yem's Blog

We can no longer think about architecture and occupation of space in a traditional sense because those answers are no longer relevant to the questions of today.

In an age where technology allows you to be ‘anywhere’ what does it mean to be ‘somewhere’? What is the new nature of ‘space’ and ‘occupation’? When you can occupy and experience ‘virtual space’, then what does ‘real space’ mean?
The previous tools of architecture in the traditional sense cannot engage these kinds of questions.

This emergent notion of occupation is not merely a virtual environment which would be mundane and uninteresting but rather an occupation of the means by which we would ordinarily occupy space.

This however presents its own issues which require resolution. Amongst these, the issue of subjectivity in such an environment.

If the occupation of the space is the occupation of the traditional means of occupation, and this new means of occupation is entirely subject to the interpretation of the occupier, then to what extent is the architect the creator of this space more so than the actual occupier?

Further more, if the architects ‘role’ in the creation of this new kind of space is entirely subjective, more than likely, his subjectivity will be based on his anticipations or assumptions of the nature of interactions and occupations within this space and subsequently, on his presuppositions of the nature of the ‘occupier’. Which would in a sense, make the occupier, first and foremost the creator of the architects ‘subjective’ input to this new kind of space.

Contemporary architecture has already appropriated animation software such as Maya, 3DStudio Max, gaming industry software, and other code-based scripts and algorithms.

The creation of new environments through the use of developments in Information Technology is significantly altering not only architecture itself but also the roles and tasks of the architects. Architecture can no longer be described in the terms we are familiar with since it no longer corresponds to the form of architecture as we know it; an inclusive and exclusive structure, clearly defined, with a single interior and a single exterior. For architects, the challenge of the future will increasingly lie in creatively coming to terms with hybrid environments, understanding and exploiting the design potential of digital spaces within the physical world, and redefining the role of architecture within a visually dominated culture.

This is where cryengine and similar software come into play. These gaming engines put power back into the hands of the architect, giving him the ability once again to apply his subjectivity to the design process whilst refraining from the restrictive and procedural characteristics associated with scripting and algorithmic software.

When applied appropriately, as is the case with the art house, the result is a system of interactive and dynamic mediated interfaces which permeate architectural and urban environments via sensing, processing and actuating configurations, augmenting architectural experience beyond the occupation of space based on inert materials.

The application of cryengine to the design process subsumes smaller scale interactive environments and aims for increased shorter term customization to more individualized specifications. In other words, real time manifestation of occupation.

The charging of material surfaces with embedded technologies aims to saturate the visible and visceral field of micro-environments with dynamic information graphics, lighting , translucency, reflectivity, material porosity and sound.

The question which the art house aims to answer, is the means and mode of translation, of the dynamics of the gaming engine into the physical.

Is there no other means of manifestation other than the ‘bells and whistles’ of a highly cinimatized environment or is there a more traditional means of manifestation of this dynamicism making it more accessible on a global scale?

In an earlier abstract on the topic, i mentioned a quote from Orhan Pamuk in which he describes Huzun as a ‘collective’ feeling of melancholy experienced and shared by all Istanbullus. What i neglected to mention, however, is that in the same book, ‘Istanbul: memories and the city”, Orhan dedicates an entire chapter to the interpretation of Istanbul and its numerous dialectics in black and white. According to Orhan, this exercise performs a distillation of sorts on istanbul and produces an interpretation which is the very essence of istanbul.

On carrying out this exercise i came to realize that this was insightful on several levels.
It tries to lay the inner contradictions of a notion bare, and, in turn, build a different meaning from that. It is at once a process of destruction and construction.

It brings about the possibility of a discourse which borrows from a heritage the resources necessary for the deconstruction of that heritage itself. Here that heritage being the original images of representation of istanbul.

The images to start with were an Istanbullus interpretation of Istanbul and by carrying out this exercise, i created my interpretation of that interpretation. Hence, producing something very different from what i had at the start.

Yet one cannot deny the multiplicity of dialectics present in Istanbul, so much so they are often described as innumerable. I thus selected a set of these images to each of which i ascribed one of these dialectics which i felt was vividly present in the image.

The result was an intriguing situation in which the resultant image could easily be perceived as one opposite or the other of this dialectic based on the interpretation of the viewer, almost like a rorschach, ink blot test.
Not entirely dissimilar from the Heideggerian notion of ‘under erasure’. To write 'Under erasure' is to write a word, cross it out, and then print both word and deletion. The word is inaccurate, hence the cross, yet the word is necessary.

By allowing the viewer interpret these images for himself, there is an added layer of dissociation which resulted in a richer material for me to translate into cryengine.

The sequence is;

Istanbul : Photographers interpretation : My interpretation : Viewers interpretation

Although today we live in an age of publicity, it is yet uncertain how this ‘publicity’ affects contemporary architecture positively or negatively and if either or, to what extent it does so. In addition what are the opportunities which it presents for the future?

With modernity, the site of architectural production literally moved from the street into photographs, films, publications, and exhibitions—a displacement that presupposes a new sense of space, one defined by images rather than walls.

We must consider architectural discourse as the intersection of a number of systems of representation such as drawings, models, photographs, books, films, and advertisements. This does not mean abandoning the architectural object, the art house, but rather looking at it in a different way. The art house should be understood here in the same way as all the media that frame it, as a mechanism of representation in its own right.

We must question certain ideological assumptions underlying the received view of modern architecture and reconsider the methodology of architectural criticism itself. Where conventional criticism portrays modern architecture as a high artistic practice in opposition to mass culture, the ‘art house’ embraces the emerging systems of communication that have come to define the pop-culture of today—the mass media—as the true site within which architecture of the future will be produced.

This age of publicity corresponds to a transformation in the status of the private, Hence modernity is actually the publicity of the private. The architecture of tomorrow must renegotiate the traditional relationship between publicity and privacy in a way that profoundly alters the experience of space.

However, would the potency of the idea of this new kind of space be lost to the filters of the very publicity on which it is based?

The notion of ‘newness and emergence’ as pertaining to ‘the city’ is one that has eluded architects and designers for centuries. Due to the very nature the question it would be easier to ascertain just what a new city is not, than what it is or appears to be.

Although, by definition, a city may be described as a center of population, commerce and culture; we cannot simply ascribe ‘newness’ to each of these parameters and establish a deductive definition. Else, we would refer to pretoria as a new city due to sudden and rapid influx of Zimbabwean immigrants, or Copenhagen due to its economic resurgence, or even New york because of its perpetual contribution to an ever-evolving pop-culture. Yet this is not the case.

Clearly, there is a more abstract meaning behind this notion of ‘newness’. One which i would ascribe to the experientiality of a place. By experienciality i mean all of that which we experience in a place. The sights, sounds, smells etc. a combination of which make that place or city unique unto itself. Yet this does not fully capture the notion of newness. We cannot refer to a city as new simply because we all have never been there before. There is more to it. I would argue, that occasionally, this experienciality which the city provides is unique not only unto itself, but unto the very idea of cartegorization which it would ordinarily be governed by. In other words, by its very existence, it would be an offering of an exercise in ‘trace and erasure’. It would be something brought forth by what was there before, yet not of what was there before, gloriously unique and ‘new’. Two examples of Istanbul and Lagos.

In his book, ‘Istanbul: memories and the city”, Orphan Pamuk describes this feeling, “...what i am trying to describe now is not the melancholy of Istanbul but the huzun in which we see ourselves reflected, the huzun we absorb with pride and share as a community. To feel this huzun is to see the scenes, evoke the memories , in which the city itself becomes the very illustration, the very essence of huzun.