IF I BREAK REBUILD ME

Excerpt IF I BREAK REBUILD ME

IF I BREAK REBUILD ME Benjamin Softic, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2019

ATLAS OF ENTROPIC GESTURES

Gesture

A gesture is commonly understood as a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages.

Roland Barthes, with regard to abstract expressionist painting, explains the notion of the gesture as the surplus or leftover of an action. An action »is transitive, it seeks only to provoke an object, a result.« The gesture, on the other hand, is described by Barthes as »the indeterminate and inexhaustible total of reasons, pulsions, indolences which surround the action with an atmosphere«. Regarding Barthes, we have to distinguish between the sign(or message) that aims at producing information and the gesture, that generates the atomspheric rest.

Entropy

In order to clarify the definition of the term – entropy is conceptualized(in relation to Robert Smithson use of the term) as a process of irreversible de-differentiation between dichotomic positions(that again is a conceptual dichotomy), as for example architecture – nature, order – chaos, construction – decay.

The thesis explores, produces and observes the entropic gestures, through a close reading of the memorial artifacts of former Yugoslavia, and seeks at observing and creating its own gestures as a comment on these structures. Consequently the thesis is developed as an Atlas of these entropic gestures. In the entropic perspective, every anthropomorphic approach is obstructed, the process of inextricable demolition does not permit idealistic self-projection, and the desire for permanence and security inscribed in building becomes obsolete.

Atlas

The geographical atlas is a collection of maps, that is usually ordered by the regions of a physical landscape. The entropic atlas becomes a system of classification for a landscape of thought and speculation, that aims at depicting architecture as an entropic process.

The Atlas accumulates and orders the thoughts, observations and digital and analogue artifacts that emerged from this research. The Atlas works as a grid, that is imposed on an ongoing process of working, making and thinking. This gives order to a notion of architecture developed throughout this thesis, that is positioned in the interplay between process, the gestural, imagination and theory. It introduces a cartesian rationality on a process that eludes this logic, creating a gesture in itself.

IF I BREAK REBUILD ME Benjamin Softic, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2019

IF IF I BREAK BR AK REBUILD BUI D M E Ako zatreba ponovi me / If need be, repeat me / If I break rebuild me The Title is the translation of an inscription on one of Bogdan Bogdanovićs monuments - it is a mirrored inscription saying - »ako zatreba ponovi me«. The Phrase does not translate into English effectively or understandably. Word for word it would mean »If need be, repeat me«. It is a direct speech which could have multiple poetic interpretations. One that followed me along my working process was the translation: IF I BREAK REBUILD ME! For me, this inscription makes the object an almost anthropomorphic figure, a subject, that is able to communicate to its future surrounding. It indicates a striking awareness of the temporal dimensions of its own existence. Finally it challenged me to start my personal experiments and investigate (through the act of making) how to break and rebuild.

The inscription opens up the notion, that the monument questions its lifetime and existence from the very beginning - it anticipates its own death.

»This architecture is not a built structure that is supposed to serve man to show his shining knowledge and skill, the feeling for the beautiful … No matter how beautiful, useful, breathtaking this architecture may be, it only shows the human climax and definitely hence the limits of human ability, nature and mind.« – Bogdan Bogdanović

Popina Spomenik, Bogdan Bogdanovic

IF I BREAK REBUILD ME Benjamin Softic, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2019

SPOMENIK

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The Yugoslav Spomenik(= engl. monument, memorial) served as essential elements in the construction of a foundational myth of the new Yugoslavian society. They referred directly to various cruelties of the second world war — concentration camps, battles, fallen soldiers, etc. Consequently the foundation myth of Yugoslavia is a rather dystopian one, a beginning that starts from an end.

And it ultimately disintegrates with the Balkan civil war, the largest catastrophe of Europe in the second half of the 20th century.

Spomenik(bks): Substantiv, Maskulin, engl. memorial, monument – memorial sculptures errected during 1960-1980 in socialist Yugoslavia

Jasenovac Spomenik, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Archive Image

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RUIN

Ruined house (maison domino) in Bosnia and Herzegovina

26 years after the start of the Balkan wars, debris, war damaged houses are part of the image of the cultural landscape and everyday life of former Yugoslavia. The archetypical ruins, the simple houses, structurally resembling the idea of the Maison Domino, are spread all over the country. They are not only resembling distinctive past events, but rather they become a symbol of the contemporary political and social reality of the region.

The German sociologist Georg Simmel identified the precise relationship between the ruin and its surrounding landscape. »Architecture,« he writes, »is the only art in which the great struggle between the will of the spirit and the necessity of nature issues into real peace, in which the soul in its upward striving and nature in its gravity are held in balance.« 1 But at what point can nature be said to have been victorious in this battle between formal spirit and organic substance? The ruin is a fragile equilibrium between persistence and decay.

1 Georg Simmel, 1907

CAVE For the myth of Yugoslavias origin, the natural condition of the karst mountain scape plays an essential role. Tito and his partisans were fighting a guerilla war against italian and german forces using the protection of the natural caves of the area. They served as munition depots, hideouts and strategic commando headquarters.

The cave does not need maintenance. It is already part of the process of nature. It is a naturally formed space, which to be used for dwelling requires a creative act on behalf of a human. The cave alters the behaviour of its occupant by offering no clear way in which to use the space. The notion of the cave connects us to a different time scale, deep time, that relates to the genesis of the earth and dates back to a time when men, the Anthropocene, did not exist.

Tito in Cave Drvar during World War II

IF I BREAK REBUILD ME Benjamin Softic, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2019

RUIN IN ESREVER In Yucatan, Mexico, near the famous Maya Temples, Robert Smithson finds the inconspicuous Hotel Palenque. He is appealed by the »lack of center and the absence of a superordinate logic« within the structure. He notices the stairs that seem to disappear into the clouds, the rooms with and without a roof. The state of the inbetween (sowohl-alsauch) is captivating. The inadequacy of Hotel Palenque inspires the idea of a »de-architecturalization«, which confronts the human desire for permanence and security with the processes of decay and decomposition. The Ruin in Reverse appears to us in a state of ruin, before the process of construction is finished.1 1 Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings. 1996

DETREVNI INVERTED CONSTRUCTION PROCESSES A small hut, which he empties, thus pouring earth on the building until the roof breaks.

Smithson reverses the usual construction process. Instead of first digging a pit, laying foundations and then building the building, the finished building is spilled, and thus collapses. In this context, Smithson speaks of the idea of ruin in reverse. Partially Burried Woodshed does not romanticize decay, but rather articulates it.

Robert Smithson, Partially Burried Woodshed, 1970, Photograph from 2004

THE THE GROUND PIT Construction processes of civil engineering, though beeing technically highly evolved nowadays, still contain very basic actions.

Every construction begins with an excavation, creating an ephemeral pit.

The architecture of the pit is an architecture of absence. It renounces the representative, since it is built to disappear. Is it possible to make this absenc visible, to reveal it? I imagine the pit above the ground like the deepsea fish above the surface of the sea.

Deepseafish on the Surface

Karlesjochbahn, Verankerung der Felswand

IF I BREAK REBUILD ME Benjamin Softic, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2019

EARTH LANDSCAPE SCULPTURE In Mostar Bogdanović realized the Partisan Necropolis, a large-scale sculpture park, that worked strongly with the site, linking it to the notion of early earthworks, that were projected by Land Artist around the same time. The modelling of the terrain started in 1960 and was initiated by large-scale detonations of the ground. During the work, 11,000 m³ of soil and rock were excavated and disposed, and 4,750 m³ of soil were used to model the area.

Bogdan Bogdanovic further described the monument as an »acro-necropolis« and as a microcosmos of the city of Mostar — »a city of the dead mirroring the city of the living«.

ARCHITECTURE ENTROPY AS PROCESS

Dudik Spomenik, Bogdan Bogdanovic

Bogdanović noted on one of his last visits to the Partisan Necropolis that it had become a Natur-Denkmal. The architect had taken into consideration in the projection of his buildings, that a monument is not static, but consequently will be subject to change.

For the Dudik Memorial in Vukovar, Bogdanovics design process originated from speculations about the decay of his building.

Imagining and designing the entropic operations that dissolve his artifacts into its site.

»Much of the monuments I have built are dedicated to the victims of fascism. But I always had in mind that other times will come, so I created something that would remain even after the fall of a regime.« -Bogdan Bogdanovic

Sketches - Dudik Memorial

Sketches - Dudik Memorial

NATUR - DENKMAL The notion of the Natur-Denkmal questions the integrity of the object, that separates itself from its surrounding landscape. Suggesting that, what is at issue is the boundary or contour that protects the objects integrity from dissolving into its surrounding.

This thesis argues for an architecture of transformation, of accepting the condition that architecture is constantly changing over time. Always in process of construction, deconstruction and formation and decay. »This architecture is not a built edifice that will serve man to show his superior knowledge and skill, his feeling for the beautiful ... For as much as this architecture might have been beautiful, useful and amazing, it will only show

the peak of man. And thus determine his limitations and those of nature and mind. This architecture is the one whose idea has always existed in man, the architecture that is impossible to print, draw, and build; she is invisible and forever unfinished, and as such, she constantly lives, breathes and pulses. Its goal is to encourage man to think about his own nature and its boundaries. Built from something that man possesses since time immemorial, she penetrates into his subconscious and suppressed archetype, by playing with his unconscious, directing him to reflect on the meaning of life.

It does not set man’s limits, but opens them and extends them into infinity.« – Bogdan Bogdanovic

IF I BREAK REBUILD ME Benjamin Softic, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2019

THE ACT GESTURE OF MAKING Through the analogue act of making, ideas are generated that are not only guided by pragmatic dispositions, but by a fortuitous force field of experimentation. The models evolve as a reflection on the research to create unpredictable and intuitive spaces and places. The form and materiality of the pieces suggest a connection between the built structure and the ground, or earth. As such it is not the presence of the earth but rather its absence, that produces its form. Opening the question weather it is the fullness or the void that is essential for this space.

The positive and negative space constitute a spatial anagram, that is constantly readable in both directions.19 The Spomeniks, as heterochronic, but also heterotopic 20 structures, exist through a symbiosis with something absent, on a physical and metaphysical level. As such the notion of positive and negative spaces aims at interpreting this condition on a physical level.

Process

THE DIGITAL DOPPELGÄNGER The process of photogrammetric scanning enables a reproduction of the physical model through a translation of pixels into xyz-coordinates. Photographic images capture the light situation of an the object within the space in one particular moment.

The digital model thus denies the entropic notion of decay. Though it can be fractured, it may as well be rebuilt into its identical original state, since its structure is defined by rational algorithms.

This contrasting properties reflect back onto its original, questioning the meaning of its physicality. As such it takes the role of the other, reflecting back to its original. Highlighting the certain original qualities of the analogue model, as well as the lightness, transparency and scalelessness of the Doppelgänger.

The realm of the digital makes an inside view of the structures possible. Although those view points are theoretically available in the analogue model, it still is highly difficult to reach. The artificial eye of the digital camera lense widens or decreases the space.

Further it enables an increase of scale to a limitless size.

The relation to our digital Doppelgängers becomes, is inevitable and opens up new ways of thought.

Photogrammetric Image, Debris Wall with hole

IF I BREAK REBUILD ME Benjamin Softic, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2019

MODEL ATLAS

IF I BREAK REBUILD ME Benjamin Softic, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2019

IF I BREAK REBUILD ME Benjamin Softic, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2019

Institute for Art and Architecture

Excerpt IF I BREAK REBUILD ME ARCHITECTURE AS PROCESS BENJAMIN SOFTIĆ

Master Thesis Academic Degree Master in Architecture / MArch

Advisors: First advisor Univ.-Prof. Hannes Stiefel Second advisor Luciano Parodi

Vienna 2019