Homomorphic Emplacement Soup by Mauricio Espinosa

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HOMOMORPHIC EMPLACEMENT SOUP

HOMOMORPHIC EMPLACEMENT SOUP [draft-3] 13/12/09 Mauricio Espinosa | Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research | espinosaproject@yahoo.com | UCL Bartlett School of Architecture | 22 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0QB

“All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”— Ernest Hemmingway OVERVIEW Hemmingway’s observation is jarring. His present truth is both informed and naïve. Perhaps it is buried in-between the realities of his world and within one’s quest for the unknown. The ability to remain unchanged and to act on the unloaded ‘face-value’ is an admirable outlook when transfigured into place. For the artistaficionado, the talented architect, the hopeful designer and the town drunk, the ability to conceive and create, to make and mull are largely rooted in one’s understanding of things, and in the realm of one’s existence in their imagination and a world shared twice—if not more—over.

OBJECTIVE This work seeks to lift the events of process and making away from a created object in order to better understand (un)importance in the act of ‘doing,’ set against one’s existence within things. A performed series of analogs are positioned to both remove conventional ‘process’ 4

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from its subject setting, and to translate process into an altered place-space to better understand key issues and shortcomings associated within the architect’s design process. To divorce one’s creative inadequacies—isolate and replace them with biological, mechanical, digital, chemical, technological processes while using the conceptual processes of the human mind to control, manipulate, inform, expand—broadens the potentials to create less-inhibited actualizations. (Spiller 2002) This is now argued with regards to the process-of-making: event fidelity and an evolving ‘place-space’ as: object in time. (Badiou 2006) (Heidegger 1978) When one can better understand methodology in process-making, this positively influences the designer’s conceptual ability in looking at the thing in question. (Heidegger 1978)

EVENT FIDELITY The relationship of subject and object is proposed within Alain Badiou’s domain framework—enacting “love, science, politics, and art” as a means for an experimental “generic procedure.” (Badiou 2006) Arguments of love, science, politics, and art will be postulated against the making of objects in relation to conceptualization, understanding / articulation, and a means of production—hereafter observing the ‘event.’ The central goal in event fidelity is to discuss an object’s essence with regard to the following processes: affect / influence, conceptualization, emplacement, and transferring / producing. Here a non-realized thing has the ability to be dissected and placed into a system in which it would normally not

belong within. Although rationalized conjectures of the final process are not expressed within the bounds of this project, its staging seeks to lay out the nakedness present in Hemmingway’s posture.

Affect and Influence The ability of a subject or object to impress upon—for the purposes of this work—the event of the object is the central mechanism responsible for shaping its outcome. A myriad of terms and structures can define the term ‘influence.’ (Kalugin 2006) Since the totality is beyond the scope of the event fidelity process, a translation of the work is used as a method to look at an architectural composition. The affect is in anticipation of concept and it works in reversed order to define this process. This can be demonstrate as public events, changes in a family’s lifetime, desperation, money, inherent drive, and most importantly within one’s position (relative to lifetime). Conceptualization of the Object Double-meaning, loss, and fierce misinterpretation may be the underlying factors in conceptualizations of an object. (Jarry 2006) However, this dichotomy enables a drive which can allow a project to progress from beginning to “end.” The intellectual and paraphysical abilities which are ‘in-tune’ with nature are used as the first analog in translating a folly. This is set towards the premise of a giant, 40 pound cabbage which grows in the Northeastern region of Scotland. Its cultivation flourishes from Peter and Eileen Caddy’s ability to become ‘in touch’ with the supernatural spirits who—through 6

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osmosis—communicate with the Caddy’s an effective process to harvest cabbage growth. (Mitton 2009) When one looks at the conceptual process of being ‘one’ with the spirit in almost divinest intervention, its propagation is, from beginning to end, a direct path. Therefore, the process of making, cultivation, and seed do not exist within the hands of this world; rather, they exist within spiritual divinity (and outcome as part of a circular process). The absurdity of this argument is not in the conceptualization of the object, rather in the belief that—without God or Science—one is

able to create something from nothing.

Object Emplacement An outlining of tools to process an event allows a method to purvey. The translation and positioning are the inherent tools which allow a process to be conceived. In the art of Business Administration, this may be better suited to the operation manager’s initial role in the architect’s design process. (Taylor 2007) This involves setup, and can often serve as the first mode of translation. Its coordination

is the most plastic and therefore susceptible to change; one may argue that in Badiou’s Eye, emplacement exerts more political qualities than other modes in object making. (Badiou 2006) (Neff 1985) Here, endless frameworks are conceived: object emplacement is surveyed in an illustrated geological cross-section of ‘Cerro Mercado’ showing host rocks and affected materials conveying a series of events. This depiction can be translated from a scientific analysis of natural phenomenon to that of an object’s artistic feat—a movie frame running at 29.5 frames/sec is set 7

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within a structure which will analyze and assemble an altered outcome between conception and production. It may be in anticipation of production, or rather within production as an affirmation /influence upon conception.

Transferring/Producing the Object Throughout the process of making, perhaps the most ardent act is that of fabrication and execution. Like Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, the characterization of the subject can blindside the conceptual act as the “main event,” leaving its purpose and point to be exposed in wonderment, rather than inspiration. (Kinski and Cardinale 1982) In comparison, we might deploy an artistic, syntactical approach which deviates from—in Herzog’s place— the act of rope-pulling to a process where conception and conclusion are removed (and spirit and drive are maintained). Herzog’s act of rope-pulling is mechanical: it couples human spirit with jimmy-rigged mechanical power. What if the machine had the power and spirit, all-the-while acknowledging its disregard for conception and finalization? (Marcel Duchamp 2009)This, like the artist, would lead to a design analog of perfectionist machines who are frustrated with the available tools to actualize a thought or conception. First and foremost, the machines would be ardent and riddled with conflicting technology (see the Edward Scissorhands dinner scene where Edward—an impressionable machine—quickly becomes frustrated while unable to pair a fork and knife with his appropriated “scissor hands”) (Depp 1991) (Svofski 2009). As in Herzog’s case, the perfectionist machines have no 13

Enlarged 3D DICOM Fitzcarraldo, 61 seconds

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strength and physical connection to the boat. Rather, they are comprised of a pen, eraser, and a webcam which are placed over a television screen running stills of Fitzcarraldo. (Denis Diderot 2009) The machines have no means of conceptualizing or finalizing the task, however they do possess an overt amount of drive, and frustration. (Nicholson 1990)

OBJECT IN TIME From its moment of ‘final’ production, an object immediately exists within a placespace, perhaps a factory building in Taiwan, a craftsman’s workshop, or a 30-year old inventor in his mother’s basement. Often its validity exists with the creator, or rather, the first ones to experience the object. Yet unless made for the place in which it currently resides, the object is often transported, shifted, packaged, and placed into its new surroundings whereby its planned existence might be better suited for the designer. In avoidance of larger political issues, the project argues that the moment after an object’s immediate assemblage or ‘completion,’ it exists within an evolving place-space whose worthiness is transformed into an experience. As in the grandmother’s banister, the experience may be something physical, as in an evolving place-space, or rather it may be a memory or reading of the past. The unattainable is something of a measure of time, and may be better suited as a lost object whose will is actively sought through discovery.

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An Object in an Evolving Place-Space An evolving place-space involves the need for relevance and irrelevance over a period of time. An object is validated against conditions, perhaps spatial and functional. (Heidegger 1978) Its meaning and purpose are understood as several things while only being one (this is the elephant in the room with regards to the architect’s role in affecting economic and ecological sustainability). (Shelley 2009) The intention of Meatloaf’s I Would do Anything for Love (but I Won’t do That) song (Meatloaf 1993) can be inexplicably appreciated by the music absorbed, whilst the talents of the band—the skills, play, orchestration, execution, etc.—are not necessarily relevant to the overall understanding of the thing itself. Meatloaf’s album can be played using a tape and player (4-track); the song can be cut to expose the relevant parts, as one might now understand the ‘dated’ song / playing apparatus as an audible archeology which should be separated and dissected to expose the guts to better understand its original intention and its meaning in present time. (Walker 2009) It is a process of sampling, validity, and the quest for remodeling one’s kitchen by stripping and painting cabinet doors. (Heidegger 1978) Illustrating a dichotomy between past and present, a grandmother’s ability to appreciate a beautiful stairway banister is equally viable to the task or method a wood carver uses to tool the object from timber. Her thoughts, feelings, and memories jar together as she whisks her hand past the living room banister. It reminds her of the place she first stood as a widow. This is translated towards the location of an 26

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object which exists within the described room, however the memory of the house with her hand on the rail is the key aspect to the narrative, which allows for a synthesis of concept and object to conjure the reality of the thing itself. This is based upon both physical placement and emplacement. (Sears Homes 1908-1914 2009) Dissimilar to Stelarc’s work on “Towards the Post-Human: From Psycho-body to Cyber-system,” an augmentation of an environment might rather use James D. Foley’s Data Glove, evoking an alternate memory by transmitting an accompanying data set (a blissful memory) from the banister to the grandmother’s short-term memory set. The emplacement then evokes pleasure from an otherwise painful memory, while devoid of the conceptualization and transferring / producing of the object. (Foley 1987) (Stelarc 2007)

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The Lost Object One might say the quest for things is an unending journey, that humankind has already—in one form or another—seen the presence of objects before they appear. The second meeting between a person and an object is merely what one will have the opportunity to remember. The quest is often comprised of one’s perseverance to find the object as well as an eventual loss, find, or foregone conclusion. The lost object is—at best—a journey of discovery where one never truly finds the object in quest, rather fragments of subjects and objects within a time-based allotment. It exists outside of the object. With the lost object, a piezoelectric analog is attempted to try and enact a series of objects or events by means of a nonhuman impressionable object. The aim is to remember a lost environment through piezoelectricity and to transform its resonant frequency into an actualized, composed object in space. This is seen as a situational survey, rather than a quantitative assemblage of phase-change materials such as carbon dating or other chemical processes which affect surface character or result in spotted analysis samplings due to their methods of enquiry. One can imagine an age-old placement of lost oxygen pockets which enabled a civilization to flourish, or perhaps to rejuvenate plant / animal life in better grasping the deeper understanding of nature, rather, of Findhorn’s spirit within nature. One could use the inherent property of piezoelectric cells to foresee or to remember the ‘what was’ based upon their impressions in an environment—it acts as an analog to review this information. 33

The apparatus for piezoelectric crystal analysis (“detection of resonant frequency from a change of impedence”) is based upon the Piano Foundations’ composition of measurement which includes: 1) “A crystal-controlled oscillator for measuring the resonant frequency of the specimens” 2) “A capacitance bridge for determining their equivalent circuits and dielectric constant; and” 3) “An adjustable electrode-system, and a capacitance bridge, for the measurement of thermal expansion” (Station 1957) The apparatus is placed into a remote, dilapidated field in London where, from visual inspection, an overall sense is the aforementioned condition where foliage is of no existence. The crystal or ceramic attenuating material is placed into the apparatus which is fixed with rigid connectors to the ground’s surface. A series of conductors are probed approximately 24 inches into the ground’s surface which are wired to a transducer. These probes attenuate frequency to the cells based upon their impressions from insertion, placement, and extraction as well as from soil alkalinity and pressure. During the analysis, the user will set and monitor dielectric constants for positive measurement of results. After one week’s readings at 24 hours / day (one-minute intervals), results are postulated into 3D computer scripting which respectively plots the analysis of the crystals in x, y, z, and t directions. The determinants of t are based upon the ratio of probe placements (x, y, z) over one-minute intervals / one week duration. The resulting output format will be demonstrated upon further 34

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investigation of work.

FUTURE SOUP What about our changing roles in society— our observance of structures and changes in technological production, bricks, bionic assemblage, lost keys and bad memories, our reliance on foreign cabbage, and the inquisitive nature of cyberspace and cybernetics? For architects and designers, it is rather a procedural placement which can positively affect the critical experimentation in the process of making (as a matter of fact, all objects exist within method). Its roots involve time, inadequacy, and suffocation. (Barney 2005) They involve Ubu Roi’s rage. (Jarry 2006) They are smart. They are responsive. In a world so enthralled with the future, they actively seek the next ‘ism’ which hopes to redefine a generation. For animals and nature, they represent nothing; for human positioning, something more. For the grandmother, it involves death; for Meatloaf, Love. The object is never singular as it exists in a process involving other ideas and things. For Fitzcarraldo, technology was just that—between two things, even though he existed within a realm of technology which he was unable to ‘harness.’ Fortunately, Fitzcarraldo’s drive and imagination overshadowed the short-comings of his production, and this is what one can remember from the movie. Past, present, future—nothing without some warm soup.

Acknowledgements Phil Watson, AVATAR unit members, my colleagues at The Bartlett School of Architecture, Maurice Brown / UCL Media Lab, Viacheslav Slavinski Svofski, and Taryn Paez

BIBLIOGRAPHY Badiou, Alain. Being and Event. London: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006. Restraint 9. Directed by Matthew Barney. Performed by Matthew Barney. 2005. Denis Diderot. December 8, 2009. http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Diderot (accessed October 27, 2009). Edward Scissorhands. Directed by Tim Burton. Performed by Johnny Depp. 1991. Foley, James D. “Data Glove: Interfaces for Advanced Computing.” VPL, 1987: 24. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. New York: WileyBlackwell, 1978. Jarry, Alfred. “Ubu Roi.” In The Sources of Surrealism, by Neil Matheson, 142-145. Hampshire: Lund Humphries, 2006. Kalugin, Vladimir: California State University Northridge. Donald Davidson (1917-2003). 2006. http://www.utm.edu/ research/iep/d/davidson.htm (accessed December 12, 2009). Fitzcarraldo. Directed by Werner Herzog. Performed by Klaus Kinski and Claudia Cardinale. 1982. Marcel Duchamp. December 8, 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Marcel_Duchamp (accessed December 12, 2009). Meatloaf. I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That). Cond. Jim Steinman. Comp. Jim Steinman. 1993. Mitton, Michael. Findhorn Foundation: Well Being Q&A. December 12, 2009. http://www.findhorn.org/ index.php?tz=0 (accessed November 6, 2009). Neff, Terry Ann R. In the Mind’s Eye: Dada and Surrealism. New York: Abbeville Press, 1985. Nicholson, Ben. The Appliance House. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990. Sears Homes 1908-1914. 2009. http://www. 36

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searsarchives.com/homes/1908-1914.htm (accessed December 12, 2009). Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “The Skylark.” Poets’ Graves. 2009. http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic%20Poems/Shelley/ ode_to_a_skylark.htm (accessed December 12, 2009). Spiller, Neil. Cyber_Reader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2002. Station, Post Office Research. Piezoelectricity. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1957. Alternate Anatomical Architectures: Walking Head, Partial Head & Extra Ear. Directed by UCL Bartlett School of Architecture. Performed by Stelarc. 2007. Svofski, Viacheslav Slavinski. Motori the Plotter. Russia. 2009. Taylor, Frederick Winslow. The Principles of Scientific Management. London: Filiquarian Publishing, 2007. Walker, Stephen. Gordon Matta-Clark: Art, Architecture and the Attack on Modernism. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2009.

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