taryn sheppard blog

transition 2 >

2009-10-28T21:44:00.000-07:00

Currently experiencing transition between topics...please stand by...

2009-02-20T18:18:00.000-08:00

this is my new favorite way to waste time...
ArtificialOwl

2009-02-12T14:00:00.000-08:00

edward tufte: WAVEFIELDS
making "...statistical graphics worthy of the human eye-brain system"

2009-02-11T22:10:00.001-08:00

HOUSES
^this is wierd, it's a font that is all floorplans of houses.

the narrative as architectural expression

2009-01-21T10:51:00.000-08:00

When making an architectural proposal, it is important to make renderings to convey a sense of what a space will be like to be in, as a person. (duh) It's common for architects to put people in thier renderings. People... at wierd impossible scales...from different lighting conditions, different dpi's, resolutions- groups of people next to other groups of people pilfered from a variety of source images with drastically different original ambient conditions. I wouldn't want to be one of these rendering people, torn from thier natural photographic environment, lazily traced with a lasso and forced into occupying some theoretical plaza with dimensionally alien strangers, awkardly posed, carrying on a conversation with no one. What a sad and awful existence. The point is, the images are taken out of context and therefore removed from the story that can be read from all the subtle information originally surrounding it. That's one advantage that a cinematic expression of architecture can have: a narrative. Some of the most beautiful and lucid architectural expressions are in film. Not only because of the movement through a space, but also because characters help to explain a fundamental dimension of an architecture that is performative as opposed to temporally static renderings. I think this is important. this is one of my favorite renderings ever ( not godzilla - below) mostly for the content i will admit (give me a cactus and a pink building and i'm happy) its by labtop who make these incredibly beautiful renderings, i love thier work. but i am so disturbed by the presence of this little man in a purple suit sitting behind the cactus. it seems like he was just stuck in there last minute for scale or something. its sort of related to this topic of narrative as architectural expression, because i just keep thinking if was more enveloped in the scene, his presence wouldn't disrupt the fantasy so much. if he was engaged in some kind of narrative within the frame it would make more sense. i guess thats my point.

2009-01-15T01:57:00.000-08:00

"GUILLAUME BIJL, I LOVE YOU" - Taryn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mESmd-Yx4o4

WTF?

"We Are Here! We Are Here! We Are Here!"

2009-01-14T16:52:00.001-08:00

Olivo Barbieri is an artist from Italy who lives and works in Milan. His work 'focuses' on architecture and urban environments, industrial /post-industrial landscapes, transportation infrastructure and stuff like that. Barbieri takes aerial photographs using a tilt-shift lens, and that produces the effect of making the very large look very small. A cityscape will look like a model of a city. Cars look like model cars. People look like scalar figures. His work has an instant 'cool' factor, because you as the viewer have that special moment when you realize...it's not so small at all! An accessible gimmick like this in the art world is enough to get you some props at the local biennale, but I think this work is not so easily dismissed. I think the images are really beautiful and I would like to use this technique myself for architectural projects. A friend of mine said that he thought they 'looked like someone's memory'. I think that might be because the images take a huge public space and make it intimate and personal - a little distorted and saturated. Not sure. They are quite beautiful though, compositionally speaking, and even after the initial "Oh, right", I still keep staring.

Top Left: Site Specific New York, Above: Site Specific Las Vegas 05, Site Specific Las Vegas.

new semester, new font...

2009-01-07T19:51:00.000-08:00

this blog was originally a workspace for an independent study course that i was taking last fall. the course is over, but i still have this blog, and i'm not willing to part with it yet, so the theme of the blog is going to radically mutate into a more open-ended 'current issues in architectural representation' theme. that way i can continue exploring some of the ideas that came up in the fall as well as bring new topics to the table. i still need a new name for it though and i am willing to entertain suggestions. some of the themes i would like to discuss are 'film as architectural expression', and, 'cad vs hand drawing', amongst others. OK GO!

Hmm, Cloud Computing

2008-12-14T06:59:00.000-08:00

Cloud computing suggests that the nature of personal computers will change due to remote storage of data. Individual pcs wont actually have much storage capacity - well they could but why would you need to? Since all of your stuff: work, music, movies, photos, software, grocery lists, etc., will be stored in a beautiful virtual cloud of data known to many as 'the internet'. My life is kind of like that already. I dont actually keep much on my own computer, only stuff that I want to keep out of the public (rick astley mp3's) its just easier to keep stuff in some mysterious location and google apps are way too convenient. So then a pc would lose a large part of its program or content, and is more like this, conceptually speaking -

just an access point or window into a larger thing. Does that make it more like furniture or something? And then what happens when you do THIS???!!!
well, let's not go there. Its just kind of interesting to think about what your computer would look like if it were designed specifically with cloud computing in mind. I would like to know what Steigler would think about cloud computing as an infinitely abstracted model of the 'note to self'. It reminds me of one of my favorite Wittgenstein thoughts from Philosophical Investigations that talks about an obtuse triangle. (I dont have the book with me so I dont have the exact quote right now, but I'll try my best to sound like a mediocre German translation...) 'If you take a drawing of an obtuse triangle and cut it out of the paper, pick it up, turn it over in your hand, and put it back down again, you end up with the mirror image yes? In the same way, if you take a glove for the right hand, brought it into the 4th dimension and replaced it back into the 3rd dimension, the glove would then fit on the LEFT HAND...
As you could imagine, this totally blew my mind when I was 15, lying on my bedroom floor listening to Pink Floyd, high, pondering the strange little gloves that floated around in the air peeling the posters off the walls before they melted... Ah Nostalgie!

2008-12-11T01:50:00.000-08:00

I guess I'd better start wrapping this thing up soon. But, the more I read on this topic, the more sources I find and it keeps getting more interesting. For instance, I have a whole new reading list for the next week ( like, as if thats going to happen during finals, pffff) that includes the likes of Mcluhan, Felix Ravaisson, Manuel Delanda , Boudoin and of course more Adorno, amongst others. I've opened up a whole can of philosophers. But i think that I have found enough to support the original proposal, or at least to start talking about the subject without sounding like a complete moron. If I remember correctly, the original proposal was to investigate if there is a larger social and cultural signifigance to the aesthetics and design of commonplace technological devices like laptops, wherein we can find the opportunity to quantify an individuals' agency with technological devices as defined by Steigler and exemplified by activities like the Maker's Faire. The significance being, the degree of user-consciousness, situated in the current condition that is massive industrial externalisation of memory/ collective knowledge. Ehchem. The proliferation of this ( hold on I'm going to make a new word here) hypermnemotechnology ( aaahahahaha) means it is essential to analyze how the physical interface affects agency, how the marketing strategy slash social/cultural associations affect agency and the relationship between those two things. More...

2008-12-06T02:07:00.000-08:00

Would your conversations be different if this was your phone?

2008-12-02T02:02:00.000-08:00

( referring to the last post...) I like this idea for a couple of reasons. This is like a model of the transition from an industrial to knowledge based economy. Essentially, photography was a major step towards the commodification of images; the contemporary manifestation of this is the commodification of intelligence. Elizabeth's observation is consistent with Steigler's discussion of the industrial externalization of memory for this reason. It could be said that Apple computers jumped the gun in the aestheticization of the externalized memory/ knowledge, and in fact has instigated the process of commodification* of the mnemotechnical device. ( I have yet to make a Bourdieu post about aesthetics and social class, but it's coming don't worry) And again, to draw a comparison to the other laptop option, the generic pc. The nature of its assembly as a product is in most cases so fractured and rhizomatic that it is resists comprehensive commodification as a product. Steigler insists that it is our duty to become increasingly assertive agents of our own humanity (whoa) in dealing with the industrial externalisation of memory. This is because of the level of complexity and sheer capacity of commonplace technology, where we now witness this externalization at a totally crazy huge scale. So the question I would like to propose is: what effect does the commodification of this technology have on our ability to remain concious agents, as desired by Steigler, when the aim of the culture industry is usurp our agency?

*commodification as situated in Adorno and Horkheimers ideas outlined in 'The Culture Industry'

2008-11-27T21:30:00.000-08:00

My very good friend, who I will refer to as 'E.K.', shared an insight with me the other day as we were drinking some very fine turkish coffee in a neighborhood diner. E.K said that it had occurred to her that, just as painters and the public ceased to be interested in representational painting at the advent of photography, so too are people now not interested in rational thought at the advent of the computer....

HMMM..............

2008-11-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

The concept of individuation used by Steigler is largely constructed by Gilbert Simondon, who was part of the generation of French philosophers earlier than him. His writings also influenced Deleuze to some degree. Simondon is criticised by Steigler for not bringing the discussion of individuation and technicity(?) together in a comprehensive manner. BUT, Simondon does have all kinds of other off-the-wall stuff to say about robot slave armies and the like - this could possibly be just a mutation from when it was translated - I hope that's not the case. I had a hard time in isolating the best part of this essay so I have included a link to the whole thing that I found online, ( oh yes) and, a link to some definitions of the terms he uses.

From:
"On The Mode of Existence of Technical Objects"
by Gilbert Simondon

"Culture is unbalanced because, while it grants recogniton to certain objects, for example to things aesthetic, and gives them thier due place in the world of meanings, it banishes other objects, particulary things technical into the unstructured world of things that have no meaning but do have a use, a utilitarian function. Faced with such a marked defensive negative attitude on the part of a biased culture, men who have knowledge of technical objects and appreciate thier significance try to justify their judgement by giving to the technical object the only status that today has any stability apart from that granted to aesthetic objects, the status of somthing sacred. This, of course, gives rise to an intemperate technicism that is nothing other than idolatry of the machine and, through such idolatry, by way of identification it leads to a technocratic yearning for unconditional power. The desire for power confirms the machine as a way to supremacy and makes of it the modern philtre ( love potion). The man who wishes to dominate his fellow creates the android machine. He abdicates in favor of it and delegates his humanity to it. He tries to construct the thinking machine and dreams of being able to construct the willing machine or the living machine, so that he can lag behind it, without anxiety, freed from all danger and exempt from all feelings of weakness, while enjoying a vicarious triumph though what he has invented. In this case, then, once through an imaginative process the machine has become a robot, a duplicate of man, but without interiority, it is quite evidently and inevitably nothing other than a purely mythic and imaginary being."

http://nsrnicek.googlepages.com/SimondonGilbert.OnTheModeOfExistence.pdf
http://fractalontology.wordpress.com/2007/11/28/a-short-list-of-gilbert-simondons-vocabulary/
http://speculativeheresy.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/translation-chapter-1-of-simondons-psychic-and-collective-individuation/

2008-11-17T04:15:00.000-08:00

It's 4am...
Disindividuation...liquidated desire...libidinal economy...oooh, Exciting!

From: 'The Disaffected Individual in the Process of Psychic and Collective Disindividuation'
'The Hypermarket'
by Bernard Stiegler

"The political economy of spiritual value is that of the libidinal economy—where value is in general only worth something for one who desires it. It is only worth something inasmuch as it is inscribed in the circuit of desire, of one who only desires what remains irreducible to the commensurability of all values. In other words, value is only worth something inasmuch as it evaluates what has no price. It cannot, therefore, be completely calculated: there is always a remainder, which induces the movement of a différance, through which alone can be produced the circulation of values, that is, their exchange—value is worth something only to the extent that it is inscribed in the circuit of individuations and transindividuations which can only individuate singularities.

But in the hyperindustrial political economy, value must be completely calculable; which is to say, it is condemned to become valueless—such is its nihilism. The problem is that it is the consumer who not only is devalued (for he is evaluated, for example, by the calculation of his “life time value”) but who equally is devalorized—or, more precisely, he is disindividuated. In such a society—which liquidates desire, desire which is, however, energy, libidinal energy—value is what annihilates itself and, with it, those who, evaluating it, are themselves evaluated. This is why it is society as such which appears finally to its members, themselves devalorized (and melancholic), as being without value—and this is also why society fantasizes its “values” that much more noisily and ostentatiously, “values” which are only deceptions, compensatory discourses, and consolations. Such is the lot of a society which no longer loves itself."

Phew, what a downer! I feel compelled to provide some entertainment. Here's one of my favorite Dylan Moran clips! :)

2008-11-16T23:51:00.001-08:00

2008-11-16T23:35:00.000-08:00

Foucault talks about the notion of 'Biopower'. It is the extraction of a model from a condition and the re-application of this model onto another subject as a means of categorization and greater understanding of conditions through a reduction of complexity. An example of this would be almost any medical diagnosis. This idea in philosophy doesn't necessarily have negative connotations but does act as a model to describe the use of reduction of complexity to assert power in an abstract sense.

2008-11-08T19:13:00.000-08:00

From Atelier Van Lieshout...
I was just about to make this very same thing and then i discovered they did it first. hmph.

"Bonnefantopia, 2003

Inspired by Sportopia, Bonnefantopia was made for Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht. Despite the similarities with its noble predecessor, Bonnefantopia is more domestic and features both a kitchen sink and a cosy bed. Three fibreglass Michelangelo figures inhabit the installation: one is vomiting in the kitchen sink, another is hanging over the scaffolding, and the third is lying on the floor. While the historical Michelangelo slaved away on the Sixtine Chapel, these fallen followers show what happens when men become the slaves of machines or systems. "

^god this makes me so happy

Collection Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht

2008-11-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

Zizek on Zombies (just because)
from: 'Madness and Habit in German Idealism:Discipline between the Two Freedoms'

"The shift from Aristotle to Kant, to modernity with its subject as pure autonomy: the status of habit changes from organic inner rule to something mechanic, the opposite of human freedom: freedom cannot ever become habit(ual), if it becomes a habit, it is no longer true freedom (which is why Thomas Jefferson wrote that, if people are to remain free, they have to rebel against the government every couple of decades). This eventuality reaches its apogee in Christ, who is "the figure of a pure event, the exact opposite of the habitual". [1] Perhaps, this Hegelian notion of habit allows us to account for the cinema-figure of zombies who drag themselves slowly around in a catatonic mood, but persisting forever: are they not figures of pure habit, of habit at its most elementary, prior to the rise of intelligence (of language, consciousness, and thinking). [2] This is why a zombie par excellence is always someone whom we knew before, when he was still normally alive – the shock for a character in a zombie-movie is to recognize the former best neighbor in the creeping figure tracking him persistently. (Zombies, these properly un-canny (un-heimlich) figures are therefore to be opposed to aliens who invade the body of a terrestrial: while aliens look and act like humans, but are really foreign to human race, zombies are humans who no longer look and act like humans; while, in the case of an alien, we suddenly become aware that the one closest to us – wife, son, father – is an alien, was colonized by an alien, in the case of a zombie, the shock is that this foreign creep is someone close to us…) What this means is that what Hegel says about habits has to be applied to zombies: at the most elementary level of our human identity, we are all zombies, and our "higher" and "free" human activities can only take place insofar as they are founded on the reliable functioning of our zombie-habits: being-a-zombie is a zero-level of humanity, the inhuman/mechanical core of humanity. The shock of encountering a zombie is not the shock of encountering a foreign entity, but the shock of being confronted by the disavowed foundation of our own human-ness."

I Heart Adorno

2008-10-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

What follows is a brutal attempt at an interpretation of Adorno and Horkheimer's 'the culture industry', by an *architecture student*. My apologies in advance to smart people. In the event that you are a smart person reading this, you may wish to stop now and look at this instead.

So the idea is - that western pop culture is in the business of transforming creative cultural expression into commercialized, standardized, easily consumable items that are mass produced, affordable and accessible to most people. This is BAD. (so says Adorno, but personally, i just couldn't LIVE without my kit cat clock! ) This is BAD for a couple of reasons. First of all, Adorno says that 'the culture industry' has undermined the working classes' will to overthrow Capitalism. Perhaps that would be okay if the standardized, mass-produced items of pop culture fulfilled actual needs, but really they are consumed in order to satisfy a desire created by the industry itself. OUCH. And on top of that, Adorno says that indeed there are actual needs, such as 'individual creative expression' and 'genuine happiness', and that the fulfillment of these things is never ever met because of the distractions of such convenient diversions! SHIT! It doesn't end there. The culture industry also rationalizes its existence based on its use value, where supposed benefit is derived from its utility, and THAT is the proof of the industry. And as we all know... " A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof, and when you have a good proof, it is because it is proven." - Jean Chretien.

2008-10-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

REALITY DISTORTION FIELD!!!

2008-10-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

The definition of the term 'Reality distortion field'
From "Wikipedia", the Free Encyclopedia!

"Reality distortion field is a term coined by Bud Tribble at Apple Inc in 1981, to describe company co-founder Steve Jobs' charisma and its effects on the developers working on the Mac project. Later the term has also been used to refer to perceptions of his keynote (or Stevenote) by observers and devoted users of Apple computers and products. Bud Tribble claimed that the term came from Star Trek. In essence, RDF is the idea that Steve Jobs is able to convince people to believe almost anything with a mix of charm, charisma, bluster, exaggeration, and marketing. RDF is said to distort an audience's sense of proportion or scale.
Small advances are applauded as breakthroughs. Interesting developments become turning points, or huge leaps forward. Those who use the term RDF contend that it is not an example of outright deception but more a case warping the powers of judgment. The term "audience" may refer to an individual whose attitudes Steve is intending to affect. Often the term is used as a derogatory remark to criticize Apple's products and its more enthusiastic fans. The term has extended in industry to other managers and leaders, who try to convince their employees to become passionately committed to projects, sometimes without regard to the overall product or to competitive forces in the marketplace. It also has been used with regard to hype for products that are not necessarily connected with any one person."

return of the 'mac'...

2008-10-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

ok, ok! how many people have i run into lately that say to me " gee taryn, i notice there's no activity on your blog lately, what's going on???" probably at least...one. well, here's my excuse: i had to do a bunch of overtime at work during the summer, and, well, i had to go on vacation. so i got an extension on the course. but i'm back on track with everything now and i will be continuing the project right into the fall. probably until november. which i am pretty happy about because i like it. the boss-man is cool with it too. gives me time to finish re-reading 'the difference engine', and yeah, thats pretty important. I have a huge list of stuff that i would like to read this fall also. Here is some of my reading wish-list for this fall pertaining to this project ( not that i will actually end up reading a fraction of this stuff, but, making a list gives me a vague sense of accomplishment somehow):

0. Some Heidegger
1. Anything by McKenzie Wark
1a. Something by Stiegler
2. Jameson
3. Benjamin
4. Deleuze ( y'know, like, it's hard to read deleuze... it's kinda like a 'choose your own adventure'- thats why it takes me so long to finish an entire book, but i'm going to try again anyhow)
5 through 8. More Zizek (any excuse, really)

Also gives me some more time to publish blog nonsense instead of real work. I'm at a stand still with the sculpture thing at the moment - I've discovered that there is a schizm between making art and writing about it. They seem to be mutually exclusive. That is, ( for me) to make art requires a suspension of critical thinking that allows for freedom of creative expression, not weighted down by a burden of proof. So, i will put the art away for the moment and only continue with the book-essay thing for this time. If anyone knows offhand of someone who writes about cloud computing, hook me up!

Late contribution: Machines that aim to fail

2008-09-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

Machines that almost fall over.

Machine that tries to draw a circle.

ABSURDITY

2008-07-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

Absurd Performativity.
What does that mean? A couple of years ago I might have called bullshit on this right away, but lately I aspire to be somewhat less cavalier. Now I think that this term actually expresses a phenomenon in the art world that wouldn't otherwise be identifiable. This is something I would definetly like to have an intimate understanding of one day, but in the meantime, here's an example that might help elucidate this notion: There is a whole group of people who have formed a society based on their mutual love of making electric cars that are shaped like cupcakes. These cars have the appearance of giant muffins or cupcakes complete with sprinkles and icing or berries or whatever. They are really true to form. You can't really see the driver, and so the effect is that, there is this giant dessert just cruising down the street, silently, yet purposefully. It is really kind of poetic. It's so cool that you almost don't want to think critically about it, and just enjoy it for what it is, but, as a side note, it seems like this practice is making a subtle critique of the machismo of hot rod/ DYI car culture. This is an example of a practice that takes an ordinary thing and makes it totally ridiculous and bizarre. The ultimate goal in building a muffin car is not to create something to get you from point a to point b in an economic manner, but rather, simply to be foolish. By having this different objective, the muffin car society is, in a sense, subverting the industry. This type of - what I would like to call- rogue engineering , embodies a spirit of rebellion that I am very interested in. At the risk of sounding like that creepy, lurking guy in a turtleneck hanging out at the local cafe reading marx, i would like to say that this is an assertive method of undermining the pressure to conform and consume electronics that you didn't even know you wanted, whose very 'necessity' was concocted by the company who provides the product. Also, in my opinion, the absurdity of the thing provides a cathartic comic relief from the relentless pressure to participate in the consumption of status items like luxury cars or iphones or something. Anyhow, I would like to express 'absurd performativity' in this independent study sculpture project. I have begun to disassemble an old iBook g4, and I intend to reassemble it into something else. I have also begun a series of, um, desultory drawings that I will be scanning to post pretty soon. I'm also hoping to develop a working process within the next week that will take the physical project thought to its conclusion, we'll see. Not sure what exactly its going to be yet ( probably going to involve a few trips to plastic world) but if anyone (...D.C?) has any links or pictures of useless or absurd machines I'd like to see it. Think, like Wim Delvoye's 'Cloaca Machine' or... does anyone remember who did that sculpture that is a machine that signs the artists name over and over again?

STYLE

2008-07-02T07:20:00.000-07:00

Talking about architecture in terms of 'style' is something that no architect wants to do really, because it just sounds so tacky. It takes away from the dire seriousness of architecture, and has a bouquet of triviality about it. To characterize architectural movements like modernism, minimalism, or even the neo-classical as 'styles' is to diminish the meaning or importance of the movement. Style is just not a popular word in the architectural community - such has been my experience. Also, it seems that there is some degree of arbitrariness to the notion of style- like whatever style had no logically sound point of departure of its form. For instance, to describe, say, minimalism as a style seems to abate the complex progression that lead to its identification as a movement. Anyhow, here's a brief chapter from Reiser + Umemoto's 'Atlas of Novel Techtonics': a really great book filled with lots of crazy ideas and tripped-out diagrams. But first, this is Richard Dreyfuss and his material expression of alien abduction:

"IMPERSONAL IMPRESSIONS, MATERIAL EXPRESSIONS:

While Modernism strives to express process and to foreground difficulty a material practice is in many ways more traditional. Architecture should neither express the difficulty of its production or lack difficulty. Architecture should make the difficult look easy. This stand is distinguished from a process-based endeavor which fetishises the difficult and from Pop, which is simply not difficult. Style is the expression of the overcoming of difficulty , of making the difficult appear easy. Material processes and unfoldings express an impersonal style through the interaction of their inherent resistances and tendencies. We pursue a management of this territory of material expression rather than a style linked only to personal expression of the psyche. This amounts to an anti-process argument."

-'Atlas Of Novel Techtonics', Reiser + Umemoto

Zizek has something to say about a lot of things, and here's what he has to say about mollusks:

2008-06-20T16:27:00.000-07:00

An Excerpt from "For The Know Not What They Do" by Slavoj ZIZEK

"Why is there something so uncanny about animals like shellfish, snails and tortoises? The true object of horror is not the shell without the slimy body in it, but the "naked" body without the shell. That is to say: do we not always tend to perceive the shell as too large, too heavy, too thick, in relation to the living body it houses? There is never a body which fully fits its shell; furthurmore, it is as if this body also lacks any inner skeleton which would confer on it a minimal stability and firmness: deprived of its shell, the body is an almost formless spongy entity. It is as if, in these cases, the fundamental vulnerability, the need for the safe haven of a home specific to humans, is projected back into nature, into the animal kingdom - in other words, it is as if these animals are in fact humans who carry their houses around with them.... Is not this squashy body the perfect figure of the Real? The shell without the living body within would be like the famous vase evoked by Heidegger: the symbolic frame which delineates the contours of the Real Thing, the void at its core - the uncanny thing that is there none the less "something rather than nothing" inside the shell - although this is not an adequate something, but always a defective, vulnerable, ridiculously inadequate body, the remainder of the lost Thing. So the Real is not the pre-reflexive reality of our immediate immersion into our life-world but, precisely, that which gets lost, that which the subject has to renounce, in order to become immersed into its life-world, and consequently , that which then returns in the guise of spectral apparitions."

"Apple" "PC" Distinction

2008-06-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

Hi Taryn,

We've been discussing your Independent Study in more or less detail for some time now. As you know the particulars of these discussions have led me to investigate architecture in a novel, and semantically potent context; namely, from within the conceptual framework supported by your "Apple" "PC" distinction. I know that you recognize the contemporary similarities between Apples and most PC's that might diminish the validity of arguments established on their contrast. However, your "Apple" "PC" distinction remains an invaluable taxonomy in a sense that you have established and that I am about to repeat. The disembodied processor of the PC used in the movie "Pi" (left) is just meant to show how 'personal' PC's can become.

Top-Down vs Bottom-Up

I'm currently posting this entry on an example of a personal computer which, as you say, "[exposes and glorifies its mechanics:]" a Dell XPS equipped with internal LED's that illuminate my environment, from within a metallic grey shell, at a personally chosen frequency. This ornamentation seems to support the establishment of a category which subsumes both Apple and Dell computers (an example of the contemporary similarities between Apple and PC to which I referred above.) This, however, is to miss your point.

As I understand it, the aesthetic of "Apple" is in stark contrast to that of "PC." The former communicates a top-down approach whereby the external shell is given formal priority over the internal mechanics. Whereas the latter communicates a bottom-up approach whereby the internal mechanics are given formal priority over the external shell. We've discussed the placement of ventilation outlets before, and in the context of architecture you made it clear that there are built precedents for both approaches, and, in fact, built precedents for a more general discussion of the difference between shell and interior. However, since I have most easily come to understand your study in terms of systems theory I'll be keeping the remainder of this post within reach of a "top-down - bottom-up distinction."

To begin with there is the approach promoted by Le Corbusier. In Towards A New Architecture, Corb. promotes a bottom-up approach when he reminds us of the "PLAN, which is the generator of volume and surface and which irrevocably determines everything." (Towards A New Architecture, "Three Reminders") The formal aspects of the internal partitioning, meaning their physical relationships to one another, is thus given priority over the enclosure.

This is in contrast to the more sculptural work of Gehry. Although I have no reference explicitly stating that Gehry's work is designed with a top-down approach, at glance his work seems to align itself with just this. At Bilbao Gehry's volumes and surfaces determine his plan, or at least constrain the Guggenheim's planimetric organization to lie within the confines of the structure that is necessary to enclose Gehry's volumes and erect his surfaces. The formal aspects of the enclosure are given priority over the internal partitioning. Or in other words, the shell determines the plan.

As intermediary to these two approaches Reiser and Umemoto propose "a methodology that involves both top-down and bottom-up logics operating in a feedback loop." (Atlas Of Novel Techtonics, "Part-to-Whole Relationships") In this way both "Apple" and "PC" approaches can be taken piece by piece. Or closer to your own words: the shell can hide its contents under an articulated facade while reflecting what is hidden. Perhaps Loos' Villa Muller could substantiate the practicality of endorsing such a methodology.

never thought i would have a blog, but anyhow...

2008-06-17T22:28:00.001-07:00

hello
this blog is intended to be a space where i organize thoughts, sources, images and materials that i collect while working towards the completion of my independant study course over the summer of 2008, as well as being an open forum for the few strange individuals who are interested in this study to give me some input, advice, ideas, criticism and, uh, ridicule. in short, i have proposed to write a paper for the first half and create a sculptural manifestation of some sort for the second part, based on the paper. the course proposal outlined an investigation of the nature of the material qualities ( or 'materiality' if your into that kind of thing) of different computer and laptop platforms- and look at why some computer manufacturers seemingly make attempts to either a) conceal the mechanics of the device ( think: apple) or b) expose and glorify the mechanics of it ( dell, or generic pc) . by mechanics i just mean the parts that move or work or have an essential contribution to the function of the machine- like a camera or the disk drive. all personal computers have some kind of case, or shell if you like. this shell can either reflect (conform to) the contents on the inside - or hide them under an articulated facade. i propose that this is parallel to the discourse in contemporary architecture theory about 'ornament', and minimalism.

Minimalism in the architectural context strives towards an economy of form and in so doing merges form with function. Mies van der Rohe's barcelona pavilion is an example of this. The performance of the structure is visible - no embellishment distracts from the regularity and simplicity of the structural form. This idea taken to its extreme results in something like Lloyds of London (oooh Richard Rogers Partnership ... really dig it) where there is an obvious attempt to draw attention to the 'guts' of the building, as they are mounted on the outside. In this case the function actually becomes the design, or the 'parti' in a way. Both of these salient examples represent two different architectural aesthetics. What I find interesting is, that by designing within a set of parameters that limit 'designy-ness' (for lack of a better word...or any word...is there a word that means that?? props Heidegger) one still ends up generating an aesthetic. On the other end of the spectrum, lets look at Daniel Libeskind's ROM. ( i know,i know, beating dead horse blah blah blah) This buiding is a marvel of modern engineering, yet it makes every attempt to disguise the marvelous engineering underneath a veneer of faceted drywall and, what appears to be, some sort of aluminum-clapboard-type-material. ( what is that stuff) I think that perhaps the idea is to make it appear kind of magical, some kind of trans- dimensional object with impossible geometry. A ponderous, monolithic thing that inspires many questions and answers none. Whatever. Anyway, how does this all relate to the materiality of computers: their cases, graphics, buttons ,etc? getting there...but have to go to bed at the moment...