>At 11:11 PM 5/4/99 -0800, you wrote:
>> Ronald, and all, i am thinking specifically of a certain
>> conceptual problem that i see in architecture, which the
>> Movie/Re: Designs That Stink posting brings up. that is:
>>
>> what is the difference between a building portrayed in
>> film or on television or on the computer- and the building
>> that we come to know and understand through architectural
>> education and indoctrination into a certain 'way of seeing'
>> architecture. specifically:
>
>but what about the ACTUAL building? you compare one on tv with one in
>books, but those are really two instances of the same semiotic phenomenon.
>the real issue is: what is the difference between the mediated thing and
>the actual thing? and i think that difference has to do with the body.
>you can touch, smell, get dizzy by, viscerally interact with the actual
>building, while the mediated one is not so immediate. granted, this gap is
>quickly closing, but it is still fundamental and still very real. i would
>further say that there is an implicit understanding of this "shift" in many
>art/cultural currents: ritual mutilation (ron ather (?)), body art
>(piercings, tatoos), organ/body art (damien hirst), "bloody tampon" school
>of feminism, etc. and to extend it to an even more ridiculous extreme, i
>think this could be seen as movement to restore the body to a more
>prominent place in the "mind/body" continuum, since the nature of
>visual-centeredness is a tendency to intellectualize, since it is one of
>the "cool" senses (though which is more abstract, sight or hearing? isn't
>music the most abstract art?) equivalentizing the senses would
>re-emphasize the body, though are we ready to emphasize it to chromosomatic
>extents?
* been thinking about this post... the example i attempted to make was
not between a book and a movie but between an actual experience of
a building and a removed (displaced) reading of a building.
it is an intuition, not a scholar's semiologistics, that links the
studies of architecture and language together, as semiotecture, what
is defined in the glossalalia as 'semiotic architecture'...
i am pondering, by my surprise, Eisenman's rundown of the playing
field of semantics and deconstruction in 'Theorizing a New Agenda
for Architecture'.
what this brings to this discussion, i think, is a missing piece of
the puzzle inbetween 'the virtual' and 'the actual' building. that
is, where does the actual end and virtual begin..?
.. that was my intention in my previous comparison between signs
of an actual as juxtaposed with a virtual building.. what is the
difference/similarity between the two.. what oppositions create
architectural tensions..
i think the gray area, not to add more complexity where and when
more simplicity is needed- is the concept of a meme, or bit of
information that replicates itself in a struggle between life
and death.. i think that, as a sign/meme, many and much of our
"Architecture" is mediated, and that the field is probably much
more defined by 'virtual understandings' of architectural memes
than of the limited amount of experience of globe trotting tours
of great buildings (in contrast to the innumerable undiscovered
gems in everyone's backyard and God's own Junkyard).
what i propose is that the architectural *sign*, today, is more
powerful than the actual *work* itself, or, that the prescient
dimension of architecture is not based on its actual space but
of the virtual, removed space. this is to propose that a great
work of architecture is not one that is visited, but one which
shows up as an iconic sign of the times in movies and books as
representative of great/real/true Architecture with a capital A.
my question then is around the notion of the mediated architecture
as being just as real, if not even more powerful, than the actual
built work. that is, the building consists of all medias and in
all mediums in which it appears. sound narratives, newspaper
cultural critic and architectural reviews, movies, weddings,
massacres, advertisements, fingerings in history books, in
commercials, as tourist mementos, ..
the issue of the body, though, is also connected to the same
theme, and i go back to the idea of a gray area between the
virtual and actual, and back to Eisenman's insightful text on
'Architecture and the Problem of the Rhetorical Figure' where
he outlines the differences between the rhetorical and the
representational. in effect, i think his argument is thus;
[and, for ease i am not being critical of the difference given
between architecture and building..]
- when comparing architecture with language, or architecture as
language, using Eisenman's example, the word CAT, although
composed of the letters C A T, refers to something other
than the three letters cat. they represent the idea of a
cat, a small feline that likes to have its tail scratched
and roll on its back, or, look in disdain at mere humanity.
there is a certain relation between the word CAT and the
object that CAT represents in language, verbal or written,
or, i imagine, other. what the argument seems to be for me
is that there is an endless trail of these signifiers and
signified, always examining the parts and whole of an object.
- then to architecture. what is it.. where does it begin.. in
the word 'architecture' is referenced certain buildings, [in
an elitist contrast to an egalitarian sum of buildings].. if
architecture is like language, then, is it possible that, like
the word CAT, that even when getting up to the building, and
in touching the walls of bricks and their coursing, of smelling
the aged hardwoods, feeling the cool marble floors.. that, these
too, each acting like letters, do not by themselves define the
concept of architecture in their 'letterness', or 'materiality',
but instead are already at some remove away, or so intimately
near the word but beyond it, too close to see the architecture...
i would go even farther because i do not think the 'absence' of
architecture is literal enough---
if we get close enough to actual architecture, does it still
not become that virtual architecture that exists in our head,
that is, the discourse about what architecture is (mediated
signs, signifiers, and referents)? that is, getting up real
close to the materiality of architecture.. say, close as a
tunneling electron microscope, and does not architecture
physically disappear, where the atomic "space" takes up
more space than the material architecture that supposedly
we are standing in right now... is there not an annihilation,
an anti-architectural big-bang when getting microscopic about
our micro-technological/scientific understanding of the body?
that, my friend sz says, is like looking at the digital parts
or particles of an idea/thing/building, while the analog is
the thing itself, or the real and true Architecture.
that is why i compare a building on a moviescreen with one
in immediate experience and proximity.
my proposition is that the building on the screen is still
functioning as architecture in spatial-temporal, cultural,
aesthetic terms. but difference terms. terms of the image
in the mind, building as meme.
that is, the two events ultimately get mediated in our brains.
a certain thing is concluded to be/come 'Architecture', and
it is registered in an ever d-evolving pattern of electro-
chemical reactions in the brainscape that "represent" the
true (Platonic Ideal) concept of Architecture.
that 'actual' architecture is actually just as virtual as
a building on a moviescreen. it is an eternal reflection-
projection of communicative signs and symbols, ie- language.
[is there architecture without language?]
thus, my point:
like the bits of a building when overexposed in the harsh
light of particulate criticism, decon'ing the whole in its
parts in an endless play of interpretation, are those bits
of brick, clay, wood, metal, and plastic not similar to the
bits of light/energy that 're-materialize the building on
the screen' in a external projection (from the internal
reflection of the brain)..?
bc
>>1 in terms of a referent (building), the signifier (image of
>> the building on moviescreen), and the signified (the idea of
>> the building).. how is this different, than, say:
>>
>>2 a building (referent), the image of the building (signifier),
>> and the idea of the building in the brain (signified)..
>>
>> [the above is my basic attempt at applying semiotic language
>> which could be wrong, very very wrong]
>>
>> although the events may seem identical, i would bargain to
>> say that the movietheater building is closer to separating
>> the 'sign' function of architecture much moreso than is
>> the traditional understanding of architecture.
>>
>> my acid-test is the White House as sign-symbol system. it
>> has to be the most media-saturated piece of architecture
>> ever built, an icon far outweighing the closest contender.
>>
>> but, it is not the architecture per se, as building, but
>> the architectural building as sign that carries the weight
>> of its impact. that is to say; it's form, materiality, use
>> of light, structure- all are to be reinterpreted differently
>> in this new, electronic light of the TV camera and newscast.
>>
>> i think that it needs to be explained somehow, the phenomenon...
>
>plato and aristotle already did it - the difference between being and seeming.
>
>>
>>bc
>>
>>
>Ronald Evitts
>90-96 Stanton St. 3A
>New York, NY 10002
>212-674-6329
___________________________________________________________
a r c h i t e x t u r e z : an online community for hacking
and cracking the architectural code - www.architexturez.com
g l o s s a l a l i a : the design-l architectural glossary
submit your word-concepts www.architexturez.com/glossalalia
s i t e : visit bc's portfolio - www.architexturez.com/site
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
>> Ronald, and all, i am thinking specifically of a certain
>> conceptual problem that i see in architecture, which the
>> Movie/Re: Designs That Stink posting brings up. that is:
>>
>> what is the difference between a building portrayed in
>> film or on television or on the computer- and the building
>> that we come to know and understand through architectural
>> education and indoctrination into a certain 'way of seeing'
>> architecture. specifically:
>
>but what about the ACTUAL building? you compare one on tv with one in
>books, but those are really two instances of the same semiotic phenomenon.
>the real issue is: what is the difference between the mediated thing and
>the actual thing? and i think that difference has to do with the body.
>you can touch, smell, get dizzy by, viscerally interact with the actual
>building, while the mediated one is not so immediate. granted, this gap is
>quickly closing, but it is still fundamental and still very real. i would
>further say that there is an implicit understanding of this "shift" in many
>art/cultural currents: ritual mutilation (ron ather (?)), body art
>(piercings, tatoos), organ/body art (damien hirst), "bloody tampon" school
>of feminism, etc. and to extend it to an even more ridiculous extreme, i
>think this could be seen as movement to restore the body to a more
>prominent place in the "mind/body" continuum, since the nature of
>visual-centeredness is a tendency to intellectualize, since it is one of
>the "cool" senses (though which is more abstract, sight or hearing? isn't
>music the most abstract art?) equivalentizing the senses would
>re-emphasize the body, though are we ready to emphasize it to chromosomatic
>extents?
* been thinking about this post... the example i attempted to make was
not between a book and a movie but between an actual experience of
a building and a removed (displaced) reading of a building.
it is an intuition, not a scholar's semiologistics, that links the
studies of architecture and language together, as semiotecture, what
is defined in the glossalalia as 'semiotic architecture'...
i am pondering, by my surprise, Eisenman's rundown of the playing
field of semantics and deconstruction in 'Theorizing a New Agenda
for Architecture'.
what this brings to this discussion, i think, is a missing piece of
the puzzle inbetween 'the virtual' and 'the actual' building. that
is, where does the actual end and virtual begin..?
.. that was my intention in my previous comparison between signs
of an actual as juxtaposed with a virtual building.. what is the
difference/similarity between the two.. what oppositions create
architectural tensions..
i think the gray area, not to add more complexity where and when
more simplicity is needed- is the concept of a meme, or bit of
information that replicates itself in a struggle between life
and death.. i think that, as a sign/meme, many and much of our
"Architecture" is mediated, and that the field is probably much
more defined by 'virtual understandings' of architectural memes
than of the limited amount of experience of globe trotting tours
of great buildings (in contrast to the innumerable undiscovered
gems in everyone's backyard and God's own Junkyard).
what i propose is that the architectural *sign*, today, is more
powerful than the actual *work* itself, or, that the prescient
dimension of architecture is not based on its actual space but
of the virtual, removed space. this is to propose that a great
work of architecture is not one that is visited, but one which
shows up as an iconic sign of the times in movies and books as
representative of great/real/true Architecture with a capital A.
my question then is around the notion of the mediated architecture
as being just as real, if not even more powerful, than the actual
built work. that is, the building consists of all medias and in
all mediums in which it appears. sound narratives, newspaper
cultural critic and architectural reviews, movies, weddings,
massacres, advertisements, fingerings in history books, in
commercials, as tourist mementos, ..
the issue of the body, though, is also connected to the same
theme, and i go back to the idea of a gray area between the
virtual and actual, and back to Eisenman's insightful text on
'Architecture and the Problem of the Rhetorical Figure' where
he outlines the differences between the rhetorical and the
representational. in effect, i think his argument is thus;
[and, for ease i am not being critical of the difference given
between architecture and building..]
- when comparing architecture with language, or architecture as
language, using Eisenman's example, the word CAT, although
composed of the letters C A T, refers to something other
than the three letters cat. they represent the idea of a
cat, a small feline that likes to have its tail scratched
and roll on its back, or, look in disdain at mere humanity.
there is a certain relation between the word CAT and the
object that CAT represents in language, verbal or written,
or, i imagine, other. what the argument seems to be for me
is that there is an endless trail of these signifiers and
signified, always examining the parts and whole of an object.
- then to architecture. what is it.. where does it begin.. in
the word 'architecture' is referenced certain buildings, [in
an elitist contrast to an egalitarian sum of buildings].. if
architecture is like language, then, is it possible that, like
the word CAT, that even when getting up to the building, and
in touching the walls of bricks and their coursing, of smelling
the aged hardwoods, feeling the cool marble floors.. that, these
too, each acting like letters, do not by themselves define the
concept of architecture in their 'letterness', or 'materiality',
but instead are already at some remove away, or so intimately
near the word but beyond it, too close to see the architecture...
i would go even farther because i do not think the 'absence' of
architecture is literal enough---
if we get close enough to actual architecture, does it still
not become that virtual architecture that exists in our head,
that is, the discourse about what architecture is (mediated
signs, signifiers, and referents)? that is, getting up real
close to the materiality of architecture.. say, close as a
tunneling electron microscope, and does not architecture
physically disappear, where the atomic "space" takes up
more space than the material architecture that supposedly
we are standing in right now... is there not an annihilation,
an anti-architectural big-bang when getting microscopic about
our micro-technological/scientific understanding of the body?
that, my friend sz says, is like looking at the digital parts
or particles of an idea/thing/building, while the analog is
the thing itself, or the real and true Architecture.
that is why i compare a building on a moviescreen with one
in immediate experience and proximity.
my proposition is that the building on the screen is still
functioning as architecture in spatial-temporal, cultural,
aesthetic terms. but difference terms. terms of the image
in the mind, building as meme.
that is, the two events ultimately get mediated in our brains.
a certain thing is concluded to be/come 'Architecture', and
it is registered in an ever d-evolving pattern of electro-
chemical reactions in the brainscape that "represent" the
true (Platonic Ideal) concept of Architecture.
that 'actual' architecture is actually just as virtual as
a building on a moviescreen. it is an eternal reflection-
projection of communicative signs and symbols, ie- language.
[is there architecture without language?]
thus, my point:
like the bits of a building when overexposed in the harsh
light of particulate criticism, decon'ing the whole in its
parts in an endless play of interpretation, are those bits
of brick, clay, wood, metal, and plastic not similar to the
bits of light/energy that 're-materialize the building on
the screen' in a external projection (from the internal
reflection of the brain)..?
bc
>>1 in terms of a referent (building), the signifier (image of
>> the building on moviescreen), and the signified (the idea of
>> the building).. how is this different, than, say:
>>
>>2 a building (referent), the image of the building (signifier),
>> and the idea of the building in the brain (signified)..
>>
>> [the above is my basic attempt at applying semiotic language
>> which could be wrong, very very wrong]
>>
>> although the events may seem identical, i would bargain to
>> say that the movietheater building is closer to separating
>> the 'sign' function of architecture much moreso than is
>> the traditional understanding of architecture.
>>
>> my acid-test is the White House as sign-symbol system. it
>> has to be the most media-saturated piece of architecture
>> ever built, an icon far outweighing the closest contender.
>>
>> but, it is not the architecture per se, as building, but
>> the architectural building as sign that carries the weight
>> of its impact. that is to say; it's form, materiality, use
>> of light, structure- all are to be reinterpreted differently
>> in this new, electronic light of the TV camera and newscast.
>>
>> i think that it needs to be explained somehow, the phenomenon...
>
>plato and aristotle already did it - the difference between being and seeming.
>
>>
>>bc
>>
>>
>Ronald Evitts
>90-96 Stanton St. 3A
>New York, NY 10002
>212-674-6329
___________________________________________________________
a r c h i t e x t u r e z : an online community for hacking
and cracking the architectural code - www.architexturez.com
g l o s s a l a l i a : the design-l architectural glossary
submit your word-concepts www.architexturez.com/glossalalia
s i t e : visit bc's portfolio - www.architexturez.com/site
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////