The need for a new style made itself apparent as with any other paradigm shift, where the existing tools no longer suffice for the task at hand. And trying to approach a new environment by using an established set of wisdoms proved itself fruitless as the same rules simply did not apply.
The incompatibility between the digital models and their subsequent material counterparts is perhaps best described by Michael Meredith, as ‘there is no purely scalar relational organization, absolute measure can never be avoided when dealing with architecture due to material constraints, building codes and the anthropomorphic imperatives of architecture’. 3
But the issue is not that of introducing another style – in this case Parametricism. The looming implications can be likened to those of the atom bomb; that was not merely the case of a more powerful bomb, but resulted in the re-thinking of the concept of warfare itself. Within the digital virtual the concept of architecture either becomes entirely obsolete or finds a new role for itself. And what discipline better to construct a new architecture than architecture itself? To establish, as Derrida puts it, an architecture of architecture. In much the same way as the buildings it constructed in a previous life and thus in effect becoming a construct of itself.
This raises issues regarding self-referencing and a profound disconnection with any related disciplines or relevant fields. Although such a self-induced quarantine can be detrimental to overall development and stop a cross-pollination of ideas, it is useful for the analysis/exploration of its core issues and can be disposed of at a later time.
An exploration of the basic premises of the fold therefore become crucial to understand and speculate what architecture is to become. Poised at the crux of the fold is the Virtual. Not necessarily linked with any digital connotations, but merely as imagined. And it is the aim of this dissertation to explore, in Slavoj Žižek’s terms, the underlying core of the digital virtual by engaging with its essence. And keeping in mind, as Žižek points out, that the actualization of the Virtual results in a nullification of itself.
The Virtual is then non-existing. This introduces a curious conundrum, whereby if the non-existing actually began to exist, it would cease to be itself, and cease to be imagined. The situation is not unlike observing subatomic particles – the act of observation itself profoundly affects the observed and therefore the ‘pure’ state of the non-observed can only be imagined. The virtual must therefore be unable to exist as the fact of its existence would make it irrelevant.
But that is not to say it is a fictional entity; merely that it is at its core intangible. It may be referenced, used and illustrated in many ways, but not grasped. An appropriate example are clouds – while they are very much visible and have an important role in many processes, they are at the same time very much intangible in the everyday sense. Similarly, their form can hardly be defined through a list of spatial coordinates, least of all due to their changeable nature. Instead, their shape can best be described as the by-product of the processes that have generated them.
This cloudy virtual phenomenon is then fuelling a transformation of not space itself, but a transformation of the creative mental incubator within which architecture is conceived. In other words, detaching it from the imperatives of the material world. The foremost action for this is folding. Not only of objects, but also of the space around objects and of time. Quite unlike any previous innovation in tools, the fold enables fluid transformation of existing objects, albeit virtually. A continuous transmogrification of subject to object and vice versa leads to an interconnected world where there are only various states of a single ongoing transformative process.
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| Materialization of a continuous form 4 |
A specialized set of tools is required for the interaction within this fluid space. Better yet, replacing tools altogether with various processes such as repetition, stretching, overlaying, juxtaposing, etc. Within such an environment any given point can potentially transform into any object or any other point, or eventually fold back to its previous state through a series of deformations brought on by various processes.
The fold is not inherently digital, merely virtual. The Digital is merely the catalyst for the virtual to become malleable. This is mostly due to the responsive environment established within the digital. Or alternatively, as argued by Kostas Terzidis, the fold is the philosophical crutch revived for rationalizing pure formal experimentation that has been made possible by the digital environment. 5
In either case, such fertile space is not unlike Italo Calvino’s invisible cities. A seed can grow to become a wholly self-contained world, based on the distinct characteristics contained in the original seed, very much in line with Deleuzeian concepts. Elaborate spatial arrangements can therefore establish themselves out of a neutral state by following a handful of parameters, not unlike DNA in a biological context.
