Marissa Looby GSAPP Portfolio 2009-2010 by Marissa Looby

marissa looby selected projects 2009-2010 graduate school of architecture, planning and preservation GSAPP columbia university master of science in advanced architectural design m.sc.aad mal2216 - marissa.looby@gmail.com

This publication has been created in response to the requirement of an exit portfolio for graduation, in conjunction with the Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design (M.Sc AAD) at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University in the City of New York. Marissa Looby 2009-2010 ‘Negotiating Invisible Boundaries’ a retrospective thesis in response to coursework associated with M.Sc AAD Marissa Looby 2009 on structure and validation purpose-(lessness?) written as part of the metropolis lecture series - framing the semesters learning as practice and its theoretical conceptualizations Marissa Looby 2009 ‘Hidden Order’ critical theory paper written in art history class under John Rajchman and in relation to gift exchange and fall studioTHEGIFT with Yehuda Safran Marissa Looby 2010 ‘Invisible Order’ article written for Potlatch magazine in relation to gift exchange and fall studioTHEGIFT with Yehuda Safran © Marissa Looby 2010 studioCHINA studioTHEGIFT studioGI+S advanced architectural design research studios

contents

preface

list of courses vii I (summer 2009) metropolis on structure and validation purpose-(lessness?) 7 advanced studio studioCHINA

13 II (fall 2009)

advanced studio studioTHEGIFT 29 (with essay from art history course: What is Critical Theory?) hidden 55 III (summer 2010) advanced studio studioGI+S swiss transcript notes index

97 101

63 89

preface Negotiating Invisible Boundaries The selected works in this portfolio are of differing scales, format and content; StudioCHINA is of the geopolitical urban scale, studioTHEGIFT is largely a human scale with a focus on an interior condition; and studioGI+S operates at the scale of building and machine. Under a common banner to all three studios is their hidden agenda and meanings and their inherent questioning of architecture at its edges. Starting with the Metropolis lecture series in Summer 2009; I began to develop a questioning of architecture and the relation of theory and practice. Most notable within the American School System, I felt that there is a ‘one or the other’ scenario occurring - architecture students can chose to be a theorist or a practitioner. Each project in this portfolio is an attempt to mediate through this division - not to produce a dialectical sublation between the two, but to negotiate architecture’s internal boundaries. This book, which is an extension of my thoughts and explorations, could be said to have a particularly theoretical format - the images are confined within the text and restricted to a frame. However, the text is also pushed to the background, hidden in plain sight due to the sheer repetition of small black text, and even within the frame of a book, the image may be seen to take over the text field as the dominant information. Like any architect who first picks up a book - they flick through to the images, the titles, and the contents. The pictures are viewed first, are not reliant on the text, and only when the viewer aims to find out more, they then chose to come back to the text in more detail - perhaps to a title of interest, or to the index to find a key theme. The portfolio-as-book is a perfect crossover of this format - it can be read in a short time and survive the famed ‘flick-test’ attributable to its use. The portfolio only survives for a matter of minutes, or perhaps a few hours - its content analyzed and scrutinized, and to an extent almost on a superficial level - the writing does not count, only the all important blown-out full-page full-color super-image. But what of its contextualization? What of its site of reference - its frame that is all so important throughout the semester’s presentations? Can a project be reduced to an image? The portfolio in this format aims to question and provoke a multiplicity of meanings, just like the work produced within it. i

preface

When time is of the essence, one might turn into the Preface of a book for an insightful overview - a short version of the book some might say. In keeping with convention, I offer this summary; the work produced within this portfolio offers an exploratory research-based design approach. The projects vary in their investigation and breadth, but seem to take on a common theme of navigating and negotiating invisible boundaries; of making visible the moment of interruption, and of contradiction within the work and brief. The summer semester saw a typological investigation between two processes - the factory and the shopping mall. The typologies were amalgamated in an attempt to create a site for production as well as consumerism. The project exploits the potential of the notion of display in order to challenge the idea of both existing programs - to move beyond the mixed-use architectural model of the recent times into a new model all together. Not to be seen as two distinct systems, the typologies interact with each other so much so that it is one distinct type - it is an architecture of negotiation. In the fall semester, the project revolved around human behavior, and the etiquette school program. The building aimed to create moments of suspension and disbelief, like within a Brechtian play, in order to question the very moment of exchange and social constructs of our own behavior. The program questioned the invisible order of how one behaves by making visible to the user of the space their actions. By creating programmatic overlaps, and mixing user groups into the one space - for example, the etiquette school contains a public bar and restaurant, making it accessible to both the general public and the etiquette school students - the two sets of people are married together in order to confuse, and have the user question who is the student, who is the the general public, and is there any difference between the two? In the final semester, I investigated a physical border - the ambiguous delineation between two countries on top of a melting glacier, and the absurdity associated with accuracy and mapping. The building acted as optical measure as well as research station, and also housed measuring devices that - through their use questioned the very reason for drawing the line. The results of the work are based within their theoretical investigations - made all too apparent by the format of this book. Each project has an agenda of dialogue they aim to bring forth invisible orders through their built manifestations. ii

Negotiating Invisible Boundaries

figure 1.1. studioCHINA

figure 1.2. studioTHEGIFT

figure1.3. studioGI+S iii

preface

7.69961 7.70008 7.70055 7.70102 7.70149 7.70196 7.70243 7.70290 7.70337 7.70384 7.70431 7.69962 7.70009 7.70056 7.70103 7.70150 7.70197 7.70244 7.70291 7.70338 7.70385 7.70432 7.69963 7.70010 7.70057 7.70104 7.70151 7.70198 7.70245 7.70292 7.70339 7.70386 7.70433 7.69964 7.70011 7.70058 7.70105 7.70152 7.70199 7.70246 7.70293 7.70340 7.70387 7.70434 7.69965 7.70012 7.70059 7.70106 7.70153 7.70200 7.70247 7.70294 7.70341 7.70388 7.70435 7.69966 7.70013 7.70060 7.70107 7.70154 7.70201 7.70248 7.70295 7.70342 7.70389 7.70436 7.69967 7.70014 7.70061 7.70108 7.70155 7.70202 7.70249 7.70296 7.70343 7.70390 7.70437 7.69968 7.70015 7.70062 7.70109 7.70156 7.70203 7.70250 7.70297 7.70344 7.70391 7.70438 7.69969 7.70016 7.70063 7.70110 7.70157 7.70204 7.70251 7.70298 7.70345 7.70392 7.70439 7.69970 7.70017 7.70064 7.70111 7.70158 7.70205 7.70252 7.70299 7.70346 7.70393 7.70440 7.69971 7.70018 7.70065 7.70112 7.70159 7.70206 7.70253 7.70300 7.70347 7.70394 7.70441 7.69972 7.70019 7.70066 7.70113 7.70160 7.70207 7.70254 7.70301 7.70348 7.70395 7.70442 7.69973 7.70020 7.70067 7.70114 7.70161 7.70208 7.70255 7.70302 7.70349 7.70396 7.70443 7.69974 7.70021 7.70068 7.70115 7.70162 7.70209 7.70256 7.70303 7.70350 7.70397 7.70444 7.69975 7.70022 7.70069 7.70116 7.70163 7.70210 7.70257 7.70304 7.70351 7.70398 7.70445 7.69976 7.70023 7.70070 7.70117 7.70164 7.70211 7.70258 7.70305 7.70352 7.70399 7.70446 7.69977 7.70024 7.70071 7.70118 7.70165 7.70212 7.70259 7.70306 7.70353 7.70400 7.70447 7.69978 7.70025 7.70072 7.70119 7.70166 7.70213 7.70260 7.70307 7.70354 7.70401 7.70448 7.69979 7.70026 7.70073 7.70120 7.70167 7.70214 7.70261 7.70308 7.70355 7.70402 7.70449 7.69980 7.70027 7.70074 7.70121 7.70168 7.70215 7.70262 7.70309 7.70356 7.70403 7.70450 7.69981 7.70028 7.70075 7.70122 7.70169 7.70216 7.70263 7.70310 7.70357 7.70404 7.70451 7.69982 7.70029 7.70076 7.70123 7.70170 7.70217 7.70264 7.70311 7.70358 7.70405 7.70452 7.69983 7.70030 7.70077 7.70124 7.70171 7.70218 7.70265 7.70312 7.70359 7.70406 7.70453 7.69984 7.70031 7.70078 7.70125 7.70172 7.70219 7.70266 7.70313 7.70360 7.70407 7.70454 7.69985 7.70032 7.70079 7.70126 7.70173 7.70220 7.70267 7.70314 7.70361 7.70408 7.70455 7.69986 7.70033 7.70080 7.70127 7.70174 7.70221 7.70268 7.70315 7.70362 7.70409 7.70456 7.69987 7.70034 7.70081 7.70128 7.70175 7.70222 7.70269 7.70316 7.70363 7.70410 7.70457 7.69988 7.70035 7.70082 7.70129 7.70176 7.70223 7.70270 7.70317 7.70364 7.70411 7.70458 7.69989 7.70036 7.70083 7.70130 7.70177 7.70224 7.70271 7.70318 7.70365 7.70412 7.70459 7.69990 7.70037 7.70084 7.70131 7.70178 7.70225 7.70272 7.70319 7.70366 7.70413 7.70460 7.69991 7.70038 7.70085 7.70132 7.70179 7.70226 7.70273 7.70320 7.70367 7.70414 7.70461 figure i.4. 7.69992 collage of three advanced studios work: studioCHINA (foreground: image from filmic 7.70039 7.70086 7.70133 7.70180 7.70227 7.70274 7.70321 7.70368 7.70415 7.70462 manifesto: 7.69993 waste pieces image were stitched compile7.70322 a new),7.70369 studioTHEGIFT (final 7.70040 of 7.70087 7.70134 7.70181together 7.70228 to7.70275 7.70416 7.70463 7.69994 7.70041 7.70088 7.70135 7.70182 7.70229 7.70276 7.70323 7.70370 7.70417 7.70464 7.69995 7.70042 7.70089 7.70136 7.70183 7.70230 7.70277 7.70324 7.70371 7.70418 7.70465 iv 7.69996 7.70043 7.70090 7.70137 7.70184 7.70231 7.70278 7.70325 7.70372 7.70419 7.70466 7.69997 7.70044 7.70091 7.70138 7.70185 7.70232 7.70279 7.70326 7.70373 7.70420 7.70467

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Negotiating Invisible Boundaries

7.70525 7.70572 7.70619 7.70666 7.70713 7.70760 7.70807 7.70526 7.70573 7.70620 7.70667 7.70714 7.70761 7.70808 7.70527 7.70574 7.70621 7.70668 7.70715 7.70762 7.70809 7.70528 7.70575 7.70622 7.70669 7.70716 7.70763 7.70810 7.70529 7.70576 7.70623 7.70670 7.70717 7.70764 7.70811 7.70530 7.70577 7.70624 7.70671 7.70718 7.70765 7.70812 7.70531 7.70578 7.70625 7.70672 7.70719 7.70766 7.70813 7.70532 7.70579 7.70626 7.70673 7.70720 7.70767 7.70814 7.70533 7.70580 7.70627 7.70674 7.70721 7.70768 7.70815 7.70534 7.70581 7.70628 7.70675 7.70722 7.70769 7.70816 7.70535 7.70582 7.70629 7.70676 7.70723 7.70770 7.70817 7.70536 7.70583 7.70630 7.70677 7.70724 7.70771 7.70818 7.70537 7.70584 7.70631 7.70678 7.70725 7.70772 7.70819 7.70538 7.70585 7.70632 7.70679 7.70726 7.70773 7.70820 7.70539 7.70586 7.70633 7.70680 7.70727 7.70774 7.70821 7.70540 7.70587 7.70634 7.70681 7.70728 7.70775 7.70822 7.70541 7.70588 7.70635 7.70682 7.70729 7.70776 7.70823 7.70542 7.70589 7.70636 7.70683 7.70730 7.70777 7.70824 7.70543 7.70590 7.70637 7.70684 7.70731 7.70778 7.70825 7.70544 7.70591 7.70638 7.70685 7.70732 7.70779 7.70826 7.70545 7.70592 7.70639 7.70686 7.70733 7.70780 7.70827 7.70546 7.70593 7.70640 7.70687 7.70734 7.70781 7.70828 7.70547 7.70594 7.70641 7.70688 7.70735 7.70782 7.70829 7.70548 7.70595 7.70642 7.70689 7.70736 7.70783 7.70830 7.70549 7.70596 7.70643 7.70690 7.70737 7.70784 7.70831 7.70550 7.70597 7.70644 7.70691 7.70738 7.70785 7.70832 7.70551 7.70598 7.70645 7.70692 7.70739 7.70786 7.70833 7.70552 7.70599 7.70646 7.70693 7.70740 7.70787 7.70834 7.70553 7.70600 7.70647 7.70694 7.70741 7.70788 7.70554 7.70601 7.70648 7.70695 7.70742 7.70789 7.70555 7.70602 7.70649 7.70696 7.70743 7.70790 presentation of design boards that were hung across room in order of the views 7.70556 7.70603 7.70650 7.70697 7.70744 7.70791 studioGI+S (background: of the Swiss-Italian boundary) 7.70557 7.70604 7.70651 border 7.70698 coordinates 7.70745 7.70792 7.70558 7.70605 7.70652 7.70699 7.70746 7.70793 7.70559 7.70606 7.70653 7.70700 7.70747 7.70794 v 7.70560 7.70607 7.70654 7.70701 7.70748 7.70795 7.70561 7.70608 7.70655 7.70702 7.70749 7.70796

of the building) and

list of courses

(S) - design studio (T) - history and theory (VS) - visual studies

summer program 2009: i. studioCHINA, professors eric schuldenfrei & marisa yiu (S) ii. digital craft, professor josh uhl (VS) iii. metropolis, prof. enrique walker (T) iv. into and out of architectural theory (T) fall program 2009: i. studioTHEGIFT, prof. yehuda safran (S) ii. visionary methods of practice, prof. Mathan Ratinam (VS) iii. swarm intelligence, prof Roland Snooks (VS) iv. what is critical theory? prof. john rajchman (art history) (T) v. the evolution of critical discourse in british architectural practice 1930-1975, prof. kenneth frampton (T) spring program 2010: i. studioGI+S, prof. Geoff Manaugh (S) ii. philosophies of the city, prof. Reinhold Martin (T) iii. PHD Colloquium, prof., Felicity Scott (T) iv. dada and surrealism (auditor) professors rosalind krauss and noam elcott (T) vii

metropolis on structure and validation paper one: textual analysis

Eisenman, P. ‘Misreading Peter Eisenman’, in Eisenman, P., Inside Out: Selected Writing 19631988 (New Haven: CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 208-225 Key to the composition of any argument is the title. The title is a pre-formative tool that the writer can engage with to define, identify and frame the body of work to come. It has the power to construct, to interpret, and in the case of Peter Eisenman, to misinterpret. Misreading Peter Eisenman is a self-referential article that aims to question the act of architecture by dislocating meaning, all within the construct of an active engagement of misreading. How can one interpret, construct and deconstruct meaning when the author is actively aware of, and promotes multiple misreading’s and layerings of meaning? When asked to intentionally misread, or when it is stated by Eisenman that he is misread, how can the essence of the article be deciphered? In this text, the title is the signifying object of importance, and is similar in effect to the use of the column in Eisenman’s Houses series. It structures the validation of the argument, is given importance by the use of a footnote, and similar to Eisenman’s conceptual architecture, it offers a mode of metaphysical questioning as to the functioning of such structures and signs. In his attempt to define architecture within the realms of the physical (object, presence) and the metaphysical (mind, absence), is the misreading mere folly to the essence of the problem at hand? Why does Eisenman want to dislocate meaning in architecture? What is the success of his strategy in terms of his dislocation? To misread implies negative connotations - to misunderstand, or to incorrectly judge a statement or action. In the case of Eisenman, misreading is essential to questioning the act of architecture. He states; “As Walter Benjamin says, when he reads Baudelaire on Paris it is far more real to him than Paris ever is when he is there. This is the necessary misreading inherent in reading. The current work is looking for an architecture that is far more real than architecture ever is.” (Eisenman:2004, p224). The importance of the understanding of misreading results in Eisenman footnoting the title to essentially deconstruct this statement for the reader, and to actively engage him in the concept of misreading. The footnote is utilized in academic writing to support an argument with a source of higher authority, to create a further understanding of a particular idea or concept. By footnoting the title, Eisenman frames and constructs how the argument should be read, and misread. In a selfreferential and retrospective article about his own built work, this serves as an apt tool to guide the

metropolis viewer through a particular frame of viewing. Eisenman states these givens as threefold; “First, it acknowledges the impossibility of reading into a text what was intended by the author, or more precisely the impossibility for an author to be able to correctly read or reread his own work. Since the book concerns the idea of architecture as text, it implies the process of misreading. Second, misreading raises the issues of the text as dislocation. Third, it raises the issues of truth and error with respect to any text. Once the possibility of a ‘correct’ reading is dispelled then the entire range of repressions engendered by the idea of ‘correct’ can be considered” (Eisenman:2004, p225) Similar to the topic of discussion of conceptual architecture, this precursor makes the reader an active player and aware of their own readings and misreading’s. Furthermore, the critical reader accounts a complication in their review of Eisenman’s texts (both built and written), because within the constructs of his own argument, he creates a means of evasion, where he acknowledges that the reader may read or misread, intentionally or unintentionally. As stated previously, the multiple layering of meanings that work to dislocate is essential for Eisenman more than the ‘correct’ reading. In applying an additional layer of misreading, the title could also be read as a statement. Being a retrospective article, Eisenman has been privy to almost three decades of critique and interpretation, of judgements and readings of his House series. The title read as a statement implies that people have misinterpreted the outcome and the use of the Houses project. Eisenman’s work has been labelled in the deconstructivist category - a style categorized as anti-humanist, anti form, anti hierarchy, and perhaps a simplification of Eisenman’s work in his own eyes. This label also acts as a distortion of meaning for the reader from the true essence of what the work was questioning. Eisenman actively communicated his distaste for being labelled as a deconstructivist. The title and footnote structure are main source of validation for the argument and are intrinsically connected to the conceptual architectural approach that the article puts forth. Text and object become the same idea. As well as actively engaging the reader to misread, title also works as both statement and question aimed at commenting on the inaccuracy of interpretation of his works, as well as being a precursor to a theoretical ‘given’. This is also the intention of the Houses series which Eisenman refers to as conceptual architecture - a model for questioning and layering of meaning where the process, and questions, are more important than the formal result. So if the meaning has been misread, and Eisenman actively acknowledges theoretical constructs of misreading within his footnote - how can we interpret the extent of his argument? How can we interpret the success and failures of his dislocation if inherent within the construct of just the title, are so many constructs of dislocations of meaning? Within the text, Eisenman states what he believes to be his own successes and failures. Eisenman believed that the failure of the Houses in dislocating was a question of origin and autonomy of the object. In using the cube as starting point for his studies, this restricted the vocabulary of what the end result could be. The assigned starting point went against the very grain of the notion of dislocation of meaning by starting with a primitive form. Dislocation, for Eisenman, is not defined as ‘the new’ stylistically but as a shift in a central principle. In his key example, Eisenman describes modernism as failing to dislocate, because it “failed to question the accumulated traditions of the institutions of dwelling” (Eisenman:2004, p213). In an evaluation of his Houses series against this construct, it is evident that the cube could be read as a primitive base of the traditions of institution of dwelling, a fixed starting point not allowing for a first dislocation, but it could also be seen as the

on structure and validation second failure of dislocation; the first being held within the diagram of the institution of dwelling. Eisenman attempts to address the larger issues of how we dwell, of the institution of living. His primary example in the text is the ‘institution of dining’ and the preconceived conceptions of how to design a space within the constructs of the preconceived ideas of that particular institution. This represents is the basis of the explorations in his House series - Eisenman aims to disrupt typical conventions of particular ‘institutions’ like dining in order to “search into the possibilities of occupiable form” (Eisenman 2004: p211). It is claimed by Eisenman that House III achieved a dislocation of meaning of the institution of dining.The dining room within the House was designed with a column placed in the centre of the of the table - disrupting the users’ view, vantage point, and way of using the space. To some extent, it could be read that this column achieved a dislocation in the institution of dining. By placing the column in the centre of the table, the act of dining is questioned - why do we dine within this social construct? What are the traditional constructs that establish this design in the mind of the architect? The column disrupting the dining room seeks to question, but is this a dislocation? It could be argued that the column in the dining table is mere affect to question a precursor to a dislocation that did not occur because the diagram of dining remains the same. The act of dining remains the same. The construct of the design of dining remains the same. The column for the viewer acts as distraction to question why we dine the way we dine, but it does not shift the central principle. This conceptual architecture acts on a level of mere affect, as opposed to dislocation. The column is the folly of distraction. It is a successful questioning but unsuccessful dislocation as the tradition and institution of how we dine is still the same construct, with an impractical distraction in the middle. Coinciding with the physical primitive cube as non-dislocation, the diagram of the institution of dwelling was the metaphysical origin point that was not put into question by Eisenman in his text. Therefore, in constructing experiments of the links between the physical and metaphysical, it could be said that Eisenman favors the physical. The Western diagram for how we dwell is wrapped in the eighteenth century construct of the typical model apartment - a diagram for living that has been unchallenged to this present day. Central to the House series still, is this traditional model of the institutionalization of how we dwell. The House dislocations, like conceptual art, were mere folly that play up a question, as opposed to a resulting in a change, or dislocation in meaning. To move beyond folly of architectural convention requires a reconstitution of the nuclear cell of living and a renegotiation of the house typology. The column is also utilized in the House as an experimentation with the layers of communication of an architecture. Eisenman writes that architecture is composed of three elements - objecthood, function and sign. Function and sign can be manipulated, as seen in the House series where the column is stripped of its function - i.e. it does not hold up the building; it is not used as structure therefore acts a signifier; it is a column with a dislocated meaning. The column is pure aesthetic as opposed to functioning object, altering the signifying value and stripping away meaning. It now functions to signify its own lack of function. On a physical and metaphysical level of function and sign, this achieves a dislocation. The third element of architecture - an object’s objecthood, Eisenman argues, is why dislocation is highly resistant in architecture. It has a physical condition of presence. Moreover, Eisenman states there is paradox of architecture because it is simultaneously a critique and a creation of the institution it builds. In critiquing, and dislocating the metaphysic and physic, a play between absence and presence occurs. Is then, a dislocation of meaning relevant? When questioning the act of architecture, how can this self-referential process of creation and critique further the understandings

metropolis of architecture? For Eisenman, misreading is essential in creating new meanings. Rather than a critique of structure and validation, the very structure of misreading has set up an allowance for the furthering of meaning within both textual and built works. As part of this misreading, the Houses series provoke a new layering of meaning in questioning the constructs of the institution of living, as exemplified in the metaphysic of the typical model apartment.The communicative content of the Houses simultaneously critiques and questions as physical presence. They provide a communicative step that is on its way to dislocation - in a self-referential process of creation and critique, moments of questioning are essential in layering meaning within the act of architecture. The cyclical process creates a new viewing for both author and reader. The misreading allows for multiple interpretations both within Eisenmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work and from external critique to his work.

metropolis purpose-(lessness?) paper two: built analysis

Herzog and de Meuron, Ricola Europe Factory and Storage Building, Mulhouse-Brunnstatt, France, 1994 “Purposefulness without purpose is ... really the sublimation of purpose. Nothing exists as an aesthetic object in itself, but only within the field of tension of such sublimation. Therefore there is no chemically pure purposefulness set up as the opposite of the purpose-free aesthetic. Even the most pure forms of purpose are nourished by ideas - like formal transparency and graspability - which in fact are derived from artistic experience. No form can be said to be determined exhaustively by its purpose.” (Adorno:1979, p8) The Ricola Europe Factory and Storage Facility by Herzog and de Meuron bears an aesthetic resemblance to the simple industrial warehouse. The building typology, which is seldom synonymous with the architecturally designed building, comprises two seemingly incongruous systems; the production line, and the exterior shell that houses the inner factory workings. The factory could be described as primitive shelter because the production line has minimal programmatic necessity or connection to the shelter. Within this arrangement, the architectural solution could be thought of as purposeless. The Ricola Building, like most typical factories, is a steel framed box with expansive spans and flexible internal divisions allowing for the efficient factory operation. The rectangular plan and sweeping awnings are reminiscent of an open cardboard box, functioning typically by the above mentioned factory arrangement. What is different, however, is that the box has been decorated; a cosmetic layering of ornamentation; an architecturally designed, and highly detailed decorated box. This building facade consists of two translucent polycarbonate walls embellished with a silk screen film of photographer Karl Blossfeldt’s plant series on the long side of the box, and two black concrete walls that naturally stain, by the deliberate draining of water collected from the roof on the short sides of the box. It could be perceived that these highly textured and deliberate surfaces offer no further functioning for the factory; what is the significance of the decoration of the building? What is the purpose, (or purposelessness) of the ornamentation, or decoration of the facade for the architectural building and program? Theodore Adorno in his 1979 article and speech to members of the Bauhaus called Functionalism Today, draws from the Kantian philosophical notion of ‘purposiveness

metropolis without purpose’ to discuss the impossibility to separate purpose and purposelessness, and useful and uselessness in art and architectural functionalist concepts. Furthermore, he states that nothing exists as an aesthetic object in itself, but in a field of tension between object and purpose. In this light, the Ricola factory could be understood as purposeless surface overcompensation for lack of programmatic necessity, or alternatively as the additive purposefulness, of a building that has double function. As will be discussed below, this too, however may pose a too simple dialectic. Therefore, in examination of the Ricola Storage Factory under this constraint, the building will be explored as a negotiation between its double function of experimentation and primitive programmatic necessity, rather than an ‘and/or’ approach, in order to assess the usefulness and uselessness of the separation of ornamentation and function. The aesthetic descriptions of the Ricola Storage Factory are located in a loaded milieu of architectural discourse. The terms ornamentation, surface, decoration, functionalist, and cosmetics all intersect by varying degrees within the discussion of this text, and also in their use in meanderings between purpose and purposelessness. Firstly, the decorated shed should not be taken in the Venturian sense of the word, but more as a link to the word ornamentation. The Ricola Storage Factory in the most basic sense of the term can be described as ornamentation. This is useful in location of its place within Vitruvian ideals of architectural expression and the functionalist abandonment of ornamentation’s ‘purposeless’ aesthetic. The Ricola Storage Factory in this light is not an ‘and/or’ condition but rather both functionalist box and ornamentation. This interpretation is because the simplistic functionalist debate would see ornament as serving no purpose, and the purpose only relying on the building’s program, or its use. As described previously, the use is disparate to it’s facade so the ulterior argument for ornamentation as exemplification of the building’s ideal is also null and void. Instead, the Ricola Storage Factory intentionally blurs this connection. “For all of its modes of assertiveness, its blatant use of images, its indulgence in materiality, and the bluntness of its form, the genius of the Ricola Europa is that the building, in itself and as such, is never there” (Kipnis: 1997, p432). As opposed to ornamentation, Kipnis describes a duality and a destabilizing of facade, best described by his term ‘cosmetics’. Kipnis believed the Ricola Storage Factory had a cosmetic eruptive force, meaning that the facade was more like a hidden second layering or skin; “Ornaments attach as discreet entities to the body like jewelry, reinforcing the structure and integrity of the body as such. Cosmetics are indiscreet, with no relation to the body other than to take it for granted…. Deeply, intricately material, cosmetics nevertheless exceed materiality to become modern alchemicals as they trans-substantiate skin into image, desirous or disgusting. Where ornaments retain their identity as entities, cosmetics work as fields, as blush or shadow highlight, as aura or air” (Kipnis: 1997, p431). The cosmetic description lends more to the potency of this debate as opposed to the decorated shed as it discusses this interior in-between condition. In the Venturian sense, the building is not duck or decorated shed, but rather a complex layering of the two. The two dimensional facade creates a sign, but the sign cannot be separated from the inherent structure of the building. Separating and disengaging the factory functioning from the shelter has enabled a freedom in experimentation for Herzog and de Meuron. Being the second factory for the Ricola enterprise, they had both client trust and built flexibility to test such effects of ornamentation, or surface

purpose-(lessness?)

experimentation and its purpose. Sylvia Lavin has described the Ricola factory as â&#x20AC;&#x153;curatorial

figure 2.1 perspective render of the Ricola Storage factory, produced in association with Digital Craft coursework in Fall2009 techniques in unapologetic investigations into surface effectsâ&#x20AC;? (Lavin: 2003, p135), dismissing the architectural form as self gratification and purposeless beautification. One could argue that this statement is merely touching the surface of the effect of the Ricola facade. Was the highly ornamental facade a cheap aesthetic ploy by the architect? Did the separation of program and factory functioning allow for an exploitation and overcompensation on the facade? Or was this surface condition a more deliberate and intentional ploy of the architect to comment on the purposefulness of purposeless function? Upon returning to the initial argument by Adorno, he believes that ornament is an additive act, but it should not be seen as neutral to the program (no matter how disparate the system). It should be stated that even though there is an observed lack of programmatic dependence on the building, that it still does have an inherent function - that is to store, to secure, and to shelter. The important distinction is that the building encounters a separation and disengagement from its interior and exterior workings as opposed to a complete purposelessness. The main use of the building to store does, however, highlight the disconnect of the building from its somewhat redundant use. The

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figure 2.2 axonometric and elevation renders of the Ricola Storage factory, produced in association with Digital Craft coursework in Fall2009 cosmetic addition of the skin in some ways exemplifies the redundant use in program, its mere purposelessness, but, in doing so, it prescribes the building with purpose. The image on the facade of the Ricola Storage Factory undergoes a series of manipulations and appropriations from photography, to architecture, to the milieu of an artistic environment. As a sculptor and photographer, Karl Blossfeldtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plant photographs are seductive and almost resemble existing architectural fenestration, like wrought iron fence railings, or art nouveau ornamentation. It is interesting to contemplate that a photograph resembling architectural fenestration was appropriated onto the facade as pure ornamentation, or decoration, or cosmetic. Furthermore, the photograph was appropriated onto a translucent wall, creating a textured curtain-like effect of filtered light both internally and externally. This facade as presented in three dimensional form was still the flattened two-dimensional photograph. However, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s re-appropriation to a three dimensional facade created a new surface and textured condition. Its purpose was as blurred threshold and ornament; a translucent surface blurring internal and external boundaries, yet its functioning to the initial photograph, and to the building program (as discussed above) is somewhat purposeless. To again, follow this effect one step further, the facade has been appropriated back into the art context as part of the permanent architecture collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The collection includes a model of the factory, and most importantly, a replicate facade panel from the very building in question. The building has undergone a cyclical transformation of a creative process of abstraction. Yet still, is there a purpose for this transformation? The building comprises a layering of meaning, and layering of purposes, that may now only become useful when juxtaposed against its uselessness of program. Or furthermore, the facade panel as art may create a new set of meanings and purpose altogether and unforeseen and separated from the initial built project. In comparison of the two initial constraints of purpose, the building prescribes a multiplication of interconnected purposefulness and purposelessness, predominantly observed in the surface ornamentation of the facade. One can speculate that the factory was not mere beautification and gratification on the hand or the architect, nor was it entirely purposeful. What can be said is that the intelligence of the architecture lies in its multiple use, and although typologically the building creates an ideal setting for architectural experimentation - as the skin has no relevance to function

purpose-(lessness?) within - the possibility of a purpose-free aesthetic is questionable, and perhaps unattainable. Similar to the apparent emptiness of the building’s outer function and program of storage, to prescribe purposelessness still prescribes a purpose. The observation of this building as mere surface effect, like that proposed by Lavin, is an ostensible observation, an impulse in the judgement of aesthetics over meaning that, upon second look, requires further examination by the viewer. In the case of the Ricola Storage Factory, it’s purpose cannot, and should not be separated from its ‘lessness’. Instead, the two purposes combine, like the effect of facade, to create a simultaneous image and dislocation of image, and simultaneous function and dislocation of function. As Adorno states in the opening quotation, ‘No form can be said to be determined exhaustively by its purpose’, in the case of the Ricola factory, it could be said that its form cannot be determined exhaustively by its purpose, or by its lack of purpose.

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professors:

Eric Schuldenfrei & Marisa Yiu project:

recombining redundancy - waste, excess and extravagance

project summary The project focused on a specific new typology forming in china - the megafactory - or ‘farmotory’ - a work-live factory that dominates the Pearl River Delta area, and entire east coast of China. From initial short projects (filmic manifesto and didactic machine), the project was steered towards the abandoned textile factory as model of waste, extravagance and excess. The textile province of Guangdong – known as the world’s factory – is currently being superseded by cheaper labor sources overseas and also by the Xiajiang province, China. This northern city underwent a manufacturing boom due to innovative technologies and new infrastructural models. Guangdong is also home to the largest shopping mall – which is ironically abandoned. The aim of the project is to combine the two redundant systems of factory and shopping mall into a new building of innovation and experimentation. The factory becomes a display for the products it makes. Foreign investor, factory worker, tourist, and local Chinese citizen interact in a new model of experimentation; by revealing and reveling in modern excess, the factory-mall aims to create a new successful and stable model for the Chinese province. 13

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figure 3.1 Mao’s Little Red Book Concept Proposal - Filmic Manifesto A quotation from Mao’s Little Red Book - in Chapter 20 - Building our Country Through Diligence and Frugality; “Wherever we happen to be, we must treasure our manpower and material resources, and must not take a short view and indulge in wastefulness and extravagance” In light of this, it was estimated that between 5 and 6.5 billion little red books were produced in the Cultural Revolution. The filmic manifesto brought to light this contradiction as well as questioned larger global issues to do with reproduction and waste. The film was made by a deliberate selection and discarding of imagery in three chosen propaganda posters. The final phases of the film stitch the discarded ‘waste’, in a reciprocal questioning of the system - literally recombining the redundant imagery of the film. As can be seen in figure 3.2, the film began with three propaganda posters showing imagery of Mao and The Little Red Book. The important aspects of these images were selected, and the backdrops were discarded. The film began with playing out the important aspects of the posters - Mao, the book and the production of the book. In the final third of the film, however, the wasted imagery was returned to the film as an object - the excess was brought back into the film as a new product., with an altered form, somewhat resembling a demolition site.This site was overlaid and reinterpreted back into Mao’s China - figure 3.3 - over a backdrop of red books and city - highlighting both product and perceived waste at once. Interesting to consider is the use of ‘simulated waste’ - not real physical waste but computer generated waste. How can we understand the simultaneous production of extravagant waste and diligent systemization within China today? How does the quotation of Mao transpire to the present day? Rather than a conclusive exercise on the role of propaganda, the film set up a series of questions for further investigation in the semester. The film’s aesthetic spoke of architectural excess, of synthetic recombination, (waste as asset) to produce something new. Important to the investigation was the investigation of a self referential system; linking to China as a whole, and its opening up to the West in recent years. The film highlighted a push for an architecture of negotiation, for a material trade off, and for a self referent system to question inefficient systems, redundant machines, and what actually is waste?

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figure 3.2 Screen shots from assignment one - Filmic Manifesto 15

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figure 3.3. Screen shot from assignment one - Filmic Manifesto; in the background of the shot Maoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Little Red Book is overlaid onto a new Chinese city, with the excess discarded imagery from the 16

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propaganda posters in the foreground. The original propaganda posters are shown to the right

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figure 3.4 initial cluster experiment: typological overlay - one factory produces a single stores clothing (multiplication of factory) creating a clustering effect around the mall atrium 18

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al overlay - one typological factory produces a 19 overlay - one factory produces a

es clothing (multiplication factory) single storesofclothing (multiplication of factory)

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single factory unit = shell hous ing function - disparate systems

storage and priduction line separated by circulation

advanced studio I began the final project by researching the abandoned textile factory –a model of consumerism and excess. What was found was that the traditional textile province known as the Guangdong province – also known as the world’s factory – was not only being replaced by cheaper labor sources overseas, but also by the Xiajiang province, northern China. Xiajing has had a textile and manufacturing boom in recent times due to innovative technologies and infrastructure, which also attracted the educated, and foreign investment to the area. On top of this, the Guangdong province is home to the largest shopping mall – which is almost abandoned – with 1500 retail spaces still to rent and 10,000 people visiting per day instead of an estimated 100,000. The aim of the studio is to combine the two redundant systems of factory and shopping mall into a new building of innovation and experimentation (creating competition and modeling the success of Xiajiang province). in order to; display the factory process whilst at the same time sell stimulate the economy back into this Chinese area - the Chinese should work here as well as shop, and the centre should act as an all-year expo for foreign investors display the excess waste in the shopping mall and consumerism, and the process that is required to fill that excess (i.e. back of house factory workings on display to consumer) reveal excess in everyday life Typological Exploration In figure 3.5, the design of the factory-mall cuts through the excess of the built shopping mall wasteland. Within these cuts, a scaled up version of the efficient factory production-line was inserted. These factory lines produce a collision between information and material, waste and display. The factory-mall communicates directly to all user groups; although it still produces waste (no matter how effective, like all systems, waste is an inevitable by product) the display and communication of this waste in a competitive consumerist environment will attempt to lead to innovation and cost savings through waste reduction. The project exploits the potential of the notion of display within both existing types in order to challenge the idea of both existing buildings - to move beyond the mixed-use architectural model of the recent times into a new model all together. Not to be seen as two distinct systems, the typologies interact with each other so much so that it is one distance type - it is an architecture of negotiation and trade off. Visible Waste The factory, its by-products and its total space requirement are placed directly front of the consumer - making the invisible all too apparent to the consumer

figure 3.5 site plan cutting through abandoned mall (white buildings) and showing insertion of scaled up factory production lines for new typology 20

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site recombination site recombination site recombination site recombination

one shop for one production line one shop for one production line one shop for one production line

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display andleads competition leads to increased productivity andinnovation, innvoation, shops multiply, existing mall type dissipates display to increased productivity and shops multiply. existing mall type dissipates

figure 3.6leads malltoreconfiguration over time,and figure 3.6 (top left) linemultiply. consisting of workbench, utility area display increased productivity innovation, shops existing mall type dissipates and storage display leads to increased productivity and innovation, shops multiply. existing mall type dissipates

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site recombination

one shop for one production line

display leads to increased productivity and innovation

vertical cotton farms, cemetery for the abandoned mall and factory

figure 3.7 concept section of factory mall (plan of production line in background) 24

factory undergoes con

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n, shops multiply. existing mall type dissipates

nstant renewal and negotiation between factory and mall program

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figure 3.8. high-rise cotton fields cutting through mall - displaying the final clothing â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;produceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; that it is growing 26

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advanced studio studioTHEGIFT professor:

yehuda safran project:

hidden

project summary This project was a response to the proposal that architecture is a gift.The moment of gift exchange contains a hidden order of societal censure - a ‘given’ construct that arranges behavior around the gift. This is exemplified in the structural analysis of E.A Poe’s The Purloined Letter by Lacan and Derrida The letter, as a symbol of the gift is stolen, and a constrained order of chance happenings occur around it. The order of behavior within this play as being triangulated into three distinct categories; the Blind person, the Unaware Seer and the Robber. A constrained game of chance happenings occur around the Letter and these three users - constrained in their social order yet left up to chance and choice of the user. The architectural outcome of the gift questions the mystery of human behavior and societal regulation by supplying a programmatic ‘Letter’ (a building) in which an etiquette school is hidden within a public bar, restaurant and public accessway. This building achieves a similar controlled device which forces moments of interruption and mystery onto the viewer - perhaps a moment in time for the viewer to contemplate for seconds, or an interruption long enough for the exchange to return the viewer to a different point of the triangle. 29

advanced studio Critical theory paper written in Art History class under Prof. John Rajchman ‘What is Critical Theory?’ Fall 2009 and in relation to gift exchange and fall studioTHEGIFT with Yehuda Safran

HIDDEN ORDER: The Creative or Critical Act as Gift Exchange Preface This paper has developed from an Architectural Studio that was based on the pretense of Architecture is a Gift. This paper aims to develop an analysis of gift exchange as perceived by Mauss, Derrida and Lacan, and evaluate the possibility of a creative, or critical act as gift. The argument of gift exchange is governed by the hidden order of societal behavior as exemplified in structuralist examples of system, signifying order and economy of exchange. The main protagonist used in this essay is Jacques Lacan’s analysis of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Purloined Letter, a short story that was notably one of the first detective stories written, and ironically first published in the book titled The Gift for 1845 (1844). The essay will comment on the significance of the detective story in the construction of reason and more importantly, in exploring the Lacanian signifying order of gift exchange, I aim to understand the complexities surrounding possibilities of the gift as critical and creative act. Introduction “Primarily, communication is the transmission and propagation of information... informing means circulating an order-word...And outside these orders and their transmission, there is no information, no communication. This is the same thing as saying that information is exactly the system of control... We are entering control societies that are defined very differently that disciplinary societies. Control societies will no longer pass through places of confinement… Control is not discipline. You do not confine people with a highway. But by making highways, you multiply the means of control. I am not saying this is the only aim if highways, but people can travel infinitely and ‘freely’ without being confined while being perfectly controlled… What relationship is there between the work of art and communication? None at all. A work of art is not an instrument of communication. A work of art has nothing to do with communication. A work of art does not contain the least bit of information. In contrast, there is a fundamental affinity between a work of art and an act of resistance. It has something to do with information and communication as an act of resistance... The act of resistance has two faces. It is human and it is also the act of art. Only the act of resistance resists death, either as a work of art or human struggle” (Excerpts from Deleuze: What is the Creative Act, 2007, pp. 322-324) Gilles Deleuze’s What is a Creative Act? defines that the order of information and communication as an act of resistance is both formative and formed within a work of art and human struggle. In the examination of a creative act as gift, communication and information are inextricably linked to the structure surrounding the gift exchange at the temporary moment of exchange. Similar to the analogy of Deleuze’s highway, the hidden order of control of the gift is an unconscious system or structure of information and communication exchange. When made visible, an understanding of this structure of exchange may allow for the reordering of the structure; a rupture in the system, or a resistance similar to the analogy of Deleuze’s definition of resistance, or somewhat similarly by the notion of Foucault’s invisible order. Foucault in his introduction to his book The Order of Things, defines order; “Order is, at one and the same time, that which is given in things as their inner law, the hidden network that determines the

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figure 4.1 inside the etiquette school lecture theatre

figure 4.2 ambiguous circulation - a double helix ramp that acts as accessway through the street, bar and restaurant entry and etiquette circulation

figure 4.3 void space in etiquette school lobby

figure 4.4 the double-use restaurant-bar (for both the etiquette school and general public 31

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figure 4.5 final presentation: boards were hung on wire to show spatial sequence of building 32

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figure 4.6 schematic diagram of void space looking towards the enclosed form of the bar and restaurant, with double helix ramp behind 34

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figure 4.7 Lacanian diagram reinterpreted - constrained system of chance occurrences repeating an infinite number of times way they confront one another, and also that which has no existence except in the grid created by a glance, an examination; a language; and it is only in the blank spaces of this grid that order manifests itself in depth as though already there, waiting in silence for the moment of its expression” (Foucault, 1989, xxi). Furthermore, in his 1978 lecture called What is Critique?, Foucault further relates the disruption of order to critique as; “the refusal of power, or the refusal of the constraining rule which engenders a general attitude, a critical attitude” (Mouloud, N. in Foucault 1997, p.67).1 This essay will focus on the similar structuring of Foucault’s visible order and Deleuze’s resistance; a disruption or resistance to the system, which is the device for creating a critical, or creative act, to assess the question of the creative act as gift, and the value in making visible its structure. i. THE EXCHANGE VALUE The gift cannot be perceived without its place within a certain time or action, for how could a gift be perceived as a gift without the act of the exchange? The gift exchange system, too, can be viewed as an act of resistance of communication and information, as tied with the possibility of giving a gift is its impossibility.There is an inherent paradox in giving a gift, as described by Derrida, because the gift, once acknowledged as gift, destroys the very gift itself because of the imposition of adherence to correctly receive the gift. More so, the gift could be seen or used as one of a number of advantageous acts; as an exploit, as a selfish act, or a projection of wealth or ego from the giver, creating an imbalance upon the eyes of the receiver. Derrida states “For there to be a gift, there must be no reciprocity, return, exchange, counter-gift, or debt. If the other gives me back or owes me or has to give me back what I give him or her, there will not have been a gift, whether this restitution is immediate or whether it is programmed by a complex calculation of a long-term deferral or difference” (Derrida 1992: p12) This

advanced studio idea originated from Marcel Mauss’ in his book The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. In this book, Mauss develops a theory of gift exchange, based around a theory of a general and restricted economy, and formed from the study of predominantly Polynesian Societies. Gifts, to Mauss, are never free, rather they are connected into a system of reciprocal exchange. Based on his analysis of Potlatch, meaning to feed, or to consume, Mauss describes the competition between rival tribes, who redistribute wealth via extravagant gift giving ceremonies. The rival tribes spend all that they have in a competition of riches to find out who is the most extravagant and wealthy. The gift, already tainted by its rivalry, is further tainted by Mauss’ description of the three obligations; giving, receiving and reciprocating. Firstly, giving is necessary to maintain social relationships, and secondly, the rival tribe must receive, as refusal of a gift rejects the social bond between these two tribes, and thirdly the rival tribe must reciprocate, for the rival tribe must show their own honor and value by wealth. To not reciprocate means to lose honor, and in Polynesia it is described as losing ones Mana, which is the spiritual source for wealth and authority. Derrida accounts for this same order of gift giving and receiving exists today; “If the gift is annulled in the economic odyssey of the circle as soon it appears as gift or as soon as it signifies itself as gift, there is no longer any “logic of the gift,” and one may safely say that a consistent discourse on the gift becomes impossible: It misses its object and always speaks, finally, of something else. One can go so far as to say that a work as monumental as Marcel Mauss’s The Gift speaks of everything but the gift: It deals with economy, exchange, contract, it speaks of raising the stakes, sacrifice, gift and counter-gift- in short, everything that in the thing itself impels the gift and the annulment of the gift. All the gift supplements (potlatch, transgression and excess, surplus values, the necessity to give or give back more, returns with interest-in short, the whole sacrificial bidding war) are destined to bring about once again the circle in which they are annulled.” (Derrida 1992: p24) Mauss believes that for a truly genuine gift to be given, there would have to be a potlatch given and not returned. In Derrida’s words, a genuine gift requires anonymity, for only then there is no accrued benefit in the giver and the receiver. Mauss’ study exemplifies a system of exchange, a system that is still a valid and invisible order that surrounds the gift today. ii. THE LETTER Mauss’ hidden societal order of gift exchange is exemplified and further elaborated upon in the Lacanian and Derridian analyses of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Purloined Letter. The plot of the story is based around a political rival of the French Queen, called Minister D, who stole a letter addressed to the Queen from her royal apartment, in plain sight of the Queen. However, the Queen was unable to stop him for fear of drawing attention of the King to the letter and its contents. The Minister was using the letter to blackmail the Queen, but she has been unable do protect herself from the blackmail, as she cannot openly try to reclaim the letter. The Prefect of the Parisian police, hired by the Queen, calls on Dupin (a character who appears in Poe’s first three detective stories) for his help, in reclaiming the purloined, or stolen, letter. The Prefect of the Police finds the matter simple and yet puzzling; not being able to find the letter on countless raids of the Minister’s house and office. At this point, Dupin states that maybe the location is too simple, and he ends up finding the letter hidden in plain sight, and reclaiming it for the Queen without the knowledge of Minister D. The letter is a symbol of the gift, whereby a constrained order of chance happenings occur around the letter. In the frame of Lacan, the gift is a signifier acting without the requirement of the signified. In other words, the gift is an element in which ordered formal chains of language and actions take place around the offering or exchange; a signifying order exists in which there is a constrained, yet variable set of possible actions for the characters in the story, which are somewhat predetermined

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figure 4.8 avenue A elevation showing distortion of existing facade to reveal hidden program behind

figure 4.9 6th ave elevation (public accessway and etiquette school entry), figure 4.10 7th ave elevation (public accessway and bar / restaurant entry) 37

advanced studio by the setting but in their deliverance are contained within a constrained game of chance. One may ask how can there be a constrained structure of chance, for chance is the very occurrence of events without any obvious design. A constrained chance, then, has an embedded design with a probable number of undetermined points within the larger structuring of the event. Lacan explains this concept in The Purloined Letter by triangulating the characters into three distinct categories; the Blind Person, the Unaware Seer and the Robber. Each point of the triangle contains a specific set of governing rules for the character in the story; the Blind Person does not see what takes place in front of them, the Unaware Seer sees their own actions but not those of the third, who is the Robber who sees all. One cannot determine what the characters will do, but their actions are constrained by the triangle that they are set within. For example in the first scene, the King is blind to the Queen’s letter, and the Minister takes the letter in blind sight of the King. The Queen, not wanting to alarm the king, cannot stop the letter from being stolen by the Minister. The workings of this system represent a constrained system of undetermined happenings, like the infamous Schrodinger’s Cat, a thought experiment by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger in 1935 to explain quantum indeterminacy. In this experiment, Schrodinger placed a cat inside a box that contained a piece of radioactive material, a measure for radioactivity, and a flask of poison. If the radioactive material deteriorated, the measuring instrument would take a reading, and the flask with the poison in it would be broken, and in effect the poison would kill the cat. If the radioactive material does not deteriorate or give a measure, he flask will not break and the cat will be alive. When the box is closed, one can only hypothesize about the constrained relations of chance that could occur within the box, leaving the cat both dead and alive at the same time, but when the box is open, the cat can only be dead or alive. In the same way as the box restrains the number of possibilities that can occur, the triangle constrains the actions of the characters because of their assigned value. Deleuze describes the Brechtian theatre in a similar light; a game where the rules of the game are unpredictable and then change the rules of the game. Brecht’s plays may appear to be free for chance, requiring audience participation, they are left as part of an open system. However, the script is constructed in such a way as to limit responses and create an almost dialectic scenario, begging the question - who has control over the system? All actions of the three determined-yet-undetermined character positions take place around the Letter, which is a form without content; that is, it functions independent of its content as the content of the letter is never revealed, nor is it important in the story, and it functions independent of the subjects through whose hands it passes. Hence, the letter is a signifier, used without the content of its signified. Lacan calls it a pure signified, completely independent of its signified and not subject to divisibility, like a binary circuit. Furthermore, the triangular relationships of characters within the story repeat in each scene. As stated previously, in the first scene the King is blind to the Queen’s letter, the Queen is the Unaware Seer, as she does not know she is being viewed by the Minister, who is the Robber. In the second scene, the Police and Queen are blind as to where the Minister’s has hidden the letter, and also to what he is to do with the power that the letter holds. The detective character in the story, Dupin, finds the letter and steals it back for the Queen. Lacan calls the repeating triangular relationships an automatism of repetition and he makes analogous this formal language account of automatism with that of memoration; to be understood not in the Freudian terms of the function of memory “but rather as the result of the ordered chains of a formal language”. Hence “the program that is traced out for us [here] is to know how a formal language determines the subject” (Muller quoting Lacan 1988: p69). This analysis of the formal language system is particularly

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advanced studio important in making visible hidden orders, to be discussed further within this essay. The importance of Lacan’s notion of automatism of repetition cannot be understated. Lacan states “Need we emphasize the similarity of these two sequences? Yes, for the resemblance we have in mind is not a simple collection of traits chosen only in order to delete their difference. And it would not be enough to retain those common traits at the expense of the others for the slightest truth to result. It is rather the intersubjectivity in which the two actions are motivated that we wish to bring into relief, as well as the three terms through which it structures them. The special status of these terms results from their corresponding simultaneously to the three logical moments through which the decision is precipitated and to the three places it assigns to the subjects among whom it constitutes a choice… Thus three moments, structuring three glances, borne by three subjects, incarnated each time by different characters” (Lacan 1989, p169). What Lacan further elaborates is an the observance of a system of sameness repeating. Foucault describes the importance of this observation to a work of art; to “bring out the conditions of acceptability of a system and follow the breaking points which indicate its emergence”. With the emergence of this system, “we have perpetual mobility, essential fragility or rather the complex interplay between what replicates the same process and what transforms it” (Foucault, 1997, p.65). Foucault’s analysis of René Magritte’s Painting This is Not a Pipe describes the paradoxical disjunction of images and words and how the images and words are established by regularities of a given time and place. The words are determined and organized by visibilities that allow them to connect, but the critical juxtaposition of Magritte’s word and image, like Lacan’s use of metaphor, creates a critical act that disturbs the visible order. The critique of the image and word play evokes an emancipatory moment of resistance to the system of language. This may very well be the purpose of the creative act; the gift of visibility of the unconscious structuring of the formal ordering of language. Furthermore, whilst “Magritte uses literalism to undermine itself ” (translators introduction in Foucault, 1983 p.9), Foucault’s analysis of the painting focuses on the identity and organizing features of the objects (being images and words), defining and providing its system. This system is reliant on the image / word disjunction and making the hidden, seen. The critical act disturbs the invisible order, breaking the governing construct in order to create something new, or at least something other; “From the commonsense vantage this seems an unnecessarily complex and circumlocutory approach to language, aimed at the most radical divorce possible between words and things” (Foucault, 1983: p5) Lacan first explores the role of formal language and The Letter in The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious, where he searches for the meaning of the letter-as-alphabet as the most elementary breakdown of language, and of the meaning of meaning as a series of signifying chains that explain the construction of language. This relationship is explained by Lacan with the use of Saussure’s equation of S/s - the signifier over the signified. When unexpected meanings occur, “the units are subjected to the double condition of being reducible to ultimate differential elements and combining them according to the laws of a closed order” (Lacan 1977, p169). Saussure asserts an “arbitrariness of the sign… they have meaning as points within the entire system that is a language - a system, further, conceived as a network of graded differences” (Foucault, 1983: p5). Lacan uses the example of a word Ladies and a picture of a door, contrasted with the word Gentleman and the very same picture of a door. Both signifiers stand on their own and negate the symbol of the signified due to its unexpected doubling in meaning of the same signified element (Lacan 1977, p167). A similar, but more predetermined effect of language occurs with the use of metonymy and metaphor. Lacan believes two signifiers constitute a metaphor, and one signifier is replaced for another on the signifying chain.

II studioTHEGIFT The deriding of the signifier allows for a determined outcome of nonsense, or more so, of sense emerging from nonsense; in this use of language, Lacan questions; “has [the metaphor] the power to circumvent the obstacles of social censure? Does not this form, which gives its field to truth in its very oppression, manifest a certain servitude inherent in its presentation?” (Lacan,1977, p175). The use of the metaphor for Lacan could be said to be an intentional resistance to the structure of language. In a similar means, Deleuze describes Lewis Carroll in the Preface: from Lewis Carroll to the Stoics in Logic of Sense as having “an exemplary logical and linguistic formalism” (Deleuze, 1990: p. xiii). Like the metaphor that derides the formal language, Deleuze presents “a series of paradoxes which form the theory of sense” (Deleuze, 1990: p. xiii), citing Carroll as an exemplary study in creating sense from nonsense, from deriding the constructs of language; Carroll states in The Dynamics of a Particle - “Plain superficiality is the character of a speech” (Deleuze: 1990, p11) iii. SPACE, TIME, INVISIBLE ORDER Belonging to this theory of Lacan is a belief that space that is dominated by law and order, and through the analysis of The Purloined Letter, he is searching for a space that cannot be reduced to a given time or order. By understanding the existence of such constructs, Lacan suggests such devices as metaphor and metonymy to ‘circumvent’ the spatial order. If the statement a creative act is a gift is perceived as a metaphor, then this allows us to explore the notion that the creative act, the gift, and the letter are one in the same position in the constructed relations of time and exchange, and space and order. If one is then to say the creative act is a gift is a metaphor; could the use of metaphor not symbolize the resistance to space that would be the criteria for a creative act? In other words, could the creative act as-gift-as-metaphor deride the signifier of its content to break the societal constructs of language and space itself, creating a resistance to the flow of communication and information as described by Deleuze? The analysis of Poe’s The Purloined Letter obviously came after the fact of the story and after the life of Poe. The story was used by Lacan and Derrida as an analytical tool for their structural theory. What is unknown is the knowledge of Poe in terms of the structural analysis of the story. What is known is that The Purloined Letter was considered one of he best tales of reason; in its publication in The Gift for 1845, the editor called it “one of the aptest illustrations which could well be conceived of that curious play of two minds in one person.” (Phillips, 1926, p930-931). Marie Bonaparte wrote a psychoanalytic account of Edgar Allen Poe in 1949, in her book The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe, a Psycho-Analytic Interpretation, which remains a classic of psycho-biography today. Although her account is on the study of Poe throughout his entire works, she writes specifically on The Purloined Letter within the book. She believes the letter is a symbol of the maternal penis, which Lacan then makes use of in his own commentary. “For Marie Bonaparte, what is compulsively repeated through the variety of Poe’s texts is the same unconscious fantasy: Poe’s (sadonecrophiliac) desire fore his dead mother. For Lacan, what is repeated in the text is not the content of the fantasy but the symbolic displacement of the signifier through the insistence of a signifying chain; repetition is not of sameness, but of difference, not of independent terms or analogous themes but of a structure of differential relationships” (Felman, S. in Muller 1989, p147). This ties back into Lacan’s theory of automation of repetition as discussed previously. Saussure’s analysis of language describes a system of values which are determined by the momentary arrangements of its terms. The gift cannot be viewed without its temporariness in time, without its exchange value or who to give to - quite simply a gift is not a gift until it has been given. Saussure in his structural thesis spoke of language in terms of two analyses of time; synchronic, as frozen in time, and diachronic, as the evolution of a language over time. The exchange of a gift occurs at a temporary

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figure 4.14 final presentation: boards were hung on wire to show spatial sequence of building elements 46

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II studioTHEGIFT moment in time, and in Derridian terms, its obligation of reciprocity over time; “The gift is not a gift, the gift only gives to the extent it gives time.The difference between a gift and every other operation of pure and simple exchange is that the gift gives time. There where there is gift, there is time. What it gives, the gift, is time” (Derrida, : 1992, p. 41). As stated previously, the Letter in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Purloined Letter, as written document, is a scaled up version of Lacan’s analysis of the letter as alphabet, as structure of language. Both Letters are part of a signifying chain, and both play a similar role in their use and structure. The letter ends up being recovered and was hidden in plain sight, visible for all to be seen yet not able to be seen because of its sheer visibility. This invisible order is once again duplicated - in content of the play and in analysis of it as belonging to a hidden structure. iv. RETURN Predominantly described above is the Lacanian interpretation of The Purloined Letter, and Derrida’s analysis of the gift. In an article called the Purveyor of Truth, in the book The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, Derrida wrote his own analysis of The Purloined Letter in reference to Lacan’s seminar. Although similar in their examination of the gift and the reciprocity of exchange, there is one key difference between the two authors. Lacan sees almost a cyclical order of events; a closed circuit system that with the return of the letter to its original owner, order is restored. In contrast, Derrida believes that with the exchange of the letter, or gift, that order cannot be restored back to its position. It is an open circuit where the exchange causes a moment of interruption, a distortion to the chain of order and a reconfiguration of the original order. The gift exchange, as previously described through Derrida, is a temporary moment in time, but also this temporary moment is

figure 4.18 schematic section cutting through restaurant / bar, and looking to void of etiquette school, with double helix ramp in background 51

advanced studio stretched through time - for the cycle is not complete without the reciprocation of the exchange. The moment of interruption, then, could be small enough for the viewer to contemplate for seconds, or long enough to move the viewer outside the point of the triangle. The question still remains, is the gift a creative act? As previously stated, Foucault describes the critical disruption of a system that functions by its hidden visibility, that shifting the hidden order to images and words can provide a critical act. In the example of Magritte’s This is Not a Pipe, and Lacan’s the structuralist example of metaphor and metonymy disturbs an order to create a critical observation. But how does this relate to the creative act? And can this disruption be reciprocated in the gift system? The gift system describes a societal order - more than a formal language system, it describes a formal behavioral system. In making visible its specifically social invisible order, the critical act emerges. A 2005 French film titled Cache (or Hidden in English) by Michael Haneke, describes this very construct of gift and human exchange, and is similar in its structure to The Purloined Letter. The play is based around a family where Georges, the father, who is a talk show host and lives with his wife Anne and son. A mysterious videotape appears on their doorstep; on it they are being filmed by a hidden camera from across the street with no clues as to who shot it, or why. As more tapes arrive containing images that are disturbingly intimate and increasingly personal to Georges’ past, Georges tries to investigate his own past and who is behind sending the hidden tapes. The film ends with no resolution - the sender of the unwanted gift is never revealed, nor are the mysterious events of Georges’ past. What is interesting to consider is the anonymous offer of exchange of the tape and Derrida’s belief that to give a true gift requires anonymity. The film highlights that the estrangement of gift from giver creates suspicion and threat. The gift in this creative work emphasizes the complex inner workings of both sides of the gift - the giver and receiver, who is right, and who is wrong, the hidden concealment of orders that can be ruptured by the very small interjection of a signifying element, and the inauthenticity, or masking of behaviors associated with an obligatory ritual. The point of the unveiling of the masked behavior, the emergence of the order could be defined as the critical act. Derrida states; “…if one holds to the logic of (inauthentic) dissimulation that dissimulates (authentic) dissimulation by means of the simple gesture of exposing or exhibiting it, or seeing in order to see or having seen in order to see, … then one here has a logic of secrecy. It is never better kept than in being exposed. Dissimulation is never better dissimulated than by means of this particular kind of dissimulation that consists of exposing being as a force, showing it behind its mask, behind its fiction or its simulacrum.” (Derrida, The Gift of Death, 2008: p39) However, Derrida continues to argue the mask, as representative of the social construct, cannot not dissimulate once it is revealed, for with the emergence of one disorder, is the constraint of the larger construct of order; a moment of interruption may change one’s position, but not totally remove them from the game. If one is to end in the Lacanian sense of where one started, then Deleuze’s statement “The act of resistance has two faces. It is human and it is also the act of art. Only the act of resistance resists death, either as a work of art or human struggle” would be a palpable position. This statement though, appears to have been interrupted and returned to a different position. As both a construct of human behavior and of critical exchange, the gift exchange as a structuralist system both adheres to a hidden order and resists against its pure order. It is both system and rupture at the same time. The disruption is implicit within the system prior to the creative, or critical act; therefore a double invisible order then follows in such creative or critical acts of gift exchange.

hidden the invisible order

precedent study for design studio turned into article for ‘Potlatch’ magazine

Cache (Hidden), [DVD] Michael Haneke, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005 Hidden deep within the act of gift-giving lies an invisible order - an unidentifiable construct that codifies, organizes and structures the behavior of those surrounding the given object. The gift-giving ritual describes a form of exchange within the order of society - more than a formal language system, it describes a formal behavioral system. The 2005 French film by Michael Haneke, entitled Cache (translated as Hidden in English), starring Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche, revolves around the principles of the gift exchange: where the mysterious past of the main character, Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil), is made visible through the object of the gift in the form of an anonymous videotape. Non-communicative dimensions of this exchange are made visible for the viewer through the clever display of information by Haneke. In making visible the invisible order of the gift, the viewer is transformed into the film, and takes a part in the reciprocal set of relations surrounding both the object and the gift.

Figure 5.1 The Anonymous Tape, image sourced from Cache (Hidden), [DVD] Michael Haneke, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005 Cache is set in contemporary Paris, in the home of the Laurent family: Georges, the father, a successful academic and television show host, lives with his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche) and their school-age

hidden son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). They comprise a typical middle class Parisian family. In the opening sequence, however, a mysterious videotape appears on the family’s doorstep; its content reveals footage of the street exterior of the Laurent’s home residence, which is being filmed by what seems to be a hidden camera across the street. The Laurents have no idea who filmed their house or sent the tape, nor do they have any clue as to its purpose; they are suspicious and cautioned by the object. As subsequent videotapes arrive, the images become more and more unsettling to Georges, the videotapes increasing in their personal content: they start to display events from Georges’ past, which he does not want to disclose to his family. As these tapes appear, Georges’ memory of his past resurfaces, formed in the state of dreams and nightmares, forging an unwanted trace of his childhood back into the present. Georges is reminded of the house in which he grew up, and the estranged relationship he once had with an Algerian boy named Majid (Maurice Bénichou), who was almost adopted by Georges’ parents. After tracking down the adult Majid, their relationship, although never revealed in its entirety, is played out through the events of this video exchange.Violent, frightful dreams of Georges’ childhood are juxtaposed against his present secrecy to his family, creating suspicion of his secret past, and leaving it unknown to the viewer, and his family, as to whether Georges is essentially good or bad, or if he is threat or the one being threatened.

figure 5.2 Georges Dream Scene: a memory from his childhood - image sourced from Cache (Hidden), [DVD] Michael Haneke, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005 The viewer cannot singularly identify with Georges—or with any other character, for that matter— because each character has been assigned a complex identity that always remains partly hidden within further layers of the narrative. For instance, Anne, Georges’ wife, is accused of having an affair with her boss by her son Pierrot. Both Georges and Anne have a close friendship with Anne’s boss and partner, and they are regularly seen at dinner in the Laurent family’s home, supporting the Laurents through the difficult time of receiving the videotapes. However, Anne is often in close physical contact with her boss, without the presence of their respective partners - touching hands and seen in intimate circumstances. Haneke creates fluctuating moments of suspicion, leaving it unclear as to whether Anne is guilty of an affair, or innocent. In the same light, Majid, the Algerian boy from Georges’ past, and Majid’s son are both implicated by Georges as the ‘gift givers’ of the videotape.

the invisible order Georges deduces that Majid and his son are the only ones who could possibly have known these intimate details about Georges’ past, so they must be responsible. However, a disturbingly gruesome and panoptic-type viewing of Majid’s suicide once again creates doubt in the eyes of the viewer as to his participation in sending the videotapes; Majid is extremely disturbed from seeing Georges, and he kills himself shortly after their reunion. Although in Georges’ eyes, the only person who could have sent the videotape is Majid, Majid is adamant up until his suicide that it was not him.Viewers, receiving only pieces of information about characters, as well as about past and present events, are forced to construct their own course of action and opinions throughout the film. The videotape is an object of the gift in the structuralist sense of the term. French sociologist Marcel Mauss, in his book The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, created a theory of gift exchange at the beginning of the twentieth century, based on the observations of primitive Polynesian Societies. Mauss develops the principles of the gift around a theory of a general and restricted economy - gifts, to Mauss, are never free, rather they are connected into a system of reciprocal exchange. Based on his analysis of Potlatch, a term meaning to feed, or to consume, he describes the competition between rival tribes, who would redistribute wealth by way of extravagant gift-giving ceremonies. Rival tribes would spend everything at their disposal in a competition of riches to find out who was the most extravagant and wealthy. The gift, already tainted by its rivalry, is further tainted by Mauss’ description of the three obligations; giving, receiving and reciprocating. Giving is necessary to maintain social relationships, to which the rival tribe must receive (as refusal of a gift rejects the social bond between the two tribes); and, finally, the rival tribe must reciprocate, for they must show their own honor and value of wealth. Not to reciprocate would be to lose honor, and in Polynesia it is described as losing one’s Mana, which is the spiritual source for wealth and authority. Mauss believes that the only way a truly genuine gift can be given is to offer a Potlatch and not have it returned. In Cache, the anonymous gift was given to the Laurent family, received in the family home, and reciprocated insomuch as Georges found Majid, the boy from his childhood, who, in turn, killed himself shortly after receiving Georges’ presence. Mauss’ description of the gift was widely popular in structural and post-structural theories, influencing such figures as Georges Bataille, Jacques Lacan, and Jacques Derrida. Structuralist theories largely gained from Mauss’ knowledge, which they re-appropriated into their own theories of the gift and its signifying order. In relation to Cache, there are strong ties with the Derridian analysis of the gift. For Derrida, there is an inherent paradox in giving a gift, as tied with the possibility of giving a gift is its impossibility. This is because a genuine gift requires anonymity, for only then there is no accrued benefit in the giver and the receiver - he states; “For there to be a gift, there must be no reciprocity, return, exchange, counter-gift, or debt. If the other gives me back or owes me or has to give me back what I give him or her, there will not have been a gift, whether this restitution is immediate or whether it is programmed by a complex calculation of a long-term deferral or difference” (Derrida 1992: p12). Hence, in the very exchange of the gift lies a system that both adheres to a hidden order and resists against its pure order - therefore it defines an act of resistance and adherence at one and the same time; it is both system and rupture of that system. This is further observed by Mauss’ examination of the origin of the word gift. ‘Gift’ translates to the Latin and Greek word dosis, meaning and referring to dose; to give a dose of poison. It also had its origin in the words venenum (from vanati), meaning to give pleasure and genwinnuen, meaning to win (Derrida 1992: p36). The gift of Cache could be said to be of the poisoned variety. The offering of Cache makes visible the forms of societal resistance and coherence surrounding the videotape - its effect is multiplied throughout the

hidden film. The gift system is ruptured and made visible, creating a pivotal role for the viewer in deciding their own ending - poison or pleasure - from the limited evidence put forth. Derrida’s anonymous offer of exchange is worthy of further investigation in the context of Cache. Derrida believes, for instance, that, once something is acknowledged as a gift, the very gift itself has been destroyed; adherence to behavioral standards for correctly receiving the gift creates a simulated experience, a masked societal norm - anonymity is the key to unfolding this masking effect. The videotapes that appear at the Laurent family’s doorstep are always anonymous. This estrangement of gift from giver in Derrida’s terms would create a true gift. In the film, the anonymity of the videotape creates suspicion and threat. Is the mystery of the true gift then, to cause suspicion and threat? One would think not, but are the true feelings and actions more true than the complacency associated with the inauthentic exchange that normally occurs surrounding the gift? Cache inverts gift relations to make visible what is usually hidden, all whilst constraining many events, to bring the viewer into the receiving of the gift. Derrida says “…if one holds to the logic of (inauthentic) dissimulation that dissimulates (authentic) dissimulation by means of the simple gesture of exposing or exhibiting it, or seeing in order to see or having seen in order to see, … then one here has a logic of secrecy. It is never better kept than in being exposed. Dissimulation is never better dissimulated than by means of this particular kind of dissimulation that consists of exposing being as a force, showing it behind its mask, behind its fiction or its simulacrum” (Derrida 2008: p39). In the words of Derrida, perhaps the anonymous gift delivered to the Laurents’ doorstep was more true that any known gift could be? However, Derrida continues to argue that the mask, as representative of the social construct, cannot not dissimulate once it is revealed, because with the emergence of one disorder, is the constraint of the even larger construct of order. Simulated dissimulation shines through in Cache, by creating multiple masks, questions, hidden agendas and unknowns for the viewer. Even the minor background scenes and characters all play a part in the multiplicity effect given to the viewer to highlight the hidden societal order. Made visible are the complex inner-workings of the order of the gift - the giver takes the place of the hidden, and the receiver is left to deal with the exchange of the gift on their own; to explain the meaning of its message to his family, and to temporarily live his life through the constructs that this object creates. The viewer’s role is made evident by the careful use of what one could call panoptic-type viewings of the on-screen action. Haneke often erases the distinction between the viewing of the actual event within the film and the viewing of the copied tape, often leaving the viewer not knowing whether they are watching the ‘live’ events, or the videotaped events of the gift within the context of the film. This technique distorts the perception of the viewer. For example, in the very first scene, a Parisian street is being filmed on a still camera, focused on a house. There are people talking in the background, but the action is glued to the single view of the street. After considerable conversation between two currently unknown characters, whose questions revolve around a mysterious set of question about what an unknown ‘something’ is, the very shot of the street fast-forwards, making the viewer aware that they have been watching a television within the film, exposing the simulated event of the copied tape. It becomes clear very early on that it is the task of the viewer to decide what is real through the lens of the camera.This type of camera shot - the flat vision of a still camera - occurs at pivotal points throughout the film, and in effect, the viewer is brought into the action under the guise of surveillance.This technique will repeat throughout the film: sometimes it is the real scene and sometimes it is the television screen. The effect is quite surreal; at times, it feels as if the viewer has been allowed inside the very intimate setting of the film through this act of surveillance.

the invisible order Behind this forefront action of mystery and secrecy are further layers of hidden meanings and messages, inserted by Haneke to emphasize the multiple use of the object (the gift), in the exchange within the film. Along with the simulated events adding to feelings of surveillance, the background settings and minor characters are sending another set of messages to the viewer. Subtly, and from no dialogue in the film, a major theme is brought into life, which reciprocates the dissimulated world of mask and gift over and over again. On television screens in the background of shots, in newspapers, in characterizations of people in the film, in chance encounters of Georges colliding with an other on the street, Haneke has set up a complex dialogue surrounding the French-Algerian tension, and other race related issues of a national scale. Its inclusion offers no master narrative, or siding or resolution

figure 5.3 The Opening Scenes (2 images) - images sourced from Cache (Hidden), [DVD] Michael Haneke, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005

hidden - merely another layer of contemplation, and added meaning to the identity of Georges and Majid. Majid’s parents were killed in an Algerian protest when they were children, and Georges’ parents were to adopt Majid, until Georges’ jealousy became the cause of Majid being sent to an orphanage. Cache is without resolution all the way through. The sender of the unwanted gift is never revealed, nor are the mysterious events of Georges’ past, nor is the affair, or the reason for Majid’s suicide. The viewer is left to make his or her own judgements. This thriller is gripping and open-ended in its meaning and delivery, yet constrained in its actions, surrounding the videotape and exchange. The repetition of human behavior and duplicity, and adherence to a system is further ignited at the final scene, where Georges’ son, Pierrot, and Majid’s son are seen conversing outside the school. This scene is once again shot like a surveillance camera, from a long distance, and the exchange may even be missed if the viewer is not watching closely. Nevertheless, the two sons, somehow, know each other and are seen to be having a friendly conversation. Rather than opt into conspiracy theories of the sender of the videotape, to which many believe could be the scheming of the two sons, the two young characters could be seen as signifiers of an order of sameness repeating - their coming together representative of an ongoing cyclical process of exchange. The gift in this creative work emphasizes the complex inner workings of both sides of this obligatory ritual of exchange - the giver and receiver, and the reciprocator; where the threat and the threatened, the secret and the secretive are hidden, in order to make visible the structure of the invisible societal order. This order, ruptured by the very small interjection of an anonymous signifying element (the videotape), creates the inauthentic moment that enables the viewer to survey and take part in the exchange within the film. The can then speculate on all the unanswered questions: they are given a part to play within the gift exchange ritual.

figure 5.5 Final scene: George’s and Majid’s sons meet at school - image sourced from Cache (Hidden), [DVD] Michael Haneke, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005

advanced studio III studioGI+S

professor

Geoff Manaugh project:

glacier, island, storm territorial ambiguity: transboundary glacial governance: measuring movable boundaries

project summary The border between Switzerland and Italy was cooperatively realigned due to movement from the melting of a glacier in April 2009. The Swiss define this border condition as a movable glacial boundary (www.swisstopo.ch). The following project negotiates the new territory of changing boundaries due to climatic conditions. The proposal is a glacier and boundary monitoring, relay and research facility for movable boundaries at the Swiss-Italian moving boundary. The project questions the use of the invisible boundary line by creating measuring devices that measure and record information as a result of this new condition. The research into this semester included a trip to Switzerland where I met with the head of Swiss national boundaries - at their topographical centre in Bern. 63

advanced studio In the glacial region of Zermatt, Switzerland and Il Cervino, Italy, near the peak of Matterhorn, if you are Swiss, or Monte Cervino, if you are Italian, part of the border is undefined and moving and melting. This border exists on a glacier. The boundary is currently being renegotiated and redefined by Switzerland and Italy. Formed and existing over thousands of years; glaciers, although seasonally fluctuating are typically seen to be a permanent geographical condition. Borders that delineate countries are sometimes altered by historical events, like war and invasion, but they are seemingly fixed in their geography. The division of sovereign territories by moving geography is quite fascinating - how do you negotiate an international moving border? How is it marked, and how is the line drawn? The proposed project will be presented in two parts - border writing devices for glacial border research and a building that houses this research. Together, these components will comprise a glacial boundary monitoring, relay and research facility for movable boundaries, at the neutral zone of the Swiss-Italian movable boundary, for the purposes of negotiation and research for glacial boundaries worldwide. This worldwide facility is necessary - with many more points in Europe, including Italy , France and Austria, requiring similar realignments to take place as well as places around the world with more conflict-prone territory, including India, China and Pakistan, and between Argentina and Chile in the Patagonia region. The building is located at the intersection of the fixed and moving border, but more closely a Swiss supported facility. The Swiss are a historically neutral country, and they do not require government policy to renegotiate their borders - the Italian side does. This place will offer a neutral zone to hypothesize territory conventions; a place to question the absurdity of such boundaries at high altitudes and the continual adjustment and realignment of borders in national obsessions for accuracy; to research and monitor glacial movement and melt; and to experiment with melt prevention and protection. The section (figure 6.2) taken from information from the Swiss topography unit at Bern, shows the boundary condition as it exits today. The boundary in these high altitudes is defined from the ridge, or water run off point, which is easily observable, and usually at a point of exposed rock. In the glacial case, the ridge is defined from the snow, not the rock. Boundaries are usually defined where it is not easily observable in the geography by the use of benchmarks (figure 6.1) - some of these in Switzerland date back to the 14th century.

figure 6.1 Benchmark and ridge as boundary lines 64

III studioGI+S The existing boundary (figure 6.3) has been proposed to move to the location as indicated in figure 6.4. This area has a length of 1 km and a width of 120 m. There is a ski lift that is anchored in the middle of this undefined zone. Currently, you enter the ski lift in Switzerland, and exit in Italy. This is a Swiss proposed border realignment - if Italy accepts the border change, they no longer receive tax benefits from this lift. The Coordinates shown in blue in figures 6.3 to 6.6 are the Swiss national coordinates in kilometers from Bern, from a point near the topography office that we visited. We spoke with the head of national boundaries in Switzerland - he told us that all surveying was now GPS coordinated and defined from an overlay of 2 x 2d images to create a 3d image, all from the convenience of their office in Bern - they do not got to site (see transcript in next Chapter) They also only measure the boundary at these high altitudes to 2-5m of accuracy.This grid overlay is a breakdown of 2-5m from any one point, creating a major grid of 10m, and a minor of 2-5m between the 10m grids. Due to the use of aerial photography by Swisstopo, the proposed interventions will sit within the 10m grid, which has a built in accuracy measure of 2-5m, which will also refer back, and sit within the 100m grid, and the 1 km grid, as on the national swiss map. The buildings become optical grid markers for the Swisstopo centre (figure 6.6)

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figure 6.2 Section through glacier ridge; the ridge of snow is the boundary measurement - so when the snow melts, the boundary moves 65

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figure 6.5 (top) 2-5m accuracy grid figure 6.6 (bottom) building as optical grid markers 67

advanced studio Measuring Devices The first device is a Swiss border stamper. This device, that is a kind of a mix between a date stamp, Swiss clock, and a snow mobile is a GPS controlled border marker. It continually marks the border by stamping the coordinates into the snow. The device is modeled with Swiss precision and uses a ‘grasshopper escapement’ clock part as its wheel rotation mechanism, keeping perfect precision and timing via the counterbalance mechanism. The idea is that the border is continually being demarcated by a stamp in the snow - temporal and invisible, and continually having to be revised because of its vanishing quality. Also, due to the glacier moving, its position needs constant revision. It is an invisible marker - essential to demarcate but not create a boundary between the sides. Interestingly, the coordinate systems are different for each country - this is the swiss system and the next is a longitude and latitude position. There is then Italian system to consider - they use the WGS Galileo Euro System. This image shows all the points for two systems of coordinates in a straight line between the moving boundary. Switzerland are currently updating all their benchmark coordinates to the Euro system but this will be a 5 year project. Not only is the glacial boundary moving, but the coordinates are changing, and, the whole country’s geotechnic plate is moving 2cm/year in the direction of Moscow. There is something extremely interesting to observe in the translation issue between the country’s own coordinate systems and that of their neighbors, and of the world movement - in this obsession for accuracy, the topographer will never be out of a job.

figure 6.7 detail drawings of the Swiss border stamper 68

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lato

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7.70290 7.70291 7.70292 7.70293 7.70294 7.70295 7.70296 7.70297 7.70298 7.70299 7.70300 7.70301 7.70302 7.70303 7.70304 7.70305 7.70306 7.70307 7.70308 7.70309 7.70310 7.70311 7.70312 7.70313 7.70314 7.70315 7.70316 7.70317 7.70318 7.70319 7.70320 7.70321 7.70322 7.70323 7.70324 7.70325 7.70326 7.70327 7.70328 7.70329 7.70330 7.70331 7.70332 7.70333 7.70334 7.70335 7.70336

620551 620552 620553 620554 620555 620556 620557 620558 620559 620560 620561 620562 620563 620564 620565 620566 620567 620568 620569 620570 620571 620572 620573 620574 620575 620576 620577 620578 620579 620580 620581 620582 620583 620584 620585 620586 620587 620588 620589 620590 620591 620592 620593 620594 620595 620596 620597

7.70337 7.70338 7.70339 7.70340 7.70341 7.70342 7.70343 7.70344 7.70345 7.70346 7.70347 7.70348 7.70349 7.70350 7.70351 7.70352 7.70353 7.70354 7.70355 7.70356 7.70357 7.70358 7.70359 7.70360 7.70361 7.70362 7.70363 7.70364 7.70365 7.70366 7.70367 7.70368 7.70369 7.70370 7.70371 7.70372 7.70373 7.70374 7.70375 7.70376 7.70377 7.70378 7.70379 7.70380 7.70381 7.70382 7.70383

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7.70384 7.70385 7.70386 7.70387 7.70388 7.70389 7.70390 7.70391 7.70392 7.70393 7.70394 7.70395 7.70396 7.70397 7.70398 7.70399 7.70400 7.70401 7.70402 7.70403 7.70404 7.70405 7.70406 7.70407 7.70408 7.70409 7.70410 7.70411 7.70412 7.70413 7.70414 7.70415 7.70416 7.70417 7.70418 7.70419 7.70420 7.70421 7.70422 7.70423 7.70424 7.70425 7.70426 7.70427 7.70428 7.70429 7.70430

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7.70431 7.70432 7.70433 7.70434 7.70435 7.70436 7.70437 7.70438 7.70439 7.70440 7.70441 7.70442 7.70443 7.70444 7.70445 7.70446 7.70447 7.70448 7.70449 7.70450 7.70451 7.70452 7.70453 7.70454 7.70455 7.70456 7.70457 7.70458 7.70459 7.70460 7.70461 7.70462 7.70463 7.70464 7.70465 7.70466 7.70467 7.70468 7.70469 7.70470 7.70471 7.70472 7.70473 7.70474 7.70475 7.70476 7.70477

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7.70478 7.70479 7.70480 7.70481 7.70482 7.70483 7.70484 7.70485 7.70486 7.70487 7.70488 7.70489 7.70490 7.70491 7.70492 7.70493 7.70494 7.70495 7.70496 7.70497 7.70498 7.70499 7.70500 7.70501 7.70502 7.70503 7.70504 7.70505 7.70506 7.70507 7.70508 7.70509 7.70510 7.70511 7.70512 7.70513 7.70514 7.70515 7.70516 7.70517 7.70518 7.70519 7.70520 7.70521 7.70522 7.70523 7.70524

620739 620740 620741 620742 620743 620744 620745 620746 620747 620748 620749 620750 620751 620752 620753 620754 620755 620756 620757 620758 620759 620760 620761 620762 620763 620764 620765 620766 620767 620768 620769 620770 620771 620772 620773 620774 620775 620776 620777 620778 620779 620780 620781 620782 620783 620784 620785

7.70525 7.70526 7.70527 7.70528 7.70529 7.70530 7.70531 7.70532 7.70533 7.70534 7.70535 7.70536 7.70537 7.70538 7.70539 7.70540 7.70541 7.70542 7.70543 7.70544 7.70545 7.70546 7.70547 7.70548 7.70549 7.70550 7.70551 7.70552 7.70553 7.70554 7.70555 7.70556 7.70557 7.70558 7.70559 7.70560 7.70561 7.70562 7.70563 7.70564 7.70565 7.70566 7.70567 7.70568 7.70569 7.70570 7.70571

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7.70572 7.70573 7.70574 7.70575 7.70576 7.70577 7.70578 7.70579 7.70580 7.70581 7.70582 7.70583 7.70584 7.70585 7.70586 7.70587 7.70588 7.70589 7.70590 7.70591 7.70592 7.70593 7.70594 7.70595 7.70596 7.70597 7.70598 7.70599 7.70600 7.70601 7.70602 7.70603 7.70604 7.70605 7.70606 7.70607 7.70608 7.70609 7.70610 7.70611 7.70612 7.70613 7.70614 7.70615 7.70616 7.70617 7.70618

7.70619 7.70620 7.70621 7.70622 7.70623 7.70624 7.70625 7.70626 7.70627 7.70628 7.70629 7.70630 7.70631 7.70632 7.70633 7.70634 7.70635 7.70636 7.70637 7.70638 7.70639 7.70640 7.70641 7.70642 7.70643 7.70644 7.70645 7.70646 7.70647 7.70648 7.70649 7.70650 7.70651 7.70652 7.70653 7.70654 7.70655 7.70656 7.70657 7.70658 7.70659 7.70660 7.70661 7.70662 7.70663 7.70664 7.70665

620833 620834 620835 620836 620837 620838 620839 620840 620841 620842 620843 620844 620845 620846 620847 620848 620849 620850 620851 620852 620853 620854 620855 620856 620857 620858 620859 620860 620861 620862 620863 620864 620865 620866 620867 620868 620869 620870 620871 620872 620873 620874 620875 620876 620877 620878 620879

7.70666 7.70667 7.70668 7.70669 7.70670 7.70671 7.70672 7.70673 7.70674 7.70675 7.70676 7.70677 7.70678 7.70679 7.70680 7.70681 7.70682 7.70683 7.70684 7.70685 7.70686 7.70687 7.70688 7.70689 7.70690 7.70691 7.70692 7.70693 7.70694 7.70695 7.70696 7.70697 7.70698 7.70699 7.70700 7.70701 7.70702 7.70703 7.70704 7.70705 7.70706 7.70707 7.70708 7.70709 7.70710 7.70711 7.70712

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7.70760 7.70761 7.70762 7.70763 7.70764 7.70765 7.70766 7.70767 7.70768 7.70769 7.70770 7.70771 7.70772 7.70773 7.70774 7.70775 7.70776 7.70777 7.70778 7.70779 7.70780 7.70781 7.70782 7.70783 7.70784 7.70785 7.70786 7.70787 7.70788 7.70789 7.70790 7.70791 7.70792 7.70793 7.70794 7.70795 7.70796 7.70797 7.70798 7.70799 7.70800 7.70801 7.70802 7.70803 7.70804 7.70805 7.70806

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lono

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CHy

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CHx

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figure 6.8 detail drawings of the Swiss border stamper overlaid with site coordination information. Coordinates are ambiguous between countriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; as they need to translate their systems to be able to communicate 69

advanced studio The Glacial and Avalanche Movement Measurer The next device is a glacial movement and avalanche research station (figures 6.9 - 6.10)- a unit built in joint cooperation between Italy and Switzerland. The avalanche mechanism is also GPS connected and consists of a watertight button that is lowered through a hot water blown hole to the bottom of the glacier. It then moves along with the glacier, and records its movement. It is connected back to the main casket for the first few days of testing. This is then connected to the research centre, where it prints out a movement measure like an ECG or seismic machine. The device will hopefully help in the prevention of glacial induced avalanches, will record the ablation point of the glacier, and help to determine the question of border movement - has the glacier melted or just moved? The base unit has been moved onto site by the main feature and device at this station - the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;conference roomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. The conference room helps move devices as well as people at this high altitude. It is a state of the art chairlift type construction that uses the technology of skycam (the camera that you see when you watch football matches) to move on the x and y direction, as well as a slight height movement.

deployment box recording information (connected to gps device)

watertight gps glacial flow-rate measure (lowered to base of glacier and moves with glacer)

figure 6.9 detail drawings of the Glacial Movement Measurer 70

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figure 6.10 detail drawings of the Glacial Movement Measurer: the measurer is connected to the conference room and deployed to site. It places a watertight button to the bottom of the glacier where it measures the movement of the glacier via a GPS system 71

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Y X

figure 6.11 biaxial cable system to support conference room movement in x and y axis 72

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X X

advanced studio The Conference Room The conference roomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s use is specifically as it is named - for the use of the Italian and Swiss political and topographical parties to meet, at high altitudes, to observe and to look over the boundary. Internally, the glass has a grid overlaid to assist with territory negotiations. When not in use, the conference room is housed in its base position - the main station that houses people for the duration of their research. The room detaches from its biaxial cable system and connects via a standard gondola connection on the roof of the station. The building is a concrete monolith structure, and is situated within the 10 x 10m grid. Its precast joints delineate the 2-5m accuracy measure. The docked conference room fits into the cutout sections of the building. Other cutout sections allow protected light to enter through translucent concrete, and allow for structural ply service boxes that house the measuring devices and amenities. The Scientific Research Station he building sits on a cliff face, allowing for the conference room to dock, like most standard gondola lifts. It is 6 storeyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in height, and houses a variety of activities.The lower level contains the conference room docking station, the motor room, and some small amenities. A large staircase winds up to the group floor, which holds a research presentation space, a house for measure devices, which is externally accessed, and the front entry. The yellow areas delineate the ply box inserts as previously described. The next level is also publicly accessed via the public staircase, it houses the workspace area. Across the room is a more discrete entry to the upper levels which contain bed and bathroom space and a communal kitchen and dining is on the upper level

figure 6.12 internal perspective from within the conference room looking out to glacier (the border stamper is in the foreground) 74

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figure 6.13 external perspective of the conference room moving to its base position - the Scientific Research facility 75

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figure 6.14 side elevation of the Conference Room 76

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figure 6.15 front elevation of the Conference Room 77

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figure 6.16 rendered perspective of Scientific Research Station 78

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kitchen unit communal dining

sleep units

shower and wc units

research area

presentation theatre

device storage

conference room

motor room

figure 6.17 rendered perspective cut to show internal building configuration 79

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research area

Level 3

presentation theatre

device storage

Level 2

conference room motor room

Level 1

figure 6.18 plans - levels one to three 80

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kitchen unit communal dining

Level 6

sleep units

shower and wc units

Level 5

sleep units

shower and wc units

Level 4

figure 6.19 plans - levels four to six 81

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swiss - italian

neutral zone for scientific border research

figure 6.20 axonometric showing removable ply inserts - these contan all the services and amenities. Once removed the building is left behind - its use changed to a benchmark that marks the border. As the border melts, there is a mark of what was, or what is, or what might be - forever changing, the marker leaves behind a definition of the previous condition, a benchmark for discovery in the future at a point of intersection of the present` 82 before - after

mobile boundary research station for world boundary alignment negotiation

100m

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figure 6.21 internal perspecives of presentation theatre and work area. The expansion joints on the work area floor delineate the 2-5m accuracy grid and double as the ply box insert tracks 83

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figure 6.22 if you follow the red line along the ridge, In the far distance on the other intersection of fixed and moving border, there is a smaller, three storey version of the same building. It has an 84

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inverted dock to hold the conference room on the other side and has one level of bed and bath space and one level of research space, 85

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figure 6.24 when in use, the translucent concrete lights up the border - a glowing mark of recognition to this strange condition of negotiation and delineation. 86

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swiss transcript

TRANSCRIPT - Meeting with Daniel Gutnecht, Land Surveyor and National Boundary Coordinator - 9th March 2010, 10:30am at Swisstopo. Present: Marissa Looby, Joe Corsi, Anthony Sanchez, Nicole Seekely. INTRODUCTION TO COURSE BY MARISSA LOOBY Daniel: I hope you will understand my poor english. Its a long long time since I have spoken english - I only get the chance to speak english on holidays. So, yes, you are coming for our boundary stories. There are so many stories that we do not have enough time to talk about them all, so I think it is better if you ask me what you would like to know. Marissa: As I have emailed, you know we are studying glaciers, we are all architecture students and we are trying to understand alternate ways of design in the use of glaciers and ice. For example, in India, they are growing glaciers. Daniel:

I have heard about this - in India

Marissa: Yes Daniel:

- and also in South America there are a few glacierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growing back

Marissa: Yes. So, what I am interested in is the boundary change between Switzerland and Italy. Firstly where it is. I think i have found it on a map from the website Daniel: - you had a look on our website? Marissa: yes. Daniel: The area is here (points to map). Now this is an extreme case that gives it a lot of discussion. The boundary between Italia and Switzerland was fixed in the years 1940 during the war. The surveyor - land surveyor - I am a land surveyor - we made measurements of the boundary and the whole county - and we coordinate the points and curate the positions via GPS. With this system we can now determine any point we want. But in the year 1940, the technology was not like it is now. They made measurements on the spot. And the rule was in high altitude where the boundary could not be marked with benchmarks â&#x20AC;Ś .. in t he middle land we have benchmarks everywhere Nicole: What is a benchmark? Daniel: A benchmark is a big stone - a very big stone. (points to one in the book). It is a big

advanced studio stone that marks where the boundary is. And we have many many in the country - more than 7000 such benchmarks all around the country. But they are only there where we can put them - they are big stones, so in high altitude it is not possible to mark. And those benchmarks, they are not only in Switzerland - every country has their own benchmarks - also between USA and Canada. Maybe not the same as here, many of our benchmarks are very very old some form the 15th Century. So they tell a lot - a historical story. But here we are in the mountains in high altitude - 3500m - that is very very high and in the year 1940, the boundary was here (points to map) as located by the little crosses on the mapâ&#x20AC;Ś. â&#x20AC;Ś just to show you (pulls out main country map) for example you know this is a scale map at 1:25000 - Switzerland is covered with maps. Marissa: We can purchase these in your shop, yes? Daniel:

Yes. So - this here is about here (points to map) that is Zermatt - the closest town.

Marissa: Yes that is where we are staying Daniel:

Ah, yes so you have been here

Marissa: I think we found the place but we will have to double check after the meeting this week. Daniel: So the whole boundary around Switzerland is about 2000 km. And between Italia and Switzerland is about 750 km. And most of this boundary is in the high mountains. So I come back to outside in this smaller map and in this high altitude the problem of marking the border. So you cannot see it - you cannot see any benchmarks. But this is the same as any country in the world in high altitude - the boundary is the highest point of the mountain - the top - the watershed point - where the top of the water falls, it goes in one country or the other country and it touched the border. It is very simple, yes? Marissa: In every European country this is the same? Daniel: Yes, it is all the same - in t he whole world I would think - it is an international standard. There are not many ways to make it, to define boundary Marissa: On one of the reports in an article in a newspaper about this condition it was reported that they might be changing the rule of measuring from the top of the glacier to the rock Daniel: Yes. This is correct. Firstly, this line 80 years ago was a glacier, and the highest point of the glacier was this line here (points to drawing). And now, 80 years later, the glacier has come back and the stone is coming in place of the glacier. Nicole: Is it because it is melting or moving that you can see the rock? Daniel: The rock is not moving. The glacier is coming back. Maybe there was a few meters of ice under here â&#x20AC;Ś if you can see, (points to section) the top of the glacier is here in 1940 and now the glacier is coming back and now I think we have the glacier is here now, at the blue line here, and the

swiss transcript top is here. But in this case, um, it is not this case - not this standard section - it is only a schema to describe the common condition. In this case the glacier was about I think .. you had the stone here (draws diagram) and it is going down here. And this is the stone. And the glacier was about something like this. It covered all the stone, and the highest point was here. And now this ice is going. Its going. And the highest point now on the stone is here. Joe:

Did the glacier melt or did it move?

Daniel: It is both. It is melting. You will have to ask the question to the glacier expert. We are just surveyor. Land surveyor - we make the measurement, we construct, we make a drawing of a fact. But it is melting of course. IT is not moving because all these glaciers, if they were moving, we would have some troubles where it is coming down. Its melting. So the border now in 2010 is this new line, this red line here. We measure now from aerial photography. We now do not have to go on the spot we can measure these highest points now from aerial photography - we have specialists here they can see these in t he three dimension - they can show where is the highest point. 1 photograph is flat, but if you have two photographs, in the computer, you can now see in three dimension. Like the movies with the special glasses - you can now see in 3D - so we can measure and we can curate within accuracy to 2-5m - but it is enough. It is only stone on this high mountains, it is not very important to be accurate to a few centimeters - it is only stone. The land is worth nothing. But we have to know where the border, where the land is going. Because we have here an economical interest. Because we have here in the middle - within this zone this installation - a chair lift. But it is more that a ski lift, there is a place for 6 people - it is a big ski lift. Anthony: So do the land surveyors of Italy have to verify the information also. Do you meet with the land surveyors of Italy to verify the information that you are gathering? Daniel: We have to agree. We have proposed to the Italian surveyors - we propose our new line and they say OK it is alright or if they do not agree, they have to propose a new one, a better one, if they can. Joe:

How often do you meet with them?

Daniel: We have 5 countries around Switzerland and with each country we have a committee. With Italy we meet every 2 or 4 years Joe:

Like the olympics.

Daniel: Ha, yes. I have under commission where it is only me and an Italian with two other people - we meet once a year. Marissa: So this ski lift was in Italy Daniel: It was. Today, it is still in Italy. But the fact is that they could only build this station here only because they could make the foundations in rock. 20 years ago there was still ice and they couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t build. It is new. This station is about 5 years old. They could build it because they could make the foundations in rocks. And now, now because it is in Italian soil, they pay taxes to Italy. So when the

advanced studio new border will be accepted and agreed upon by Italy, the owner of this installation will not have to pay taxes to Italy anymore. And this station here, I have I think a map if I can find it… if you have been skiing, that is this glacier, this ski lift station here. Marissa: Ah, yes, we haven’t been there yet. Daniel:

It is a big station

Nicole:

That is what is here?

Daniel: Yes, exactly, it is this station here. It is from a newspaper - I didn’t go, but you can see from this picture that the new point, the highest point is behind the station. Marissa: Did you know on google maps they draw a straight line between here and here. There is just a straight line. I don’t think they know where to put it. Daniel: Ah yes google - google is not very accurate - they just make it up. Marissa: Do you think that there will be more revising of the border around the Alps? Daniel: Yes, there is at other places everywhere on ice and also on the snow fields where there are no glaciers, just snow, we have many places smaller and different - here you have about 120m between the old to the new line and in the other direction, a little bit more that one kilometer - but other places you have small differences - little, very small differences. BUt it is a new line and because we - why we - do know a new line, it is because we cannot manage a line a borderline who doesn’t exist outside. Outside it is the highest point. It is always the highest point. Nicole: What would happen - would this line stay if the glacier were to build back up and the highest point of ice were to move again? Daniel: If the glacier would grow again? Nicole:

Yes, would you have to move the border again?

Daniel: No. No. That is a theory that we do not have. But the theory, the Italians say is like this: once the glacier is - melts - and the stone comes - we can fix the border - it becomes permanent. And then in 100 years if the glacier is coming back, the border stays. It doesn’t move anymore. Because the rock is easy to understand - principally, on the rock, the border doesn’t move. It could move a little bit but the mountain is not moving so much - on t he borderline which has accuracies of 5m plus/minus, erosion and such phenomenon do not affect this - it is in accuracy of a few meters. And the mountain are not changing a lot. Marissa: And, your measurements system is meters from Bern? Yes? Daniel:

Yes

swiss transcript Marissa: How do you then coordinate with the italians, because they use a different coordinate system? Daniel:

You say the different projection system?

Marissa: Yes Daniel: In t he whole world each country has his own projections system - that coordinates on the maps. (Points to map) - those are the Swiss coordinates here, the Italians have another projection system. So they have from each point of the boundary another set of coordinates. They are different. And the relation between the two system is not so sure / not so accurate. But now since we have GPS technology, we have a new coordinate system WGS - World Geodetic System - who is the same for the whole world. Like, we have also here the geographical coordinates you know? The latitude and the longitude - that is also a world system. And WGS is the same - tis is only supported by GPS technology Joe:

How old is that? How long have you been using that system?

Daniel:

WGS comes from America WGS 1984 -

Joe:

about 25 years, no 26 years

Daniel: Yes. It was the same when the first GPS satellite was launched. And the first measurement we made on the satellite, on the GPS it was late 80s - 88/89 - twenty years ago. BUt 20 years ago they were only four or five satellites and now there are about 20 GPS satellites. There is another system too - the russian system - they also have about 20 satellites wandering around. And a new satellite system - Galileo - the European satellite system thats the new generation - more accurate than the GPS - GPS is 20 years old, it is old technology - and European Galileo will be a new generation, more accurate and also in a few years it will be operational, operating, on the GPS. We are only a little user from the GPS technology - the land surveyor - we are only a very very small user. But now we can make very accurate measurements - one centimeter or even below - a few millimeters - and this allows us in Europe to have only one reference system. Thats ETRS -European Terrestrial Reference System. And this ETRS system allows us to have on our boundary in the whole of Europe the same coordinates - the same definition - so with Italy, we have each point only one coordinate - thats the ETRS coordinate. Marissa: But within Switzerland you still measure from Bern? But then when you are talking to other countries you measure with the ETRS? Daniel: Yes. Bern is the origin of our coordinates - 0,0 Joe:

Where is that location? Is there one spot that it references?

Daniel: Yes there was one spot - its an old observatory, which is now not anymore - it is in the city near the railway station in Bern - but now the University campus is there and you will find a little plate - a little point, but it is not anymore the observatory. Because it was necessary to make astronomic

advanced studio measurements in an observatory - to coordinate geographically where exactly we are on the earths surface. And so now we have a lot to do with Italia, with each of our five neighbors, is to agree with the new ETRS coordinates. Marissa: So ETRS is very new? A new system? Daniel: Yes it is very new, it is also - the system was defined 20 years ago but only now we start to use it - in reality. Marissa: So everywhere you are defining the border? Daniel:

Yes

Marissa: Wow Daniel: And in Europe the boundary will be defined in a few years in this coordinate system Marissa: Until another new coordinate system comes into place? Daniel: No, there will not be another new system - no, it will be this coordinate system- it will be fixed for the next 100 years or so. But thats very complicated - we have to fix it for surveying but in reality - the points on the earths surface, they are moving - they are moving all the time, and since we can measure this small move with GPS - in Switzerland, the whole country is moving about 2 cm per year. Nicole:

In a certain direction?

Daniel: In a direction North-East. In t he direction of Moscow. 2 cm per year. Thats the movement of the tectonic plates. All the tectonic plates are moving and now we can measure this before we had GPS is was not possible to measure this. So also in Europe we could say the boundary in Europe is not important - we don’t need anymore the boundaries. BUt it is not like this - every country wants to know exactly where their boundary is finished. But we have a lot from - more than 7000 points, benchmarks we have - we have a lot of papers of archive and documents and they are very well marked in the country so the people living near the boundary they want to know where is the boundary, where is the other country - everywhere. I think in America it is not so - in America you have a boundary with Mexico, which is not a boundary - you build fences. In Australia you have water - I would have no job in Australia! (laughs) Anthony: How far apart are the benchmarks? From each other? Daniel: It depends - it can be between, sometimes 10m until 100m. It just depends. You have….. just to show you (points to GPS screen) that is the whole of Switzerland - we have … Anthony: Are these GIS files?

swiss transcript Daniel: Yes this is a Geographical Information System so we have a lot of benchmarks. So if I take in the north here - you can see how many many many - there are so many, each benchmark has a number and there are so many - you can see it on the screen and you see they are very close together. Marissa: Could we look at Zermatt? Daniel:

Yes of course.

Nicole:

So there are no benchmarks there now - is that right?

Daniel:

Yes there are no benchmarks here now

Nicole: now?

So if you had access to the top, with the melting snow, would you put benchmarks there

Daniel: No, no. Its not simple to do. It makes no sense to put any benchmarks there. (Daniel navigates around screen) Nicole:

It is a great quality aerial

Marissa: Very detailed, wow no wonder you do not need to go on site Daniel: And now you see very well the site. Here you can not see in 3D. It is flat, but we have images that show this and here is the old line and the new. Nicole: Is there public access to this file? Daniel: The access of this digital information? Ah, they are not public access, no - its only internal because these maps, the aerial photography - there is an area of scale that is allowed to be open to the public. We sell it - you can buy it, but it is very expensive. Anthony: But you can buy the geographical maps on paper? Daniel: Of course - they are cheap. You can buy all of these in the shop by the entry. It closes at 12pm if you want to buy this map. Marissa: Well I think we have asked all the questions we need to. I want to thank you very much for the opportunity to meet with you today. Daniel: You are most welcome Marissa: thank you and goodbye. Daniel: Goodbye

notes I (summer 2009) metropolis on structure and validation Eisenman, P., Misreading Peter Eisenman, in Eisenman, P., Inside Out: Selected Writing 1963-1988 (New Haven: CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 208-225

purpose-(lessness?) Adorno, T. W., Functionalism Today, Oppositions 17, (Summer 1979), pp 6-19 Kipnis, J., La Astucia de la Cosmética/The Cunning of Cosmetics, El Croquis 84, 1997/II [Herzog & de Meuron. 1993-1997], pp 22-28 Lavin, S., The Temporary Contemporary, Perspecta, Vol. 34, (2003), pp 128-135

advanced studio studioCHINA Mao Tse-Tung, Quotations from Chairmain Mao Tse-Tung, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1972

II (fall 2009) advanced studio studioTHEGIFT (essay from art history course: What is Critical Theory?) Bonaparte, M., The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe, a Psycho-Analytic Interpretation. Translated by Rodker, J., Imago, London, 1949 (Original work published 1933) Deleuze, G., The Logic of Sense, translated by Lester, M., Columbia University Press, New York, 1990 Deleuze, G., What is the Creative Act?, in Deleuze, G., Two Regimes of Madness: Revised Edition Texts and Interviews 1975-1995, edited by Lapoujade, D., The MIT Press, 2007 Derrida, J., Given Time: I. Counterfeit money. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992 Derrida, J., The Gift of Death and Literature in Secret, trans Wills, D., Second Edition, University of Chicago Press, 2008 Foucault, M., This Is Not a Pipe, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles and California, 1983 Foucault, M., The Order of Things: an Archaeology of the Human Sciences, Routledge 1989 (First Edition Published by Tavistock in the UK in 1970) Foucault, M., What is Critique? in Foucault, M., The Politics of Truth, edited by Lotringer, S., Semiotext(e), 2007 (first published 1997) Lacan, J., The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud, p16-197 in Ecrits, Routledge 1989, (first published 1977 by Tavistock Publications) Lahiji, N., The Gift of the Open Hand: Le Corbusier Reading Georges Bataille’s “La Part Maudite”, Journal

index of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 50, No. 1 (Sep., 1996), pp. 50-67 Mauss, M., The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, Routeledge, Great Britain, 1990s Muller, J.P, & Richardson, W.J., The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida and Psychoanalytic Reading, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988 Phillips, Mary E., Edgar Allan Poe: The Man. Volume II. Chicago: The John C. Winston Co., 1926. p. 930– 931 Saussure, F., Course in General Linguistics, Open Court Publishing Company, 2006 (First Published in English in 1983)

hidden Derrida, J., Given Time: I. Counterfeit money. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992: p12 Derrida, J., Given Time: I. Counterfeit money. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992: p36 Derrida, The Gift of Death, 2008: p39

III (spring 2010) swiss transcript Gutnecht, D., Interview: ‘Swiss Transcript’ by Marissa Looby to head of national boundaries, Switzerland, at Swisstopo on 9th March 2010 at Bern, Switzerland

100

index Adorno, T. W., 7, 9 Bataille, G., 57 Benjamin, W., 1 Blossfeldt, K., 7, 10, 11 boundary i-iv, 66-69, 89-95 Brecht theatre 38 Cache 52, 55-61 Carroll, L., 43 Deleuze, G., what is a creative act? 30, 34, 38, 43, 52 Derrida., J., 29, 30, 34, 38, 43, 51-52, 57, 58 Eisenman, P 1-4 houses 2-3 Foucault, Michel 30, 34, 42, 52 This is Not a Pipe [see Magritte] Gift 29-61 anonymity 52, 58 exchange value 35-36, 57 glacier 63-87 Guangdong, China 13, 18-19 Herzog de Meuron, 7-11 hidden order

i-iv, 18, 38, 42, 52, 55-61 Kant, I., 8 Lacan, J., 29, 30, 36, 38, 4243 metaphor 42-43, 52 Lavin, S., 9 Letter 29, 38, 42-43, 51 purloined 21, 30, 36, 43, 51 Mao, Tse-Tung 15 Magritte This is not a Pipe 42, 52 Mauss, M., 30, 35-36, 57 metaphysical 1 Metropolis 1-4, 7-11 MoMA 10 negotiation i-iv, 18 ornament 8 Poe, E., A., 29, 30, 36, 43, 51 purposeless(ness) 7-11 Schrodinger schrodingerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cat 38 sign, signifier 3, 30, 36, 38, 4243 Vitruvian 8 101