Fishing in a bathtub
Responses and conversations
Eric Owen Moss project Collection of lecture responses course HT 2754 01 - HT Fishing in a bath tub semester 3GAX
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article abstract
This article defines, elaborates and details the sociopolitics, architectural philosophies and the challenges of AI in the fight against climate change.
The ficitonal narrative is designed as a thought exhibition much like critical zones and is meant to engage the audience and their imaginations.
The projects created in 2GBX call this world home and are situated through it’s future history, across a timeline.
“Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
In Albert Einstein’s letter eulogizing his late friend Micheal Besso’s passing, to the untrained reader, it might have seemed crass to declare the passing as an event that meant nothing. My interest here though was piqued due to a question posed during our last class. “Does time pass”
The answer, as I have come to believe, is no, it does not. Time is continuous.
Temporal distinctions of time between past, present and future is an observable theory that is not intrinsic in nature but rather a construct that has come to be due to the nature of the human condition, psychology and biological properties of carbon based life. Time has no substance or make and has defied all attempts made to define its true nature. The theory of relativity identifies the dual experiences shared by two observers of an inertial frame of time as being different based on the observers relative motion in space to each other. Thereby, the lack of absolute motion in the vast expanses of chaotic tendencies in the universe can lead to an interpretation of time as an infinite set of objective realities. Objective, not subjective or dependant, due to the fact that conscious experience of the present observers experiencing the infinite variables of motion have no effect on the reality of time for that observer.
Philosophically, arguments of time’s nature being linear or cyclical, real or merely conceptual and endless or finite have occupied the great stage for millenia. And rightfully so. The school of thought I have chosen to include myself among are the ones who believe time is continuous due to the ideas presented by the philosopher Parmeniedes.
“The ordinary notion of change indicates some thing or state of a thing going from being future to being present to being past. Yet we also ordinarily contrast the what is — i.e., the present state of things — with the what is not — i.e., the merely possible or long gone. The future doesn’t actually exist; if it did, then it would exist now!”
The theory of a past, present or future that would require the existence of reality at a point other than now although they might change. Yet in reality, nothing may go from being present in the future to being present now as if that reality is present in the future, it would be present now. Change then becomes illusionary as we are not witnessing it in a future tense. We are witnessing it continuously. Every moment that comes to pass is time as it exists. Every reality that comes to pass is time as it exists, not future, not past, not present but continuous.
This allows me to also come to peace with another concept discussed in class. All life is new to the one who lives it as time is objective to the beholder. THe continuous nature of time frees that life from pretenses of the past, the prent and the future for it has never existed or will ever exist in those constructs. It simply exists now. Therefore it is new.
As an architect, it may still be possible to design something new as it will be new to me.
Lecture 02 response
Forgetting is important for any kind of action
The value of history is an indebatable prerequisite for progress and as a tool used to measure society, technology and intellect of the collective species. Memory implies something more personal and the correlation of memory to the human condition is a strained subject.
Forgetting is important for any kind of action. The statement initially felt contradictory when discussed in class, immediately creating a response that argued for the value of memory in knowing how to act or the causality that forgetting would lead to inaction for the actor has “forgotten” his role. The statement is less literal and almost ironically more vague than temporal moments. The statement instead refers the ability of a human mind to live and experience a life upon which it can exhibit force and intent It refers to a deep seated nature described by Nietzsche as he observes a surreal envy that the ‘superior life form’, a human would feel towards a herd in the wilderness.
A beast, living ‘unhistorically’ has no fractions left over from its past. Instead treating every moment as a whole, unburdened by the knowledge of memory. With nothing to hide and no roles to play, each moment it experiences exactly what the moment is without a distorting lens over its sight of what’s true. In contrast, our minds remember exponentially more.
The human mind is the only one capable of turning a moment in time into a ghost.
Like a chain, dragging with us the knowledge we gained and the memories we have amassed unknowingly entangling ourselves into a paralysis that prevents action against the moment. The ghosts that live on this chain are powerless in truth yet are able to dismantle the tranquility of the moment which would have been nothing before it was and nothing after.
“The person who cannot set himself down on the crest of the moment, forgetting everything from the past, who is not capable of standing on a single point, like a goddess of victory, without dizziness or fear, will never know what happiness is. Even worse, he will never do anything to make other people happy. Imagine the most extreme example, a person who did not possess the power of forgetting at all, who would be condemned to see everywhere a coming into being. Such a person no longer believes in his own being, no longer believes in himself, sees everything in moving points flowing out of each other, and loses himself in this stream of becoming.
Nietzsche argues against Plato’s hypermnesic theory and instead posits that forgetting is a natural and essential element of the human psyche that enables one to dodge the paralyzing natures of nostalgia.
Forgetting becomes action. Remembrance and ramification at one degree are capable of guiding such action yet when they are sought, treasured, clutched and tethered, they are able to dissociate or destroy a person, a people or even a culture.
Lecture 03 response Kierkegaards’s theory of time
My first article during your series of lectures explored an attempt to associate with a school of thought attempting to answer a question. Does time pass?
The schools I explored were vaguely scientific, or possibly attempting to be in their approach.The goal seemed to be to define the time as a universal, physical law drawing from conclusions made by Albert Einstein or the philosopher Paramendes. I concluded the article as follows.
Change then becomes illusionary as we are not witnessing it in a future tense. We are witnessing it continuously. Every moment that comes to pass is time as it exists. Every reality that comes to pass is time as it exists, not future, not past, not present but continuous.
The second article, titled ‘Forgetting is important for any kind of action’ was quite simply an attempt to explore the underlying theory behind the sentiment. Following the ideas posed by Nitchze and the opposing views previously presented by Plato, I arrived at an opinion.
Forgetting becomes action. Remembrance and ramification at one degree are capable of guiding such action yet when they are sought, treasured, clutched and tethered, they are able to dissociate or destroy a person, a people or even a culture.
As you pointed out, the first article, although fair in the theory, was not exempt from academic, philosophical or possibly, religious challenges. I found this correlation of time, a reality considered unapologetically consistent could share anything in common with a subject so arduously intangible.
My research into the psychological relationship of forgetting and acting, seeded a curiosity in the philosophy of psychology.
During your third lecture, you mentioned the Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard and his theories on time and his work on the concept of anxiety. I found his work exigent yet undoubtedly invaluable and the perfect segway to further explore academic curiosities.
“Man … is a synthesis of psyche and body, but he is also a synthesis of the temporal and the eternal.”
Referencing his accepted truth as a parody of the eternal, Kierkegaard argues against the existence of a past present of future. Stating that we are only able to create this representation by spatializing the present. Yet by doing so, we break the continuous infinite succession that time is. The present would have to be a foothold in this eternal succession yet due to the innate definition, this foothold can only be a myth. Considering the present instead to be the present as opposed to the present being a representation of time, the theory elaborates on the relationship between eternity and time. One where time continually attempts to intersect reality, creating a past and eternity preveades time, creating a future.
The moment then becomes the only reality to exist. The infinite succession that is time leaves a life lived without a present. The only way to truly be alive is by the moment, an abstraction of the eternal. The existence of the eternal allows for a present for thought. Where every intersection of time and eternity can be and is posited. Eternity and time are equally abstract and the moment is a figurative expression yet to present it briefly, the moment is not of time but of eternity.
As I explored Kierkegaard’s work and more specifically, his alluringly caustic views on the human condition, I was admittedly awaiting a marriage between his views on time, the significance of the moment to his unabashed belief in god. His arguments for a leap of faith to lose one’s mind and win god is where his work turned challenging.
Where I was able to find a foothold in his work though was his argument for the moment being the whole of eternity. An idea that speaks volumes for the psychology of the human condition, presenting a question for the lives we live and makes one wonder if they should be fishing in a bathtub.
Lecture 04 response
Tolstoy’s views on history
“History would be a wonderful thing - if it were only true.”
Kierkegaard’s theories of time, stipulating the significance of the moment and a nuanced method of interpreting the past, present and future created a comfortable segway into exploring Tolstoy’s views on history.
Tolstoy’s views on history expressed, in his fictional works as well as more directly, define his view of history as a causality contingent of patternless infinite chaos akin to battle.
Historians shaped the narratives we possess to fit with criteria established in-lieu of accounts of actual events. The greater error, Tolstoy adds, is the assumption that history has been the sum of great events in the footfalls of great men and women. He likens a conclusion from observing a forest that nothing but woods rest beneath the canopy. History as we know it is a narrative of situational convenience, ignoring an infinite set of unremarkable actions of the ordinary folk that shaped past events.
Tolstoy’s works in War and Peace and Anna Karenina further enshrine this worldview where the characters of the fictions live lives influenced by the most unlikely characters during an unremarkable moment in the story.. Through unparalleled descriptions of the human psyche and condition through his fictional and non fictional works, Tolstoy presents his appreciation of the value of everyday life.
Towards the end of his life similar to Kierkegaard, Tolstoy found comfort in religion. I find a strange chatharcism in history if it is true. For if we have no true history to look back on and the future is contingent, the moment is all we have yet thought lives in eternity, unable to perceive life as such.
Is the answer to the human condition truly in religion or might that have been an escape?
Lecture 05 response
After pondering on Tolstoy’s views of history and it’s legitimacy, it seemed only fitting to explore the futurist philosophies shared in his manifesto by Italian poet, Fillippo Marinetti. I was curious about the following sentiment when I chose to explore this manifesto more deeply:
“ Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible?”
Looking into the life of the poet, it seems to actually explore his work in an unbiased manner will be challenging. His political views and social alignments are quite adverse to my personal views of the civilized world. The manifesto he wrote does create an academic curiosity so I chose to explore its significance instead.
The manifesto’s influence on art and culture seem to be its most notable accomplishments. The subsequent works on the school of thought that is futurism enabled the movement to evolve. The status of art itself was influenced by the manifesto and its discussions. The evolution did not just affect the movement but also engaged the status of art. Allowing it to morph from a confined discipline limited to expression to an agent of political and social engagement by questioning tradition, history and social norms. A causality snowballing to the status of the arts in our time.
The futurist movement stood against more contemporary and classical schools of thought at the time to eulogize the ideals of speed, technology and the rejection of history and the stasis imposed by it. Ideals that one might consider essential even today. Although the moderation with which these ideals are enforced may be considered debatable.
Lecture 06 response
Art is something that must be overcome
When Adolf Loos argues his stance as a staunch supporter of liberating mankind from the perils of ornament, my immediate instinct was to agree.
“ To me, and to all the cultivated people, ornament does not increase the pleasures of life. If I want to eat a piece of gingerbread I will choose one that is completely plain and not a piece which represents a baby in the arms of a horserider, a piece which is covered over and over with decoration.”
As the paragraph moves on, it likens a supporter of ornamentation to the mindset of an “uncultivated” person from the 15th century. To subject my academic opinion to such a classification by Adolf Loos is not my intention but unfortunately, my initial instinct passed and so did the early 20th century. Along with its concept of overcoming art.
The ornament has evolved and with it, art has as well. The sensibilities of the modern world have allowed art to overcome itself.
We have come to understand that ornament has different values to different individuals. The gingerbread in the silhouette of a rider would mean little to the academic philosopher attempting to derive the future of a profession. yet to a child, in the silhouette is the imagination of an epic saga in the shape of breakfast and to the mother, in the shaped gingerbread is the love for her child. Value taken away from art for the sake of seriousness is not a loss of value but a loss of the human-centric ideals Loos argues for.
Architecturally speaking ornament and professional responsibility could possibly coexist. Schools of thought inspired by architects such as Hadid or Gehry have showcased this. Architecture is not simply a career, the implications of an architectural education seep deep into the psyche of a student who allows himself or herself to be malleable. A person becomes an architect, they do not work as one. An architect attempting to overcome art is a travesty of passion and purpose and I staunchly disagree with the concept.
Lecture 07 response
There is only one serious philosophical question, and that is suicide
Is life worth living?
Camus’s philosophical struggle against the absurdity of life and arguments for the eternal question of whether life is worth living outweighs most other theoretical questions of how life should be lived. The question can only be considered natural as we dissect modern life as an equation of monotony and routine that siphons the innate natural tendencies of human passion and desire for a life that is at one with the world.
Our struggle to find meaning in the absurdity of life has created an afterlife for most religious tendencies and for the ones uninspired by the idea of a god, comes the concept of living for a reason greater than oneself. Without these two pillars of purpose, Camus argues a mind may descend into the madness of a life detached from humanity.
I find myself in agreement with the conclusions made by Camus. Trying to rationally understand the limits of reason in a world of absurdity will only result in the pursuit of the impossible. One may rage, struggle, and ultimately be driven to sorrow if one struggles against questions to which no answers possibly exist. To our plight, there are only two solutions, hope or suicide. Camus though argues the third answer. A rageful acceptance.
What is the Camusean alternative to suicide or hope? The answer is to live without escape and with integrity, in “revolt” and defiance, maintaining the tension intrinsic to human life. Since “the most obvious absurdity”is death, Camus urges us to “die unreconciled and not of one’s own free will”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Considering our discussions up to now regarding the passage of time, and the reality of history, I believe this might be a beautiful way to live.
Lecture 08 response Nothing exists outside architecture
The mother of all art. Architecture, a discipline that combines the subjective matters of aesthetics and artistic beauty with scientific and mathematical principles to create the built spaces we spend most of our lives in, has rightfully claimed and held onto a crown deemed as the mother of all art. Although the self-importance may be forgiven for the underlying truths that formulated the crown, the implications of this self-importance, I postulate, may have led architects down a path of slow self-destruction.
If space were to be designed by a person without an academic background in architecture, would it still be considered architecture? The majority of private homes built in countries with challenging economic situations are designed and constructed by local construction groups, engineers, and sometimes even the residents themselves. Basing our argument from this standpoint, one may argue that the core idea of survival and shelter may be separate from architecture or at the very least, architects.
Considering both scenarios, if a shelter built by the hands of the resident isn’t considered architecture, the implications it would have would challenge the all-encompassing presence architecture intends to carry. In a scenario where we do consider it to be architecture, the implication of the importance or “need” of an architect may come into question as well.
Most often we find that the second circumstance is true. Therefore I might argue that the architect himself exists outside of architecture.
To reach an unattainable goal of philosophical awareness, social and political implication, climate sensitivity, material knowledge, economic feasibility, social presence, and responsible and aesthetic design supported by knowledge of structural engineering, the architect seems like a child lost in an endless forest of his own making. Full of beasts prepared to destroy him and mountains of challenges, piled up to the clouds by the self importance.
Reality suggests architecture to be a luxury not to the city but to the person. The cost that the world is willing to afford for this luxury strongly outweighs the value an architect places on his architecture. The weight of architecture’s crown falls on the architect’s shoulders. Archaic professional expectations carried by “the mother of all arts” defy human truths. A majority of architects will never see financial independence or be deemed great. Their names will not be remembered by history. They may never find themselves designing the spaces they dreamed of for they may never be at the right place at the right time. Probability dictates that their lives will be spent in pursuit of an unattainable goal.
Although it may be indisputable that nothing exists outside of architecture by the way we have defined it, I ask whether it should be this way. For if nothing exists outside of architecture, what happens to the architect?
Lecture 09 response
Can you listen?
I have chosen to write about the question of one’s ability to listen and learn today. To truly listen and absorb concepts and words one is unfamiliar with, understand them and learn from them. A serious question indeed for if we cannot listen, language looses a great degree of meaning. To a point where our ability to communicate might as well be referred to as primitive and ineffective.
Soren Kierkegaard, a philosopher we discussed earlier, confessed that the amount he had to speak reduced drastically, and at one point, he chose silence and decided to listen. When he discovered the silence in the voice of god. Hearing and listening are different but not fundamentally so. Hearing, as defined by Roland Barthes refers to a psychological phenomenon but listening is a psychological act. Although this is not a new concept, in the times we live in I find it to be increasingly forgotten.
I find myself a culprit of this. Consistently I catch myself formulating a response in a conversation before the one I am conversing with has made their statement. Although I do not claim to be alone in this or even the worst offender. Social media and the structure of contemporaries, especially among the majority of youth across the world celebrate the talkers. In the routine of life, I have found myself preparing my responses as quickly as possible to make additions to conversations by picking and plucking on familiar concepts from what I am hearing as opposed to challenging my preconception with possible unfamiliarities by listening.
The phenomenon itself is not unfamiliar and I have introspected regarding the same when I find myself or my contemporaries guilty of hearing but not listening. A causality of comfort or possibly of the need to present oneself as cultured, cultivated, and intellectual, the inability to listen is quite an extensive epidemic.
Returning to the philosophers, Immanuel Kant believed that just as not seeing separates you from things, not listening separates you from other people. Gemma Corradi postulates in the Philosophy of listening that “Openness exists ultimately not only for the person to whom one listens, but rather anyone who listens is fundamentally open. Without this openness to one another there is no genuine human relationship.”
Lecture 10 response
The fox and the hedgehog
The ancient poem by Archolious caught my attention during the lecture due to its relevance to the conversation of philosophy regarding architectural practice.
Taken literally, “The fox knows many things but the Hedgehog knows one” would lead to an interpretation of the hedgehog being victorious against the fox’s cunning. The interest in this circumstance is ofcourse the figurative. In an article regarding the subject by E. M. de Vogüé, he defines the figurative implication to mean as follows :
“Taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general.”
He states that there exists a divide between intellectuals in their method of understanding, thinking and feeling where one side relates everything to a single central vision or system of variable coherence while the other side there are those pursuing various ends that are seemingly unrelated or often contradictory in their connection. A divide between those who may be considered “Monist” or “Pluralist”. Although he does state soon after that when pressed this oversimplification falls apart as a scholastic or ultimately absurd concept.
The interest for me in the article from E. M. de Vogüé comes from his references to Tolstoy and his views on history. Although we can classify most writers and intellectuals into one category or the other referencing the fox or the hedgehog, it seems impossible to do the same with Tolstoy regardless or possibly, because of the contributions he has made through his philosophy and his writings.The lack of classification for Tolstoy would not come from a lack of clarity or doubt regarding the meanings of motivations that Tolstoy expresses.
Although E. M. de Vogüé argues for Tolstoy being considered a fox who believes he is a Hedgehog, I find myself pondering whether the method of classification is too limiting. Would it be possible then that it is possible for us to fluctuate between being foxes and hedgehogs? Is it possible that as opposed to a classification Archolious defined states of thought?
Lecture 11 response
The Ultimate Compliment
“ This is the ultimate compliment for the architect, as it is his unique role to raise the human spirit by the quality of the environment which he creates, whether in a room, or a building, or a town.”
James Stirling’s words fell on my ears like the tired beating of a drum stretched too thin.
This is not to disqualify the magnitude of his work and his contributions but a critique of the impact words such has this have had on the architectural industry and for the professionals who dedicate their lives to this self proclaimed practice to raise the human spirit.
Let us consider James Stirling and the life he lived. In an article written by Paul Goldberg for the New York Times, he describes the life and work of James Stirling as follows,
“Neither James Stirling nor his buildings were ever precisely what you expected, and that was forever his glory. Stirling, who died last month in London at the age of 66, did not look like an architect of international renown: he was overweight, spoke awkwardly, and tended to shuffle about in a uniform of dark suits, blue shirts and Hush Puppies. Yet his buildings dazzle. They leap across our field of vision with a consistent freshness and a capacity to inspire wonder. There is not one of them that does not speak of a deep passion for the ability of architecture to enrich the human condition, and if many are troublesome, challenging structures, they nonetheless resonate with a sense of belief in human reason. His death brings to an end one of the remarkable architectural careers of the 20th century.”
I wonder if at the time of his passing, James Sterling was considering his career’s impact and whether he believed he had managed to uplift the human spirit.
As I have outlined in an earlier response, titled nothing exists outside architecture, Reality suggests architecture to be a luxury not to the city but to the person. The cost that the world is willing to afford for this luxury strongly outweighs the value an architect places on his architecture. The weight of architecture’s crown falls on the architect’s shoulders. Archaic professional expectations carried by “the mother of all arts” defy human truths. A majority of architects will never see financial independence or be deemed great. Their names will not be remembered by history. They may never find themselves designing the spaces they dreamed of for they may never be at the right place at the right time. Probability dictates that their lives will be spent in pursuit of an unattainable goal.
I donot then believe that the ultimate compliment for an architect is his unique role to raise the human spirit by the quality of the environment which he creates, whether in a room, or a building, or a town. Although I do believe this should be the intention.
What then is the ultimate compliment? Fair compensation?
Empowerment to bring a balance to work and life after a decade of study? Reasonable justification for the time invested and requirement of a license to practice with a reward system that is tangible and not philosophical? Due to the superfluous nature of the words and thoughts expressed by architects such as Sterling, the architects of today might never find out.
Lecture 12 response
Architecture can only be accomplished by irony
“For the first twenty years of my career as a professional architect, I believed that architecture could only be accomplished by irony.
It could allude to treason.
It made it possible to create architecture as criticism. It could admire the vulgar against the noble, the secular against the sacred, without shame.
It was an unfulfilled wish, a mourning for what was lost— Hiroshima, holocaust To bridge over the gap— A style of wit, a sense of humor and paradox were adopted.
After twenty years of practical experience, I am now going to find a method to create architecture without irony.”
These were the words japanese architect Isozaki used to describe his architectural experience. The presence of irony made me quite curious and my research led me to subjects that investigate the ironies embedded in the post modernist architectural movement.
Postmodernism is a heavily critiqued subject already but its impact on architectural practice is undeniable. Yet the focus of my response and what interested me though is the context in Isozaki’s statements. The immediate irony in architecture, as stated by Emmannuel Petit, seems to be its situation between two paradoxical realities of the absolute, utopian views of the architect and the messy, irrational nature of the real world.
Petit called Isozaki less of a troublemaker than Tigerman and Venturi drawing upon the architect’s personal story. Isozaki, brought up in Japan during the world war became a Metabolist early in his career but broke away due to his perceived naive positivism due to what he witnessed in his upbringing. In Isozaki’s work the irony was evident in the impressions history had left on him and his own ambition regarding the future.
“Isozaki’s work, like the rest of the architects here, recognized the disciplinary dilemma of architecture: a singular creator who attempts to make the world in an ideal image, and the realities of the world that bound the work physically and metaphorically. For Isozaki, this was manifest as ruin, darkness, and the possibility of a complete collapse at all times, providing irony when contrasted in his work with the very idea of building anew.”
Although the article concludes with the self critical opacity of postmodernism in the ultimate irony between self identity in the face of a radically changing world, I question if this presence of irony in architecture has faded since the postmodernist era or if it has just metamorphosed to fit the architectural profession in a mediocre fashion into the capitalist era of the architectural practice.
If while the world evolved, architecture refused to evolve?
