LIANA GHEORGHE ARCHITECTURE

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4. Perceived/ apparent/ illusory

 

What we see does it truly exist?

 

Perceived Space

 

Man first imagines the space which is surrounding him and not he physical objects which surrounds, which stand for symbolic meaning. (...) Architecture is art when the design of space is more important than the design of the object. The spatial purpose is the soul of architectural creation. ( August Schmarsow, Barock und Rokoko. Eine Kritische Auseinandersetzunguber das Malerische in der Architektur, Leipzig, Verlag S. Hirzel, p 6-7)

 

 

The image of space which every individual develops it is primary based on the individual's experience, on his memory. Perception is not neutral; we always compare recent experiences with the previous ones which we assimilate. We can not generalize the perception effects because each individual experienced something different in his daily life and therefore the space in which a group of people is located is different for each individual.

This is the reason for which when we are asked to define the figure in a picture with ambiguity regarding the figure-background ratio we tend to choose the figure which offers us a sort of familiarity. The subject not only interacts and develops itself in space but through the space that offered him identity, experiences and feelings.

In the era where the visual has captivate the environment, and distance, the spatial vector is abolished by fast trains or plains movement, space has straiten itself, distances are now measured in time. However, visual perception is not the only spatial receiver, to perceive is to feel with the help of senses and mind, through reflection, which means to pass through consciousness and memory filter the external inputs. Which means, that the visual perception only sketches the experience, the rest of the 'image' is given by an ensemble of olfactory, acoustic and tactile senses. The space that surrounds us is harsh, smooth, slippery, warm or cold, has the smell of spring or becomes suffocating, resonates at our movement or it obstructs every sound. All of these space perceptions which change according to the individual psychological state of mind develop a rich spatial image, much more complete than a mental photography.

Spatiality is a corporeal and also complex experience. This can be proven by placing an individual inside a room in complete dark or using a blind subject. Despite the loss of visual sense, the person is able to guide himself in the horizontal plan after he identified some landmarks and he memorized his displacement according to the space boundaries or the discovered landmarks. As beings we do not have to memorize continuous all the fragments in order to gain a total idea of the space which we visit or which we inhabit, (Pierre von Meiss, Elements of Architecture. From Form to Place, London. VNR International, p 101) we can only navigate and through our corporeal experience we can uncover its meanings.

 

Apparent Space

 

Space is a corporeal experience; however Foucault introduces an element which realizes a false corporeal introduction into an other space, even though our experience is in the real space. This element, which deceives reality, is the mirror. First of all, the mirror is a utopia, is without place. It places the subject into an unreal space, where he does not exist, he sees himself where he is not, and it also closes a space into a surface with a depth beyond the real boundary. Secondly, it is also a heterotopia, because the mirror truly exist and has a retrospective effect concerning the place I  occupy; through the mirror I discover that I am absent from the place I am because I see myself in it. (Michael Foucault, Dits et ecrits, vol. IV, Gallimard, p 754)

The mirror defines another world, a reversed worldwhich does not have a place and which nevertheless has a place in reality, implicates a sort of corporeal experience where the body does not exist, it represents the starting point for all duplications. It is often use for creating spatial mirages, for expanding the perspective horizon where space ends and for diverse atmospheric effects which creates identity to the space.

After trompe l'oeil, the first surface element (Ancient Rome, developed in Baroque) which deceived space, the perspective (often used in theatre sets) and the mirror are the second and third surface elements that become exceptions from the space definition. Today we can also add to this discussion the cinema and computer screen. 

New XVII century approaches replaced a surface and clear architecture, an architecture of regularity, of tectonics and closed space of Renaissance to an architecture of depth and ambiguity defined by Baroque. The space seems lost, limitless, undefined, without a clear boundary, the view is towards infinity. This effects which dissolve the boundary are realized by using trompe l'oeil technique and the perspective, in this way the observer identifies himself with the "space" beyond the wall, the utopian space. Painting refused to be static and because of the desire for dynamism it emphasizes more and more the infinite horizon and the movement through powerful contrasts of light and shadow, saturated colours but much more with the usage of curved lines and diagonals, which besides dynamism offers certain fluidity. The Baroque space is a dynamic space, a vibrant one, a space of complexity and dispute- the unity of opposites, like the modern space or more like the contemporary one which replaces the tactile with the visual. (Anthony Vidler, Warped Space. Art, Architecture and Anxiety in Modern Culture, Massachusetts, The MIT Press, 2000, p 94)

 

Illusory Space

 

If Baroque created the infinite through the perspective and freeze time, contemporary architecture can create the "infinite space" through projections and recreate "temporal infinity" by retelling the history.

The remarkable spatial achievements from Baroque can still be found today in theatre or performance world. By using light and shadow contrasts, the scenographer recreates a world beyond the bi-dimensional stage set. The world of illusion, defined in physical space achieves a certain depth, when the individual internalizes the visual images. Through introspection these images receive a certain meaning in the receiver subconscious.

The theatre reality differs from the ordinary one, it is an abstract and artificial reality that suggests life. The set's abstract character leaves place for the spectator's interpretation and imagination  to complete the "final image" with his visual memory and experience. The art of theatre sends the spectator to introspection, he confronts himself with his intimacy and consciousness, in this way the theatre achieves the climax of a performance by shifting from an exterior and physic space towards an interior and psychological one.

Even  though, the theatre stage has a certain distance from the spectator paradoxically it brings the spectator close through introspection; the spectator becomes part of the scene as an observer. The art of performance is based on the spectator's ability to imagine, it challenges his experience and visual memory, by only suggesting space and time. Theatre, besides all other arts, is very generous through its suggesting power. A detail set into light helps the spectator imagine and this departure in the world of imagination can be done with excellent precision; maybe, only music can leave more freedom to the receiver's imagination. (Liviu Ciulei, Cu gandiri si cu imagini, Bucuresti, Igloo Media, 2009, p 51) For this reason, theatre it is a heterotopy, because it recreates the imaginary space through real means, it is a time and space "machine", it is at the same time alike and always different. Theatre is like a clock, with precise mechanisms, this time psychological ones which reveals an illusion, a "seemingly time".

Opposite to theatre but at the same time alike is the art of cinema. The cinema is also a heterotopy, it shows another space or more precisely it sends us into a different space from the one in which we physical are.

The cinema screen, like the mirror, creates an universe beyond surface, but unlike mirror which shows a reverse reality but which can be touched in the real space, the screen portrays an unreachable space but also reachable through introspection. The space of the cinema expands and straitens itself it vibrates with the camera movement from close up towards wide shot, it metamorphoses with the sound and frame change. The spectator it is brought to a spatial-temporal and emotional vortex, built by movement images and sound.

If perspective is defined by a limited, bi-dimensional, finite and closed space, conceived according to Euclidian geometry, the film receives the 3rd dimension beyond surface, moreover we can talk about the 4th dimension, the temporal one, by the images quality to modify in time speeding up or slowing the movement. Gilles Deleuze talks about two types of images: the movement image developed till The Second World War and the time image where today's cinema industry develops.

.... a change took place in the relation image-movement, we no longer talk about time which is in relation with movement, but about the anomalies of movement which are dependent of time. (Gilles Deleuze, cinema 1: The Movement Image, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986) If the close-up brings the space closer and it extends it with a continuous camera movement, by rotating, dissolving or redefining it, the slow-motion, expands time, extends movement and stretches time.

In cinema, the space is weaved and revealed through montage, maybe the most important discovery of the XIX century, which transformed the static image into a dynamic one, the finite space of photography into the "infinite" space of projection.

The cinema space, alike the theatre space it is in a continuous relationship with the spectator, it is a space which needs to be deciphered. The camera managed to introduce the unconscious optics and psychoanalysis in some involuntary impulses. Cinema is a laboratory. Cinema is a science. Scientists work very much as filmmakers. Filmmakers use cinema as a tool, like scientist's instrument. They ask questions about human existence, human nature, and the world. The camera is an anthropological instrument. If it is not that, then it does not interest me. (eefb.org, interview Cristi Puiu: About Art, Cinema and Acting, July 2011) The camera is a tool to analyse the individual's development in space, moreover it reveals his interior space through zooming. The cinema universe evolves beyond the screen, inside the introverted space of the viewer, bringing him inside a psychological experiment based on sensorial experiences.

The art of cinema succeed to introduce (experience) space where this no longer existed and to use architecture as a matrix in its development, using architecture's knowledge about spatiality and define it as character which "lives" with the film. The multidimensional and paradoxical experience plus the temporal one has made the cinema the art of space,  it's ancestor is the architecture. In Montage and Architecture, Eisenstein establishes 2 ways of defining visual space: the cinema eye, where the viewer follows an imaginary line through visual perception and introspection- the space is dynamic and revealed from different angles in front of a motionless spectator; and the architectural eye where the spectator has the ability to move inside the space and observe, he has an independent perception (it does not depend on the director) and he is spatially active. This comparison between the dynamic cinema space and the static architectural one emphasizes even more the statement that architecture is cinema's ancestor. Where painting could not portray an object in its multidimensionality, the camera solved this problem by projecting on a surface, after it assimilated the knowledge of space in architecture. Because image plays such an important role, what is left is to discover the illusory dynamic space where the viewer can move free inside, thing that started developing today with combining three-dimensional projections (holograms) with individual dynamics, obtaining a complex spatial-temporal experience.

We live in a world governed by spectacle, and this world offers us an illusion of reality, the perceived world has become superior to reality. The power that governs society is the power of the spectacle, of the image that summarizes reality. Mass-media has become increasingly powerful; it influences the space that we live in through the changes that it brings to reality. These changes refer to the social space dynamics, the straiten of distances in the circulation of information (space shrinks through the information circulation) and the importance of information. The spectacle is not a collection of images; it represents a social relation between people, intermediated by images. (Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, New York, 2002, 4th paragraph) For this reason the spectacle is proportional to perception and the individual's ability to communicate information.

In it's particular manifestations: news, commercials, entertainment, and the spectacle represents life's prevailing model. The spectacle is in every moment of our lives, through broadcastings, news and shows which imitate reality, making them superior and believable through the fact that they are broadcasted live. Through form and content, the spectacle is an evidence of the conditions and purpose of the existing system. All of these concepts clear by meaning have been transformed in there opposites: reality is in the spectacle and the spectacle is real. This mutual alienation represents the essence and support of today's society. (Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, New York, 2002, 6th paragraph) 

If reality is governed by images, and the space in which we develop ourselves is influenced by these ones, it means that the space metamorphoses itself, becomes pliable at the changes brought to the spectacle. The world in which we exist and in which we are both actors and spectators is directed by mass-media. The set of this world, as in theatre is built only on illusions. The era in which we think, move, feel, is built on appearance instead of essence, either the spectator or actor is left to imagine reality under the filtered information influences through the augmented reality. The space ceases to be real, it becomes illusory and at the same time narrative, it changes with every news, information, it folds and brings the viewer closer to the event.

Given the image's importance in the world that we live in, we can conclude to the importance of the image in defining space; the space changes with every visual in-put. the boundary is not solid anymore, space is beyond image, and its significance and identity it is outlined with the information.

 

5. Virtual space/ digital space/ algorithmic architecture

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.(Alfred North Whitehead)

 

Jean Baudrillard says that in the XX century the "perfect crime" has been committed, the murder of reality.

As we uncovered in the previous chapter, we live in a world of appearances, being continuously connected to images and information. This world linked in a continuously network is spatial (because it links different places on Earth) and non-spatial (because it is summarized by a binary language- "0" and "1").If space is defined by a series of relations, then we can talk about virtual space. But the issue regarding virtual space is linked to the other space features, the fact that the space has boundary and implies human existence.

Starting from the definition of space as having boundaries, we ask whether virtual space is infinite or finite? Virtual space is a space of information, based on the binary code "0" and "1", information has no spatiality because it is not defined by three-dimensional vectors. Space can be translated in binary code with a "0" and "1" array (0111001101110000011000010110001101100101), which means that virtual space is a bi-dimensional space- a non-space. This type of space is characterized by the fact that it does not exist (it does not have a place) and still it exists (in the interface, in bi-dimensionality), it is without time because it does not age and still it is influenced by this one (by the speed of new information), it is a space of geometry (three-dimensional representations) without geometry. Because its ambiguous character it is impossible to establish its finiteness 
because it is a space of continuous relations- interactions. Virtual space is within the matrix, the network, a space without time and place, with a powerful impact on social and political level (because of the information it contains), without it's own history, suspended outside time without offering a path to follow.

Virtual space is a space of information, a narrative space which translates the spatial and temporal reality into non-spatial and timeless information, and this thing is shown by the usage of social networks. We live in the era of global network, of virtual relations, of information addiction, which means that we are in an open, dynamic space which is based on permanent activity, on interactivity. The network is a system which resemblance the nervous system that receives a number of in-puts (information) and it distributes it to its users. Depending on the importance of the information, this can spread at global level, the virtual space becomes more important and dynamic than the reality itself (the 09.11 attacks; the riots in Tahir Square, Egipt in 2011). Actually, the virtual space it is ruled by a logical fluidity, it is nowhere in particular but at the same time is everywhere, a fundamental and deeply anti-spatial concept which became an attraction for all domains. "Reality" is in the virtual space of information; the real reality became an illusion.

In this virtual reality we ask whether it can become a body experience, by moving inside the non-space, the information space. Virtual space it is defined by algorithms and three-dimenional rules establish in the XVIII and XIX century in perspective. This space, used in the computer design is defined by algorithms which keeps the proportion of the object by transforming it into an information matrix. In this matrix, there is no room for subjectivity, mathematics does not allow it, the perspective it is objective because was realized by a tool which does not allow errors, but paradoxical it is subjective, because in reality we do not see the space as described on the computer screen. In this case, the screen is not an image, and definitely not a replacement window, but an ambiguous and not determined placement of the subject. (Anthony Vidler, Warped Space. Art, Architecture and Anxiety in Modern Culture, Massachusetts, The MIT Press, 2000, p 8)

The computer perspective can not replace the real position of the viewer because in non-space there is no fixed point of the object or user.

We can say that during time there were several relations space-identity based on the image. If in Renaissance and Baroque the subject was in the perspective-space, in modernism the subject is in a montage-space, followed by contemporary space where the individual is expelled from the spatial relation, because the space where the "reality" of today develops is a non-space. These interpretations are defined by different historical identities and different spatial experiences, where the image of a space represents the seemingly effect. The question of the corporeality of this type of space should be demonstrated and whether it can receive the individual stimuli.

In our technological evolution we become more aware of the possibilities in spatial perception and augmentation because of the numerous tools and digital resources we invent. These digital tools are now used in the computer design where it searches for new forms, starting from the same mathematic structure that defines virtual space.

Algorithmic architecture creates a new aesthetics, based on a set of instructions inspired from the internal logic of morphological processes, built upon coherence and diversity. Another paradox is that the architecture, well-known as parametric, uses a tool with abstract notions ("0" and "1") which are totally different from the natural world that gets inspired from and tries to realize a symbiosis with this one. The purpose of this architecture, called evolutionary architecture, is to realize in the built environment the symbiotic behaviour and the metabolic equilibrium which we find in the natural world. The instruction code, the algorithm used in order to generate the form represents the concept encryption which evolves, suffers mutations when new in-puts change its configuration inside the virtual space. Even if the rule is simple, it can result in a visual complexity, which built in reality can be highly appreciated because of the numerous relations that rise inside the interior space. New forms arise, different from the perfect modern geometry but which explore more the curve and diagonal as the Baroque.

Contemporary architecture is an architecture of fluidity, based on movement, interaction, torsion, expansion, flow or dematerialization. All this movements inside the interior space emphasizes on the changes and instability of forms which flow inside the defined space. Forms are "proto-geometric", "inaccurate" like blobs, "foldable" and "fluid" deformed or broken in order to enhance complexity or to represent the interior-exterior conflict. The symbiosis between architecture and the computer logic generates new species like an evolutionary Darwinian model.

This model is a set of abstractions, the individual inside the equation is only a parameter, deprived of identity and dissolved in the mass. The body and eye movement is reduced to the machine's dynamic, the movement is generalized. The real evolution in spatial experience is the possibility of sending signals without corporeal displacement.(Peter Weibel, Architecture- From Location to Non-Location, From Presence to Absence- Disappearing Architecture from Real to Virtual to Quantum, edited by Georg Flachbart; Peter Weibel, Berlin, Birkhauser, 2005, p 264) When signals, messages could travel through electromagnetic waves or cables, the development of spatial experience without corporeal displacement has started. The segregation between the message and the messenger has introduced the debate on non-location. (Peter Weibel, Architecture- From Location to Non-Location, From Presence to Absence- Disappearing Architecture from Real to Virtual to Quantum, edited by Georg Flachbart; Peter Weibel, Berlin, Birkhauser, 2005, p 267) We need a totally new definition of the space concept, but especially a definition for the virtual dynamic space- the non-space characterized by immateriality and non-location.

When COOP HIMMEL(B)LAU group said that architecture starts beyond space or that architecture starts where space ends, it means that contemporary architecture starts at the boundary between the physical experimented space and the non-space, the virtual one.

Today, in order to increase the amount of stimuli, a mixture between the real and virtual space has been developed, resulting in a meta-reality enriched by information, creating a space of knowledge. Because we are constantly surrounded by tools of the digital world, the new approaches try to integrate sensory, cognitive and cultural experiences into perceivable, performable and mobile interfaces. The virtual reality receives inputs, information and sends a reply in the physical space, resulting in a continuous communication with the individual and space. The impossible seems realizable- by the introduction of sensory perception and the movement inside the information space, body experience in a mix environment, a real-virtual space. The space models and folds after exterior in-puts, it becomes sensitive and reacts according to preset parameters, the space interacts with the individual through the dynamics of information. This space "awareness" can be achieved only after analysing the human perception.

The mix reality implies both knowing the individual that interacts with the space and the discovery of the information assembled in this configuration. This is a choreographed space, with a dynamic that replies to the individuals chorography but which knows preset answers, algorithms introduced in the information system by the programmer. From here the architect changes its position from designing the shape towards designing a set of parameters that resemble a game, leaving the individual's freedom to model the real-virtual space.

Mix reality offers people the possibility of exploring knowledge spaces, to play an active role in simulation, to try diverse things, to explore the consequences and finally to understand complex systems. (Torsten Frohlich; Rolf Kruse, Cybernarium a Mixed reality- Edutainment Center- Disappearing Architecture from Real to Virtual to Quantum, edited by Georg Flachbart; Peter Weibel, Berlin, Birkhauser, 2005, p 264) 

To conclude, this virtual space, non-space becomes more important in the physical reality, because it accentuates more and more the subtlety of the boundary and that of the space concept. The world in which we live develops ambiguities by itself, because it is a world based on visual, and the visual is deceivable. We find ourselves at the edge between reality and illusion and we like more and more to live on the edge because it offers us a more complex image and the individual always seeks for something new, surprising.

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Complete Bibliography:

 

Archipenko, Alexander, Fifty Creative Years, New York, Tekne, 1958

Arnheim, Rudolf, The Dynamics of Architectural Form, Berkeley, Univerity of  California Press, 1977

Ciulei, Liviu, Cu gandiri si cu imagini, Bucuresti, Igloo Media, 2009

Debord, Guy, The Society of the Spectacle, New York, 2002

Debord, Guy, Reflections sur l’ architecture, Amsterdam, Gallimard, 2006

Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 1: The Movement Image, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986, p IX

Droz, Remy, Erreurs, mensonges, approximations et autres verites- Le genre humain, 1983

Eisenstein, Sergei, Montage and Architecture, Selected Works, vol 2, Towards Theory of Montage, London, BFI Publishing, 1991

Flachbart, Georg; Weibel, Peter, Disappearing Architecture from Real to Virtual to Quantum, Berlin, Birkhauser, 2005

Foucault, Michael, Dits et ecrits, vol. IV, Gallimard

Frazer, John, An Evolutionary Architecture, London, Ed. Architectural Association, 1995

Giedion, Sigfried, Space, Time and Architecture- The Growth of a New Tradition,  London, Oxford University Press, 5th Edition, 196

Heidegger, Martin, Building, Dwelling and Thinking, in Poetry, Language, Thought, New York, Harper and Row, 1971

Ioan, Augustin, Lost in Space, Bucuresti, Colegiul Noua Europa, 2003

Leach, Neil, Anestetica, Bucuresti, Paideia, 1999

Leach, Neil, Camuflaj, Bucuresti, Paideia, 2009

Liiceanu, Gabriel, Despre limita, Bucuresti, Humanitas, 1994

Meiss, Pierre von, Elements of Architecture. From Form to Place, London, VNR International

Mihali, Ciprian, ALTfel de spatii, Ed. Paideia, Bucuresti, 2001

Norberg-Schulz, Christian, Genius Loci. Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, New York, Rizzoli, 1980

Schmarsow, August, Barock und Rokoko. Eine Kritische Auseinandersetzunguber das Malerische in der Architektur, Leipzig, Verlag S. Hirzel

Scott, Geoffrey, The Architecture of Humanism, London, Constable & Company, 1914

Simmel, Georg, The Sociology of Space- Simmel on Culture, London, Sage Publications, 1997

Stanciu, Iulia, Locuri intermediare. Arii de mediere-arii vagi, Bucuresti, Editura Universitara “Ion Mincu”, 2007

Vidler, Anthony, Warped Space. Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture, Massachusetts, The MIT Press, 2000

Vidler, Anthony, Architecture between Spectacle and Use, New Haven & London, Yale University Press, 2005

 

Dictionaries:

• Larousse du XXe siecle, Paris, Librarie Larousse, 1930

• Dictionar de Simboluri si Arhetipuri Culturale, Timisoara, Amarcord, 1994

• Webster’s Encyclopedia Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, New York, Gramercy Books, 1994

• Dictionnaire de l'urbanisme et de l'aménagement, Paris : Presses universitaires de France, 2000

• Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced Architecture, Barcelona, ACTAR, 2003

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Webography:

http://dexonline.ro/

http://eefb.org/archive/july-2011/interview-with-cristi-puiu/puiu-about-art-cinema-

http://www.mas.caad.arch.ethz.ch