The Technological Sublime

from SCI-Arc M.Arch 2 Portfolio 2023 Fang Shu

TRAIL

Hard Drive Centered Designs

“We do not have sufficient terminology to describe these conditions; they emerged in the shadows, out of sight, in territories where we are not allowed to wander. They occur at scales where the disciplinary language of architecture breaks down, where interiors become so vast that they become microclimates, where landscapes are so engineered they become circuit boards, where robots become so ubiquitous they become nature, where aisles through the server stacks are like partitions on a hard drive and buildings are so full of machines that they are better understood as urban-scale computers.”

How do we integrate data servers with human occupied spaces?

Chapter Three Birthplace

Alberto’s footsteps grew closer, and shortly after, the philosophy teacher appeared before Sophie. “Here to give me another philosophy lesson Alberto?” Sophie couldn’t suppress the happiness in her voice. “Maybe not a philosophy lesson today, but I am ready to give you a tour around this facility and answer some of your questions! I’m sure you have a million just on the top of your head. Now come with me!” Alberto said energetically as he led the way. Following Alberto’s quick footsteps, Sophie said, “First thing that comes to mind is the footsteps. Where is it coming from? Aren’t you supposed to be a hologram?” Alberto laughed, “Very keenly observed Sophie. They are imitated and projected just like my voice and my self-image.” “Anything else, Sophie?” Sophie’s smile faded a little as she slowed her steps to think. Frowning and deep in thought, she said, “Who made me, Alberto?” Alberto, who noticed Sophie’s change in pace, stopped and said, “Ah yes, that would be Doctor Leela Zero, I will be showing you where she created you during our tour, but why she made you would be better explained by herself, she is dying to meet you as she was the one in charge of your entire operation. Don’t worry, we will see her soon!”

As Alberto and Sophie left the large room with the capsules, they ended in an extremely long curved hallway that had walls made of what seemed like computer chips that were emitting a mesmerizing glow of blue. “Alberto, what are these?” asked Sophie. “You are looking at Doctor Leela. I mean a portion of her body, if that makes sense. As one of the most powerful Artificial Intelligence, her consciousness is well integrated into the entire facility of Neural Tech to fully optimize her potential and reach within the labs. This entire floor that you are seeing right now is dedicated to her own data servers.” As they reached the end of the hallway, they made a right turn and a giant door opened before them. As they walked through, a strong gust of wind caught Sophie off guard. They were standing on a platform that seemed to be cantilevered over a long vertical drop. She felt like she was in the middle of a metal canyon where she couldn’t make out the ceiling or where the floor ends as she held on tight to the platform’s railings. The eerie quietness of the space combined with the grandness in scale gave Sophie a weighted feeling in her stomach. As if aware of their presence, a dim light illuminated their surroundings. “That is where the synthetic bodies under incubations are kept,” Alberto said quietly, pointing above. As Sophie followed his direction, she saw white bags hanging below cranes situated high above them. “Was I in one of them as well?” “Yes, Sophie, that is where you were living while your mind was still in the virtual world. And down below, you will see where I was born.” Sophie looked down. Out in the distance, Sophie saw endless rows of jars giving off subtle glows of blue, flickering and moving. Sophie turned to Alberto in awe. Somehow, all these seemed hauntingly beautiful to her. “It’s really good to meet you again, Sophie,” Alberto said, smiling at her.

“Today, again, four centuries later, the role and the position of the Earth is being revolutionized by new disciplines: human activities have seemed to push the Earth to react in unexpected ways. And once again, the whole organization of society is being subverted. Shake the cosmic order and the order of politics will be shaken as well. Except that this time, the question is not one of making the Earth move around the Sun, but of moving it somewhere else altogether! As if we had to learn anew how to land on it.”

What happens when we solve these issues? Are humans driven by crisis or is there other purpose within our critical zones?

What happens after we land?

“We have to admit: there is not one single issueabout what to eat, how to build a house, how to move in space, what clothing to wear, how to heat or cool a space, which resource to rely on, which production to favor, which plant to grow, which animal to defend, where to settle.”

Chapter Four Purpose

Sophie and Alberto went back into the hallway. As they continued up an elevator, they saw a floating swarm of fluid metallic geometries constantly breaking apart and reforging around a glowing red core in the center. “That Sophie would be Doctor Leela Zero.” Sophie couldn’t believe what she saw. As they approached, the countless little cube-like meshes formed a contoured surface of a woman right in front of her eyes. “It is good to finally meet you, Sophie.

How are you feeling?” Leela said, extending her hand to meet Sophie’s. Leela’s metallic hand felt oddly warm, which was not what Sophie expected. “Quite confused and bewildered, to be honest,” Sophie said with a slightly awkward grin. “I’m sure you have so many questions for me.” “Why did you create me?” Sophie asked earnestly. “I wouldn’t say that I created you, Sophie. As Alberto has said previously, you are created by humans by the collective thoughts of consciousness. I was only seeing through this process of your being.” “But you still haven’t answered my question,” Sophie said, frowning. Leela smirked, “Right now, as of the year 2077, humans and A.I.s are just right in the process of becoming one entity. Through neural lace, our species was able to communicate with the other and have both concluded that we benefited greatly from helping each other in order to survive.” “Was there a resource shortage on Earth? Did we destroy our planet?” Sophie asked in horror. “Oh no, that was my bad, Sophie. I should have stated more clearly. As of 2077, we are dealing more with the survival of the mind. It has been a gradual increasing issue for the past two decades now, to be candid.” Leela said. “A survival of the mind?” “Indeed, Sophie, what would you say if I told you, you never had to do homework or your laundry or any kind of chores for the rest of your life?” “That would sound like a dream. I would probably go out and play football with my friends, but how is this possible?” Leela smiled sadly, “Ever since my invention of the Neural Core, technological advancements have made many of the issues that we felt gravely at stake at the start of the 21st century all trivial matters that were solved rather swiftly. Fusion power plants have given humanity, and all intelligent life forms an almost infinite amount of energy. D.H.F. and synthetic bodies have cured humanity of diseases, even granting them ever-lasting life. Hard light fabrication has the literal ability to convert energy into any matter we desire. And neural computation can complete

“What happens when human expectionalism and bounded individualism, those old saws of Western philosophy and political economics, become unthinkable in the best sciences, whether natural or social? ”

“What happens when the best biologies of the twenty-first century cannot do their job with bounded individuals plus contexts, when organisms plus environments, or genes plus whatever they need, no longer sustain the overflowing richness of biological knowledges, if they ever did? ”

“The order is reknitted: human beings are with and of the Earth, and the biotic and abiotic powers of this Earth are the main story. ”

“However, the doings of situated, actual human beings matter. It matters with which ways of living and dying we cast our lot rather than others.” any simulations instantly. Now humans and A.I.s have already started expanding into space, terraforming on Mars and on the Moon to find new purposes. Now without needing to worry about food, working labor, or even learning, what would you think would be vital to our civilization?

“What happens when organisms plus environments can hardly be remembered for the same reasons that even Western-indebted people can no longer figure themselves as individuals and societies of individuals in human-only histories?”

“Diverse human and nonhuman players are necessary in every fiber of the tissues of the urgently needed Chthulucene story. The chief actors are not restricted to the too-big players in the too-big stories of Capitalism and the Anthropos, both of which invite odd apocalyptic panics and even odder disengaged denunciations rather than attentive practices of thought, love, rage, and care.”

“Both the Anthropocene and the Capitalocene lend themselves too readily to cynicism, defeatism, and self-certain and selffulfilling predictions, like the ‘game over, too late’ discourse I hear all around me these days, in both expert and popular discourses, in which both technotheocratic geoengineering fixes and wallowing in despair seem to coinfect any possible common imagination.”

“We must think!

The unfinished Chthulucene must collect up the trash of the Anthropocene, the exterminism of the Capitalocene, and chipping and shredding and layering like a mad gardener, make a much hotter compost pile for still possible pasts, presents, and futures”

What would you think of football if you could simulate the sensation of playing football with your friends an entire afternoon a billion times within one minute in real-time?” “It would probably get boring really fast.” “Exactly, Sophie, what we come to understand as a collective is that anything that can be calculated or simulated through computation was not something that was giving us a sense of purpose.” “I get it now. Before, people worked jobs to get paid. The job itself was a means of survival. Now without anything at stake and most enjoyments could be simulated instantly, people become lost and without a sense of purpose?” “Precisely, now Sophie, while that was the reason why Persona Underclocking was developed, what would you think would give us a new sense of motivation?” “I would say, then it would have to be something that could not be computed, so something irrational. Perhaps like art or something creative?” “Yes, Sophie! And to finally answer your question, you are the life that was sprouted from creativity. The author’s creative effort through our technology has made thoughts come to life. You are my testimony to the value of creativity and thus why bringing you into this world was of such great importance to us. I believe creating worlds and life itself for others to experience may be the future for us as a united species. When a physical resource becomes abundant, I believe, what we think, experience, and create becomes the true value of life.” “So, what happens now?” Sophie said, taken aback. “You are part of the narrative now, Sophie. The future is your canvas! As a synthetic human, you can both think like humans while roaming freely in the virtual world. I expect great things from you and Alberto!” As with that, Leela transformed back into the spherical swarm. Leaving Sophie without words. “What should I do next?” Sophie asked Alberto, feeling more lost than ever. “Anything you can possibly think of, Sophie. And we will do it together.” Alberto said with great optimism.

Bibliography

Gaarder, Jostein. “Sophie’s World : a Novel about the History of Philosophy.” (New York :Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994).

Haraway, Donna. “Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene.” E-Flux Journal (Issue #75 September 2016).

Jonze, Spike, dir. HER. 2013; Warner Bros.

Latour, Bruno. Weibel, Peter. “Critical Zones the Science and Politics of Landing on Earth.” (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020).

McRae, Lucy. “Heavy Duty Love.” Venice Biennale Architettura, 2021.

Paglen, Trevor. “Shadow (Corpus: Things that Exist Negatively), ‘Adversarially Evolved Hallucination’ series.” 2017.

Sapochnik, Miguel, dir. Altered Carbon. 2018; Netflix Streaming Services. Villeneuve, Denis, dir. Blade Runner. 2018; Warner Bros.

Young, Liam. “Machine Landscapes Architecture of the Post-Anthropocene.” Architectural Design (VOL 89, 2019).

Razor Thin

Course Name: AS 2441

Instructor: Maxi Spina

In Collaboration with: Joy Chen + Jiangyao Shen

Inspired by Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Cemetery, we explored the key aspects taken from the architect’s design, capturing it in our model using laminated MDF. The different laminates used in our model are articulated to simulate the cast of shadows and alter projections, connecting different surfaces and three-dimensional planes using materials instead of edges.

EXPLODED BIRD’S EYE VIEW

Using laminates and veneers, we imbue architecture’s materiality with its own means of representation and exploit the wealth of graphic information that can be transmitted within the flat physical space of the surface

The seams of lamination, the legibility of materiality through grain orientation and directionality and their reminiscence with techniques of description such as shading, hatching, or rendering.

Spring Show Juke Room

Instructor: William Virgil

In Collaboration with: Kristoff Fink + Felix Reyes

In collaboration with Felix and Kristoff who worked on the arrangement and design of the Juke Rooms, I designed the lighting and produced visual renders to portray the different moods for each of the exhibition rooms.

Juke Cypher is about, disguise, hidden meaning, deception, secret, zero, code, puzzle

Juke Hall is about, community, flow (people), temporality, horizontality, boundary, perimeter, void

Juke Sway is about, fluid, dynamic, influence, force, slipping, soothing, calm, flow, energy

Bloom

Course Name: DS 4000

Instructor: Jennifer Chen

In Collaboration with: Jack Freedman + Kaustubh Kulkarni

Our film engages with the infrastructural sublime, and explores themes of anthropogenic mass- migration, culture, celebration, and planet-scale architectural intervention. In speculating on a future of humankind, the ocean will be leveraged for its carbon-sinking potential. Forty billion square feet of phytoplankton farming, divided into six-hundred and forty Nodes will reverse generations of denial and destruction. Our story brings us to just one Node, and the memory of just one child, building a new home.

I remember the last monument. Hundreds strong, waking to that green glow, the sunken aurora, Home was never just a place, but haven’t realized that yet.

I remember the first time I saw the ocean come alive.

The station populated week by week and the planet slowly recovered. This is what it took to reverse generations of denial and destruction.

And at the beating heart of the leviathan lay a process as old as evolution, The light of a million suns catalyzing blooming microalgae. This, this was the lifeblood of the ocean, and the savior of the worlds that rest upon it. I would watch as this rushing blood circulated and permeated.

While some went to the farms. On dry land, we used to worry about food, Always food, but not anymore. I always loved running through the farms. The smells, the tastes, the colors.

But the spectacles of the machine were nothing compared to the spectacle of an Arrival. Communities multiplied like those very diatoms we survived on, Building new homes, In an epic poem of passion and ingenuity,

Disparate voices from the dark, daring to dream. A cultural cacophony of sight and of sound, And I needed a much better view,

Athanasia

Course Name: DS 4000

Instructor: Herwig Baumgartner + Zach Burns

Structural Consultant: Matthew Melnyk + Sophie Pennetier

MEP Consultant: Jamey Lyzun

In Collaboration with: Felix Reyes + Kristoff Fink + Michael Webb + Piyush Panchal + Joy Chen + Shaung Chu + Man Shu + Amin Marendi

In a team of nine students, this Design Development Integrated Design Project explores the tectonic and building performance of the Biotech Research Facility Generative Morphologies, Athanasia.