senses in relation to architecture. Using a variety of sources from different disciplines, the aim of each part was to culminate the most poignant defining characteristics of the period into one concept, be that the Vitruvian Man, the Modulor Man, the Cyborg Man, or the No Man. This piece shifts from idea to idea at a rapid pace, consequently covering multiple different topics, but is held together by its chronological format. However, in its own nature it is impossible to cover every idea and piece of research in depth, but it provides as much context to topics as possible whilst allowing room for analysis and argument. The discussion began by looking at the historical ideas of Vitruvius, Villard de Honnecourt, and Alberti. Noticing that the relevance of the body in architecture for that time period stemmed from a focus upon a god given body, a divine body. This divine body was divided into measures and proportions in the pursuit of beautiful and harmonious architecture. Consequently, the divine body was an idealised body that is then disassembled to achieve an ideal building. These characteristics define an interpretation of the Vitruvian Man. It then moved into modern history, focusing upon the Modulor. Having looked at the interests of Le Corbusier and his Modulor, it was concluded that the Modulor is a movement away from the divine focus, to an aesthetic principle based in an industrial and technological ideal. The Modulor makes the body an industrial system, consequently, the earlier form of disassembly has evolved as a result of a technological focus. The later half of part two focused upon idealism of the body in architecture, of which the Modulor was also guilty. It explored various manifestations of idealism within an architectural context, looking at the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Ernst Neufert, and numerous others. It continued, discussing how Le Corbusier’s Modulor is the ultimate idealisation due to its abstract nature, and stating it as a technological manifestation of the body in architecture. Finally, by looking at current projects and literature, I explored how idealism is beginning to be rejected. It concluded that this interpretation of the Modulor Man is represented by an embrace of technology and the beginnings of the rejection of idealism. Next the concern was with the present, more specifically, our relationship with technology. It proposed that the term cyborg applies to the current manifestation of our bodies, it supported this by discussing the idea of a cyborg, establishing a cyborg as an organism with technological enhancements. This was linked to how we as human beings have been dependant on tools for centuries, these tools are technological extensions of our bodies, prosthetics. Consequently, we are cyborg due to our fusion with technological prosthetics. The introduction to the following chapter questioned whether being cyborg can change our concept of space. Introducing the cyberspace by explaining its relationship to


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technology, and therefore its relationship to our bodies. By focusing on the mobile phone and computer, two technologies that we use regularly, I attempted to demonstrate how – through these technological prosthetic extensions – we are connected to cyberspace. The accelerating pace of technological development leads to a fusion between body and technology, resulting in the beginning of our ascension into cyberspace, and a further disassembly of the body that is this time into ones and zeroes. These characteristics represent the Cyborg Man. The final part is interested in the future and is purely speculative. Initially it discussed transhumanism, a precursor before moving in to singularity theory. It argues that due to the singularity, we will eventually have the technology necessary for us to be constantly connected to cyberspace. As development continues, we could quite literally transcend physical space by uploading our minds into a virtual reality. A digital space with infinite possibilities. To support the argument, references to current research and technology indicate the direction we may be headed. Although it may seem like science fiction, the technology is becoming available, making you question whether this is the path we may be heading down. The accelerating development of technology has accelerated to ludicrous levels due to the singularity, meaning we could transcend our physical bodies via technological means and constantly inhabit cyberspace, technology and the human body are now analogous. These characteristics are what define the No Man. This structure lends itself to a strong narrative element and allows the pointing out of several key themes in relation to this topic. As time progresses there is a waning interest in aspects of the divine, yet the prevalence of technology increases to the point in which we effectively are technology. There is an exponential acceleration over time, with the most change in thought occurring in the modern era, before rapidly changing again within a few decades. As well as that, as we embrace technology further, the development of technology accelerates, ultimately changing our concept of space entirely. There is a point where idealisations of the body cease, breaking that traditional concept of beauty derived from the human body and potentially opening us up from talking only about architecture or the building, to considering new forms of space. And finally, since the birth of a divine figure in the writings of Vitruvius, a constant but differently manifesting disassembly of the body has occurred over time. Resulting in the death of the body, but immortality through technological transcendence. We came in dirt, and will leave in data.




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List of illustrations Fig. 1  Wrestlers superimposed on plans from fol. 15r, in Carl F. Barnes, The Portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt: A New Critical Edition and Color Facsimile (Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009), p. 21. Fig. 2  Thermos, Porch of Maidens, 2006. Fig. 3  Church plan, in Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Trattato di Architettura, 1490. Fig. 4  Sketch, in Le Corbusier, Précisions, 1930. Fig. 5  The Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1490. Fig. 6  Diagram, in Ernst Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre, 1936. Fig. 7  The Modulor, in Le Corbusier, The Modulor, Reprint ed. 2004 (New York: Faber and Faber, 1954), p. 67. Fig. 8  Joe and Josephine, in Henry Dreyfuss Associates, Humanscale 1/2/3 (MIT Press, 1974). Fig. 9  Handicapped and Elderly, in Henry Dreyfuss Associates, Humanscale 1/2/3 (MIT Press, 1974). Fig. 10  Computer workstations, in Alvin R. Tilley and Henry Dreyfuss Associates, The Measure of Man and Woman: Human Factors in Design (Whitney Library of Design, 1993), p. 25. Fig. 11  Arnold Schwarzenegger, in Thomas Carpentier, L’homme, mesures de toutes choses, 1986. Fig. 12  Jabba the Hutt, in Thomas Carpentier, L’homme, mesures de toutes choses, 1986. Fig. 13  Philippe Rahm Architectes and Catherine Mosbach, Winning entry diagrams for the Taichung Gateway Park, 2011. Fig. 14  Man Remade to Live in Space, in LIFE Magazine, July 11, 1960. Fig. 15  The Invincible Iron Man #47 (Marvel Comics Group, 1972). Fig. 16  Portrait, Neil Harbisson, Flickr, 2012. Fig. 17  Film still, in Steven Lisberger, TRON (UK: Walt Disney Company. 1982).


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Fig. 18  Film still, in The Wachowski Brothers, The Matrix, (USA: Warner Bros., 1999). Fig. 19  Valve Lighthouse Slide, in Alex Vlachos, Advanced VR Rendering, 2015, p. 5. Fig. 20  1920s Berlin Project in Second Life, Jo Yardley, 2013.


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