Framing Waves

I’m primarily concerned with the idea of light and the way that the mechanism and body function in cahoots with the context of subject and light – as ways that the photographic image concerns perception and perspective. These are some of the bigger issues that I'm grappling with as I finish my paper.

Starting with Cache, he defines three formal elements of image: inflection, vector, and frame. For my discussion, the two parts I am most interested in are the vector and the frame and the relationship between the two. Specifically, what the frame consists of and how it catches the inflection and vector of wavelengths of light. To begin with the vector: if, as Cache states, “All landscapes can be described as hills and valleys, and time is said to flow” (44), it might be best to also view the vector-based wavelength of light as that philosophical extension of a full spectrum of a vector. (The photograph might link here to Bergson’s philosophy of the void: The image as a created void in the wavelength of light. Is this similar to the Eastern idea of the void, the state of all existence? If so, the photograph, the image, the void in the wave of light, should hold an embodied understanding of the spectrum of life. A photograph as a “dharma,” a point-instance of enlightenment.) This has been an issue I'm dealing with and trying to figure out.

Cache goes on to discuss the ideas of framing in the cinema, stating “The framing of emptiness within the fullness of light defines the screen…It is nether frame nor screen, but a passage from the screen to the frame; it is the architecture of the cinematographical mechanism that has become so crucial in our times" (65). What I take from this is that cinema has provided the ability for the image to link more clearly to a wavelength but still stays constant within a frame, delimited in what Hansen labels “the body.” Following this, Cache’s reading of Bergson’s concept of the image that “provides for convergence between a philosophy of the full – all images are something with a philosophy of the void – everything in only an image” might possibly support this light wavelength hypothesis. But what is the function of the present, of the viewing of the image? What is the relationship between the image, the present and reality?

Deleuze might best be employed in his explanation of how "Bergson was here working out new philosophical concepts relating to the theory of relativity: he thought relativity involved a conception of time which it didnt' itself bring out, but which was up to philosophy to construct." I think that the ideas of relativity come into play here as well, but as a wavelength more than as a frame ... unless the wavelength of light is to be "framed" only in relative terms and contexts.

--Mike vW

Reading Earth Moves

Reading Cache's Earth Moves got me thinking about how similar historical geographic and geologic readings could tell the story of the processes by which the cities we know and live in came to be as they are. Certainly each story would be unique as the life and particular qualities of each locale are generated by tendencies and events forever tied to a particular historical process of becoming. And, while each of these histories may be very telling of a city's character, the concepts and technologies effecting specific projects are informed by an increasingly global awareness. As a result, I predict that a collection of such exegeses would add a great deal to current studies on the homogenizing effects of globalization and regional efforts to maintain local identity.

Of course, such a comparative global history would be a wonderful project for, say, an entire generation of scholars, but what occurred to me to look at (as a possible term project) came from a much more homegrown sensibility. Growing up around Boston and its suburbs and moving directly to New York, I've been especially aware of the importance of hills (especially as gradients of social and economic exclusivity) and flat or flattened areas as common grounds in which socio-economic boundaries must be more artificially enforced. As a teenager, I lived on a hill on which the size and extravagance of a house varied in strict proportion to its elevation. As land was cleared further up the hill and the top was reached, I noticed the houses tended toward a new, more vertical architecture. For undergrad, I went to Tufts, a university in a town bordering Boston, with a historical narrative also centered firmly on its location at the top of a hill. In this case, the symbolism of the hill, ringed by buildings of administration and the classic liberal arts departments, had to do with the spiritual ideals of the Unitarian Universalists who founded the school and 19th century concepts of the higher learning (the ivory tower).

Reading Cache, it soon occurred to me that Boston, an old town with an ever-expanding shoreline might have something to add. In short, Boston's history, government, and symbolic social elite are centered around Beacon Hill. At the foot of this hill, the city extends in all directions, flatly, built up on reclaimed land. Boston originally had three distinct hills, but two were removed, the earth being used for landfill to expand the city. The third, Beacon Hill, reduced by half, is the only remaining hill in Boston proper. It is the site of the State House as well as some of the most expensive and exclusive property in the state. The dome of the State House, visible down the sloping central park (Boston Commons), is gilded in 23k gold. Many other structures in this densely packed area establish their status not only by the usual means of wealth and association, but by law as they have become historical landmarks. Immediately beyond the hill are architectural works of the 20th century, founded, of course, strictly on landfill.

The solidification of this citadel of Bostonian identity, power, and wealth and the expansion of Boston's landmass by land reclamation came about over centuries of economic trends, social movements, and pure accidents. For instance, the Great Boston Fire of 1872 destroyed 65 acres of the small city, allowing an effort of contemporary urban planning to reorganize parts of the city. The debris from the fire was used to further the ongoing landfill project, beginning in earnest circa 1795, continuing to fill in the harbor immediately surrounding Old Boston. [Time-lapse of the landfill] While the fishing industry has long since been pushed to surrounding suburbs, the coastline nearest the hill has become populated largely with elegant hotels and restaurants and elite marinas and yacht clubs. With the harbor filled and the entrance to the Charles River nearly choked off, the population of Boston working in the fishing and lumber industries that once supported the city are now well below 1% of the laborforce.

The more I dig, the more I find the task of constructing a compelling or complete Cache-style narrative of Boston unattainable. For instance, I've yet to get into the impact of the city's subway system, the oldest in the nation. Nor have I broached many critical periods in the life of the hill. (For instance, leading up to the civil war, the hill was divided with the social elite living on the south slope and many prominent african american leaders living on the north slope, also known as "Black Beacon Hill".) And most recently, the largest landfill yet, Logan Airport (1971-2000). While this project still appeals to me, there have simply been too many meanings and purposes applied to the use of the hill, the flattening of its surroundings, and the expansion into the bay. And none of this goes so far as to touch on defining aesthetics of the area, such as driving down Storrow Drive, beneath sea level onto Soldiers Field Road, watching joggers pass the riverside park, itself only inches above the Charles, as crew teams pass by. As much as it is perpetually in flux, there is a precise sense of what it is to be in and travel through Boston that my few hours of work can only begin to sketch. And I still haven't mentioned the Big Dig.

Brian Johnson

Thoughts on Bernard Cache's Earth Moves

Beginning his text announcing that "architectural images seem to be a good starting point" (2) for distinguishing between and navigating around the myriad visual elements that are present in our daily lives, Bernard Cache continues his text with an exploration of the philosophical and formal nature of architecture. But delegating the text to this definition - assigning Earth Moves the category of a "formal and philosophical study of architecture" - would be far too limiting, for he indeed discusses a great deal more than just forms and thought. Architecture is indeed inherently about forms and shapes, and is therefore also about geometry and mathematical interests. Cache discusses the city of Lausanne, a Swiss city located near the shores of Lake Geneva. The topography of the city has been profiled by filmmakers like Godard, who in a short film about Lausanne describes the city to have a visual problem or inconsistency that is to him Cezannian in nature - broad, disconnected spaces that make navigating the terrain problematic.



Cache chooses to profile the city of Lausanne due to its unique topography and geography that somehow dictated the construction of roads, buildings, works of art, and so on. However, Cache goes on to remind us that "in no case does the identity of a site preexist, for it is always the outcome of a construction" (15). For Cache, no destination has a predetermined future or path along which it necessarily will or must follow, an assertion that should strike a familiar chord with readers of Deleuze: one of the French philosopher's key concepts is a subscription to process ontology, which privileges being as becoming, as transformation, as constant change. Gilles Deleuze tends to prioritize difference over identity, a concept that is almost directly paraphrased in Cache's affirmation that once a being is defined or once a place has a definition, it is no longer capable of evolution. Remembering Todd May's definition of Deleuze's main question "how might one live?", Cache's own question regarding the development of architectural projects on a topographic space could possibly be summed up as "how might this space be altered?"

After attending class and discussing, albeit briefly, Cache's text and its significance to the world of critical architectural theory and Cache's relationship to Deleuze (they were contemporaries, even though Cache's text was not published until almost 12 years after it was written and only because Deleuze cross-referenced Cache's ideas in his own work, thus giving him notoriety), I found myself developing a new appreciation for Cache's approach to architecture and the interrelated realms of science, mathematics, and representational art. It was interesting to learn that not just Deleuze's ideas on the individual - or what he would call the becoming-human (so in this case, the becoming-site?) - are what influenced Cache, but also Simondon's embrace of individuation and his subsequent rejection of preformism, a rejection that he came to after his studies of physical matter led him to dismiss this idea of substance. A rejection of preformism can also be said to be a rejection of the preexisting identity of a geological site, something that Cache adamantly repeats throughout his text and his argument. I must say that this idea is quite appealing to me, especially because it expresses the possibility of unlimited potential, a potential that one would not normally assign to an inanimate object. In some ways, a rejection of preformism and an embrace of individuation opens the door for so much creativity, even if the site is already altered to a certain specification or a temporary definition of what it is at that moment; once a concrete structure is formed on a specific site, this does not mean that the structure is permanent or the only way to define the site. Instead, defining a site as capable of endless possibilities allows for impermanence, creativity, and growth in the eternal becoming-site.

You can also find this post on You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet!, my personal blog.

..Katharine R.

Space and the Architectural Image

In his chapter on the architectural image, Cache introduces the idea that “strictly speaking, architects design frames," mapping Deleuze’s concepts of the fold and of sets and subsets onto architecture. He defines architecture as “the art of introducing intervals in a territory in order to construct frames of possibility” [1]. Separation of space, then selection of vectors, and finally arrangement of interval become the functions of architecture.

While useful in many ways, this seems to me an overly simplistic definition, as if architects simply delineate inside from outside, creating a subset and choosing from what Cache terms a multiplicity of vectors to create walls, windows and buildings. Perhaps I am misinterpreting his definition, but Cache seems to mention only in passing that architecture shapes the way in which we navigate spaces. He touches on this when he says that “it is the flatness of the stage that makes choreography probable, just as it is the flatness of the stadium that increases the probability of athletics” [2]. But don’t architects, in their work, create spaces and not simply frames and subsets?

Cache’s definition of architecture certainly doesn’t preclude the idea that an architect (or architecture) creates new ways of interacting with space, it simply doesn’t emphasize what seems to me to be an integral objective of architecture. Think of the way that the design of a gallery or museum encourages you to move through it in various ways. This is not simply about function – regardless of what a building or space is meant to do, it shapes the way in which we interact with that space, presenting various (and hopefully variable) possibilities for navigating the world. I just wanted to point this out, perhaps as an addition to Cache's definition. I'm certainly not overly familiar with architectural theory and so maybe this has been written on at length already.

As an interesting supplement to my argument I thought I'd share this project I came across a while ago. A group called Magma Architecture created an installation for an exhibition of their work at the Berlinische Gallery in Berlin. I think it happened a few years ago. It's worth checking out, the article about it can be found at: http://www.dezeen.com/2009/02/11/head-in-by-magma-architecture/

-Ashley Arostegui

Notes:
[1] Bernard Cache, Earth Moves, p. 22.
[2] Ibid., 24.

Earth Moving, and Vice Versa

I barely remember my life without my skateboard. All things environmental and architectural are thrown through the lens of the concave and convex meeting of plys of Canadian maple on a polyurethane conglomerate wheel, suspended in a polyurethane tension above a street and space most likely not contoured for use by said vehicle. I couldn’t help but consider all of Cache’s writing through that same lens — there are a devastating amount of points of intersection between the ideas he posits and the seemingly simplistic manners in which the skateboarder exists with the urban, or even suburban, architectural schema.

Cache states that “fuctionalism in architecture means that the form serves the function […] there is an essential difference between the frame of probability and the effect that is produced within it” (29). Consider also, for example, the idea of inflection, in his drawings of inflection (40), are the basic foot movements employed by skateboarders in order to propel the board into the air. A roll of the foot, a sweep of the ankle and a series of frictions are an individualized interface in a primary space defined through topography and material construction. The resulting action is an art of the here and now — not separate from the “artist,” as the artist is the actor, but a conglomeration of time, space, talent, skill, geography and topography.

These ideas can also be seen in some of the more advanced artwork growing from skateboard culture. Using the detritus of broken boards, artists like Brandon Shigeta’s sculptures as not only as representations of the architectural, curvaceous, interaction of skateboarding, but also with the media themselves — the wood and the color of pressed hard rock maple.



to be cont...

--Mike v.W.

A Practical Abstraction (Vagueness)

Something that has always struck me when reading Deleuze and Guattari (as well as many of their predecessors) is the emphasis placed on a practical use of their concepts. After all, John Rajchman reminds us that Deleuze encourages “uses” and not instead “applications.” By taking this statement into consideration with what is stated by Michael Speaks in the intro to Earth Moves one can begin to see an emphasis on a kind of “practice” (or practical work-creative work) that demands a fluid and varied movement (uses) and not instead a direct and linear tracing of one stagnant concept onto another (application).

Thus, in Earth Moves (1995) Bernard Cache is developing a “use” (a practice) for concepts that have been presented by Deleuze and Guattari, not by laying them on top of predefined and established architectural premises, but by building (destroying) and developing new architectural “practices.” For Cache it is the concept of “the Fold,” which maintains an utmost importance “in the shaping of the form of practices (including techniques and logics), rather than the shaping of individual architectural forms” (xvi). Cache thus takes this concept and employs it (uses it-puts it to work-sets it in motion) “as a way to rethink the relationship between body and soul, past and present, and between furniture, architecture, and geography” (xvii). In this way Cache is using the concept of “the Fold” to deterritorialize the very territories upon which he practices.

Lastly, it should be stated that along with this “practical” method comes an appeal to the "abstract – “it seems that the more one confronts the continuum, the more important it is to remain in touch with the most abstract experience possible, even if the meaning of “abstract is not quite clear” (Cache, p. 49). This is a necessary abstraction for those who wish to actualize inflections, for those who wish to open themselves up to chance (for those who wish to ride the wave and create). Cache (like Deleuze) establishes the artist as the one capable of “working with abstraction” and consequently being able to create a formal practice amidst the vagueness that surrounds (the artist- a practitioner of the abstract).

-Vanessa Meyer