Dialogues: Contemporary Theory Final

Get real! But being real does not exist!
The chain of signifier have created merely all the value or concept nominated in every fields. Among many creation, some appear extremely superficial there rise counter movement attempting to draw closer to the ideal of being honestly pure or absolute true. However there could never be attained to the unquestionable level. We can never begin anything out of nothing, for the truth that there is none, but rather artificially perceived concept that draw an initiatives in creating something.

The situation took place within the faculty’s hallway after school. This is the conversation between two classmates. Here its goes...

A: Hey, How you doing? want to join my party tonight?

B: yeah sure, wher,,,,

A: Suck it ......Nerd!?

B: That presupposition exists merely only as your opinion toward my being.

A: sure! look at all these girls I have got,

B: These females is only perceived your existence superficially. 

A: huh? what have you been smoking?

B: The nominating reasons for your popularity underlies by society futility,

A: Yeah bitch!, That’s why I don’t care about anyone or anything. 

B: No! It is just your attempt. You appears as a hardass rebel who doesn’t give a shit about  anything, wear whatever you want to wear, and say whatever you want to say. 

If everyone act just like you do, then you perhaps will move on and be some style else, just 

any posers do. Within few year,s you perhaps get a goggly glasses and tight collar shirt because everyone is now starting to dress like you do right now.

But the truth is that you are the person that care too much of public opinion, The person who doesn’t care what society think about them are the one who dress like that.

**** NERD IMAGE ****
They are wearing saggy pants, because it makes them comfortable sitting through long hours of class.

They are carrying huge fuckin refrigerator-like bags because that’s what they need and make their lives easier.

Now, tell me about your tightass pants and how to take a piss. Who is the bitch now?

A: Fine, you want to get academic with me right, Bitch? What you are saying is that

appearance absolutely have nothing to do with the value of its existence?. why do u join this faculty then? we are all about forms and senses in which you just claimed strongly have nothing to do with the true nature of it.

What is your strongly theorized opinion on Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier? Are you telling that one of greatest architecture in the world exists merely through superficial appearance supporting its claim for modernism? 

B: I saw it as realized simulacrum of the promising lies, the manifestation of virtuality in forms. What do u know its facade and surfaces. If Le Corbusier would want to be truly honest why don’t he leave the surface pure concreted with the traces of its reinforced steels. This apply to almost all of modern architects. Let’s say all the city on earth would be as Chadigarh, then it would exist with no significances. Always dystopia which leads to promising news concept (Utopia) which couldn’t be made significantly or even considered exist without its anti-theisis. (Heterotopia). 

A:  So you are considering all these great works deceits? 

B: Not exactly, I only means that all the conceptions are only hyperreality optimized into simulacrum.

A: Then what kind of thing would be so genuinely true, pure,  pristine and honest as you could disregards all these great works as whatever the hell you are saying. 

B: There is none, as mentioned by Jean Baudrillard ‘The silmulacrum is never that which conceals the truth, it is the truth which conceal that there is none. The simulacrum is true’ 

A: Yeah? What about our senses you can’t deny that my fist, which is about to be put right into your faces is not real? 

(Semiotics) 

B: It is not, It exist only through my perception of visual and senses.

A: So why don’t you let me leave some of indexical signs to your iconic signs of your existence?

Later on at Sarm yarn

A: Ah! man, We won’t be drinking like this by the next year. Chula gonna demolish all these shophouses into condominium.

C: Money yo!, that’s what i am talking about

A: what the are u saying? these place belong to this community even though not by law but by value. 

C: what do u mean? condominium is also the form of community as well. Always the old community being replaced, then the new become old, and so on.

A: well, i think the ways these shophouses look, how street being occupied, It resembles our living. it tells stories this have been the forum for our time being during university life.

C: So you are talking about being local. Tell me about it? nothing is local, tell me where the heck this shophouses you are so eagerly to preserved came from? You can’t start something from nothing

if everyone think the same as you perhaps we are still living a caveman lives chasing flies and humping Monkey. We won’t build anything because they are all superficial. 

Anyway, Thank you for teaching this contemporary theory class. We are truly appreciate your lectures. 

Thank you

Deep Ecology

In our Cosmo, everything is all connected and work like a system, Only one event changed it can send the consequence to effect  everything. 

In my opinion, deep ecology is everything that become one, we only one part of the Cosmo not the center of the universe. We are only a part of the system that have our different duty to do. If talk about ecological with architecture, we cannot build the building by ignoring the surrounding context. We always have to do clearly on site analysis to concern that how our building will effect to the existing space and community. 

For me the role of architecture now a day should be more concern about the effect to the future. We have improve the technology since after world war I and II these all change the way of our thinking and living. From these 60-70 years previously its true that our world are grow fastest in the history but now everything that we think its the right way and benefit these thing its start to totally change to be opposite site. The idea of modernism and the way of urban planning change the way of people living to using the hugh amount of resources and destroy natural system. The way that we're doing its not sustainable and keep produce the artificial world to concern only our humanity comfort. We should start to looking more deep on what will going on to the future not only looking from the surrounding context and the random inexplicable concept as we have learning.

TOPO

Utopia and Dystopia is an ideal which is not existing in a reality. In meaning Utopia is more positive ideal represented for the perfect or good place. In contrast way Dystopia is  in negative way represented for the bad place. 

From The hunger games. They show very clearly the different between Utopia and Dystopia city. The capital represent to the utopian city which is all citizen have a perfect living while are so contrast to the rural which is separate into 12 districts. The more far districts are more having bad living. They have to be suffer from oppress from the government rules and also their is a game for entertaining the citizen in capitol which is called Hungry games. The twelve districts is acted like a resource that export all of the product to satiate the capitol's citizen. For me the society from the twelve district is acted like a Dystopia city. After I watch the second part "ring of fire" there is very cool continue of the story but their love story make me feel sick. 

Place and space

Space is only undefined area or volume. Place is more like the point in space that you have experience and perceive the dimension of it. Place can be more defined by the memory of the human. For example if you see the high rise building with many of the workers with formal suit, your perception will be recognize that this is the office building. A place isn't about its location but it's more about the meaning for the users. 

In "Powaqqatsi", the film show the transformation of the space to the place from at first when there is no human living in the mountain without any activities, but suddenly when people start to living their its start to change this space to be place following our interpretation.

Erotic

The things that I learn from class about "EROTIC" its not totally what I understand before. Instead of the mysterious feeling that make you feel unexplainably spasm, It's all about how experience overwhelming the fact that it might just all be a simulation.

To create the most effectual erotic for me, Its not about the physical touch, It must be something that totally seduce your mine to super excited to imagine to the new experience that didn't come yet. It can be everything such as happy, sad, laugh or whatever. 

The erotic ambition affects the audience's emotion and brings them to get experience and effect in each phenomena. It also involve with "sublime" which is a powerful emotional impact expressing the emotional conception such as terror, fear, infinity, sudenness. The suddenness of torture is a reminder of the dealth considered to be an extensive sublime and it is also conveys a strong sense and emotional impact as the erotic.

Reality in Aesthetic

As a student in the art department, Aesthetics is an important essence in our work. While I have always understood that everything about art is based on the aesthetics. In “The ideology of the Aesthetic”, it redefines that understanding. It talks about how art is not involved in aesthetics because aesthetics are in fact produced by the values of each individuals. May it be through Social, Physical or Political values, itself influences the aesthetics each individual perceives from the object/art, an aesthetic of its own.

Then to really understand art, we can’t really base it on aesthetics as aesthetics along with emotions itself is highly unpredictable like a pregnant woman going through mood swings.  When an aesthetic is perceived, it is then understood through their logical laws and values which really gives meaning to the aesthetic we feel.

Lets take the movie, “shallow hal” for example.

http://media.onsugar.com/files/2011/01/04/2/944/9444022/85b476ff06598c90_gweneth-paltro.jpg

Here Gweneth Paltro plays a role as an over weighted women who normally man sees as undesirable. But Hal a guy got hypnotized to actually see people for what they are inside but not for their outside appearance. Hal then see the, “truth” in Rosemary which is beautiful while other don’t because they don’t know they real rosemary which is not the appearance we see on the outside.

Just as it is related to art, the aesthetics of an art can’t really be perceived for what it is without really know the truth behind it, the history or the process that got it to become the way it is as emotions and values are highly unpredictable and the truth behind it will be loss. 

Take this picture for example. We can’t really understand the picture unless we find out the real truth in the photographers intention of the picture. To us it may just be a little girl eating an apple. But the photographer could just as well be portraying the  innocents of a girl before the tragedy of the forbidden fruit.

Profanity of what’s sacred

Sacred are the Gods who we give praise and worship on bended knees. Sacred is what we define as divinity which in theory is what separates the Gods from human beings. In today’s world, design has continued to evolve to a point where the reuse has become a social norm. Agamben’s, “In praise of Profanity” illustrates how profanity is the inappropriate use or reuse through play. This occurrence may be due to the fact that in our modern society, people are being more acceptable to things. The level of integrity are beginning to be lost as how we can see in television shows where the use of the word, “bitch” is highly inappropriate twenty years ago. But today it may seem to be a normal use of words despite these shows are easily available to kids at a very young age.

Now if you were to reflect this kind of profanity in architecture, the change in society can also be see in building elements or sacred temples itself like the Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat

This place may be one of the most sacred places around its area. While still being used as a place of worship, it still works as a marketable asset for the country using it as a tourist attraction. To me, it seems that in its marketing that the value and sacredness of the place it lost in the true intentions of the business owners. Using the pictures of Angkor Wat for advertising and perspective views in the temple to attract tourist. In its loss of sacredness, this should then be considered as profanity.

Another example is the refurbishment of temples in Ayutthaya.

The intentions of the refurbishments was to preserve or rebuilt what was lost a sacred place of worship.  But in reality, the place is now used as a tourist location. The architectural elements may be in track but the use is a profanity to the ancient Thai culture. The board should consider that all tourist reasons to be illegal but rather use the temples as an actual place of worship.

Form follow function

As a child, star gazing has always been a privilege as I have lived from far the city around the country sides. But now that I have moved into the main city, this privilege has been taken away by the pollution and bright lights of the city. When star gazing, I have always wondered what is there in the vast space of darkness. An endless emptiness/nothing at an infinity. But do these space hold any meaning beyond its emptiness. Reinhold Martin, writer of “empty form” talks about how we can define space beyond the emptiness. In our modern society, in the emptiness it is useless as in terms of architecture, the design is based on its function or its usefulness in event or program that cause the emptiness to be a failure in design. 

Abandoned parking lot

As illustrated in the picture, the space is left abandoned with its emptiness of flat ground tho seeing some hints of nature reclaiming back the land.

Taking this argument to another example is the Crown hall by Mies can der Rohe.

As Mies van der Rohe intended the space to be limited in his less is more approach. An empty hall yet still functional that clearly shows how empty space can go beyond its meaning of just empty. And last of all, another great example is of the jewish memorial by Eisenman in Berlin.

In its simplistic arrangement, it may appear meaningless  while behind its empty form, it still defines the space as a memory for people in the future about the death that jewish people had endured through. So really, empty form depends on perception and memory. Different people can perceive different things. Like as a child, you may think space is an endless emptiness of really it can also be perceived as an endless possibility or meaning.

Hyper-reality

Reality, can people actually tell the difference between what is actually real and what is not? It has seem to appear that society has evolved into different realities of alternate truth. Hyper reality is when the conscious mind is unable to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality where what is real and fiction are blended together with no clear distinction between one end or beginnings. When I think of hyper-reality, I relate it to fashion. What is that defines the trends of fashion we see today. How do we actually distinguish what is beautiful and what is not? Let us take two different time zones and compare.

Modern version of bikini

 

1950’s version of bikini

Now in the modern version of bikini is undoubtedly today’s preference of “sexy” while the 1950’s version is not. But if we were to think about it and take the perception of society during the 1950, people then would consider that the older version as sexy while the modern version as inappropriate. This undoubtedly due to the illusion that society has created for themselves of what is the actual truth, or as we can say, a hyper-reality.

Then what is it that influence people that creates this hyper-reality? Jean Baudrillard, writer of Simulacra and simulation defines that it was the link between reality and symbolism. In relation to our modern society, perception of things around us are influenced the media and the information that we receive from television, radios and so on. The fact that how much the media plays such an important role in influencing society clearly shows how fashion can be defined by what the media say is sexy and what is not. This act of symbolism(media) I would say is pushing society towards a hyper-reality, an illusion of what the truth really is. The things around us, what is sexy and what is not, or even what is cool and what is boring is really an illusion created by society that creates the media.

An example of this can be reflected on the movie “Borat”. A movie that is supposedly to portray they life style and culture of people in Kazakhstan. Truthfully, the movie does not actually portray the true sense of people on Kazakhstan, the movie was in fact a mockery of them. Many people may not really know the truth of what Kazakhstan is and actually accept symbolism created by the movie and perceive how Kazakhstan is portrayed in the movie. I have to admit myself that I once was ignorant and depended on movies and medias to show what places like Kazakhstan is like. I would say, majority or people are living in this illusion that they have created for themselves. A hyper reality of the truth like the movie Borat and the actual culture of Kazakhstan.

Borat version of people in Kazakhstan

Actual version of people in Kazakhstan (they are normal)

Design and Interpretation

Fact, it’s a sign design to represent a burger. But interpretation could be varied from one person to another. One person may say it’s a burger, another may say it’s a flying saucer. But in reality, it is a “sign of a burger”, not a burger. To truly understand what I am trying to describe here, we really need to understand what sign is. Sign in google is defined as, “an object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicated the probable presence or occurrence of something else” in other words a representation or should we say an alternate reality. Meaning the sign itself is not what it represents but a representation itself.

In relation to design, we really have to know what design is all about. Design is defined as a plan for the construction or reconstruction of an object or a system. In reflection towards architecture, let us take the Vitrahaus by Herzog and de Meuron as an example. The building’s design orientation is to take in the surroundings with its organic configuration while using the simple form of a house.

Vitrahaus, Herzog and de Meuron

Vitrahaus design elements.

Design and interpretation are linked in one way or another, but they should be understood as two different processes all together. The design of the Vitahaus is the representation, but when the user begins to experience the space or the interpretation the signage, it is actually the process of de-sign breaking it down to their understanding of the meaning behind the design where the alternate reality is complete.

Phenomenology, Environment and Architecture

Every time when you receive the feeling from the space, everyone always be different because of the perceiving, but the word that use for describe them is only the language that try to bring us to be able to communicate to others. In the end I believe that we are all cannot to explain our phenomena in the word of the action to others, its more about the deep emotional that happen inside your heart. 

In my opinion, sometimes the successful projects from the famous architect didn't come from what they built but its came from how they interpret their experience to the space and their "Luck". Budha always say human mind is the hardest thing to understand. I believe that the things that we learn that we try to build these space to create these feeling to the users, choose these material or set the circulation and zone from your own mind. But in the end you never know that how does the users will perceiving and interpretation to the same way what are you thinking. The only things that people will always receive in the same way is how these building "function".

Perception is an illusion

As a human being, I believe that in every action we do, it comes from the history of experience and knowledge we gain over our past life as Information I would say, is the key factor in human behavior. This information that I am talking about is the information gained from the basic sense of the human body. But elaborate more towards Weizman’s lethal theory, I will lean towards the sense of sight. As a child, it is a common experience for anyone to be scared of the dark. Being unable to see what is ahead or around you, the possibility of the unknown seem almost limitless. But if you were to take this experience of darkness and reflect it to a person with their eyes shut or blind folded not knowing the room is lit, they would have the same experience of fear. But if they were to have known that the room is lit, the experience of fear may be less or non existence.

In terms of architecture, it appears that the elements we use (may it be wall, glass ceiling etc.) plays a role in influencing the human mind. An empty room may be interpreted as solitude or privacy, depending on one person’s past and current experiences. To elaborate more on this, using the movie “world war Z”. There was a scene where Israel have built a 100ft wall to protect them from the zombies wandering outside the walls. The people felt safe. When the zombies began stacking, people were unaware.

What I am trying to show here is that, the people inside the wall who supposedly felt safe are in actual fact in danger. But it is because of the wall which has created the illusion that they are safe, they have blocked out reality basing on the past experience of using the wall in prisons or even the fences of our home. So, going back to architecture, it appears that the elements we use can be interpreted any how depending on the understanding of the user. To truly understand one true space of the designer, information or study is needed otherwise it can be misinterpreted with the past experiences that had before.