The described concepts of fluidity don’t arise from pages of philosophical textbooks, but from a built landscape that has been slowly emerging. The transformation could have been initiated by an endless grid set in a desert, as the embodiment of a plateau – a space without definite edges, or at least a space in which the edges are not a significant part of the experience 8. A space defined in such a way enables the user/visitor to contemplate the colonisation of the abstract limitless two-dimensional grid. With a lack of distinguishing features and limited only by the horizon, the experience would have been almost perfect for the Cartesian explorer.
But the illusion would only work if the subject would stay firmly connected to ground. A passing bird or clairvoyant mole would not have been equally impressed by the construct, even if the concept would have been sufficiently explained to them. The snag is in the setting of an abstract two-dimensional plane within a fairly complex and very un-abstract three-dimensional world. A Deleuzeian conjointment of viewer and spectacle form an instant intangible, but no less real, world for the viewer to inhibit, however briefly.
Although such experiments have been undertaken for the exact purpose of exploring the abstract Cartesian grid by delivering an undifferentiated plateau for users to populate, similar environments that exhibit related characteristics have been inadvertently constructed. Brought on by altogether different mindset, they achieve a similar disconnectedness of the user in varying degrees.
The first stage of these built undifferentiated entities are generic spaces, which function as a beacon of anonymity in an otherwise fully diversified world. It is spearheaded by petrol stations and characterized by generic spaces which are inserted into a place. By creating a series of identical and instantly recognizable spaces, the experience of inhabiting one is made to be as similar as possible to inhabiting another. This is achieved by utilizing identical floor plans, equipment, uniforms and serving identical products within a standardized environment of fixed temperature and background sound sets.
The second are non-places. They achieve a curious trick, where through creating a unique object for a specific place, they create a fundamentally anonymous environment. Whereas they are there, they might as well be anywhere else. The champion of this phenomenon is the international airport, but examples such as shopping malls, parking garages or large medical institutions could be used in its place. Through its own vastness creates a world in itself, frequently with the spatial qualities of a Moebius strip. Limited, but never ending. Unique, yet self-similar. Bland, because of being too spicy. Junkspace. With the most important element being the ‘You are here’ sign, presented in an appropriate language, along with a sufficiently large arrow pointing at itself. The architectural qualities of such spaces can also be described as Big in Koolhaasian terms, where even if they choose a style or concept, it becomes overwhelmed by its own Bigness. There is no definite style for Bigness, and yet they are unmistakable, not least through their bigness.
The third step of this non-place evolutionary scale are conceptual places. Although firmly rooted into a specific place, they are there only in passing. By folding the aforementioned Cartesian grid around the visitor, they become inhabitable manifestations of abstract terms such as geometry, body, nation, etc. The pure-bred example is the Expo pavilion - an encapsulated cultural embassy, without the paperwork or border controls. It is essentially a displaced slice of land or an idea given corporeal form, striving to instantly consume the visitor and conjure up an immersive virtual world.
The fourth and final step is the wholly virtual world. By achieving material disconnectedness that is only aspired to (intentionally or otherwise) in previous types, it offers a truly endless plateau of digital virtuality. By shaping this endless incorporeal, yet malleable space according to our needs, an inhabitable virtual space is created. The current proliferation of blogs can be likened to the past invasion of the Wild West, where every participant can establish their own virtual outpost in a seemingly endless space.
This colonization takes many forms. As introduced before, two major types of personal digital representation have formed. One is pseudo-bodily, where the well-known material world is recreated to varying degrees of detail. By recreating the spatial environments people as individuals have gotten used to through years of personal experience, the leap into digital virtuality (perhaps even called virtual reality) is represented as a window into another version of existing material world - an alternative universe, as it were. Another option is conceptual. This relies not on the re-created spatial environments, but on connecting with other people on an incorporeal level – with their thoughts, opinions, photographs and memories – or at least the ones they have chosen to share.
Of course neither form is essentially true to the digital environment within which if flourishes. The first approach, for all its enormous potential for exploration, entertainment and simulation, is a blatant appropriation of a complex tool to simulate an environment wholly different to its actual self. The second approach is perhaps closer to its essence, as it carries the intangible from one user to another through the virtual ether.
The goal here is not so much to discover the best way of using digital virtuality, or finding a way that is best aligned to its essence. But, at the risk of sounding digi-colonial, to find a way to exploit it which will not go against its grain. Through that we would be able to use it to its full potential and to explore the truly endless plateaus it offers.
Or does it? Although the sum of all available digital storage is ever-expanding, it is difficult to call it limited as each point in itself can easily exhibit the characteristics of limitless space, either through calculated simulation or virtual representation. A link can be drawn to the concepts of separate limitless, yet enclosed universes unconnected with each other and set within an überverse. Both digital virtuality and the overarching structure of the universe are both entities in themselves. But they are both thoroughly out of the scope of anthropocentric comparison due to their un-anthropomorphic nature. They can be, however, endowed with such characteristics, even if that may be unlike (or even contrary) to their intrinsic character.
There have been many attempts to illustrate the ‘true’ shape of the digital realm or the pseudo-material manifestation of this virtuality in popular culture. The seminal work is Gibson’s Neuromancer book, where the possibilities of digital virtuality are explored. However it is the 1994 film Johnny Mnemonic which presents a coherent visual representation of these concepts, particularly the scenes where the title character explores the virtual world. The environment depicted is a loosely-organized semi-spatial experience with some direct feedback with the user’s senses. Although this is clearly a work of fiction, its interpretation is directly connected with what has crystallized into today’s digital architectural tools.
Although the primary interface is visual (either assisted with wearable goggles and spatial pointing devices such as gloves, or regular monitors and planar pointing devices such as mice), that is primarily to assist the user by simulating a spatial environment that can be instinctively recognized due to its underlying principles – perspective, shading, materiality, etc.
As Deleuze would argue, the virtual representation of the digital is merely one of its inherent potential states. And set within this virtual space is a sculptured object which corresponds to an actual object, which can then be edited in several ways. It is precisely this editing that is most in tune with the essence of the digital. The abstract parameters, characteristics and values are utilized to a practical end and are used to represent an object that might (or might not) be at some point created according to these values exported in an interpretable way.
A dilemma appears similar to Heidegger’s quest for the essence of technology. Or perhaps the very same dilemma is extended. He concluded that the ‘standing reserve’ is at the core of technology itself. That directly relates to digital tools, seeing as they are nothing if not technological. And yet, looking for a more specific essence of the digital, the path leads towards individual bits of information encoded in a binary system.
But again, seeing as they are in essence ‘dry’ information encoded in one of many ways (engraved into CDs, ‘floating’ in RAM, physically written on paper, or otherwise stored), their point is made apparent only in their joining together and group effort, as it were. Although at the core of the digital are numbers, it is the values assigned to them that are perceived to the outside viewer, and usually not the numbers themselves. An important issue at this point are dictionaries or codes by which the ‘dry’ numbers are used to illicit secondary meaning – the one actually useful to the user. When an inappropriate translation system is used, the applied meaning is lost, and the ‘dry’ binary information is rendered useless. This is not dissimilar to Ballantyne’s thought that buildings are inert and architecture is volatile 9, applying that building themselves without a proper de-codification system or placement within a wider context are devoid of any architectural meaning that may be otherwise attached to them.
But would it be different if digital information wasn’t binary? Is the decimal system any different to the binary, other than offering a larger choice of options at any given point, resulting in several shades of gray instead of merely a black-or-white option? How would it be all different in a system where each step or bit of information could have not two, or ten, but unlimited number of possible states or where individual bits would either be composed of sub-bits or, alternatively, only form a recognizable body of knowledge when combined from several individual bits? In a way the possibilities of these complexities could be seen as approaching biological complexities, particularly those of neurons. In either case, neurons and silicon chips both share a materiality, if not the functionality.
Thoughts created through interacting neurons are no less tangible than bits floating through RAM 10, even though they can’t be stored – at present. That can be taken as a common point on which the biological virtual and the digital virtual. While both are intangible, they are far from irrelevant.
On the other hand, the essence of the Virtual is potentiality it alludes to – in perceiving the additional in what is actually present or relying on the viewer to see what is implied. Thus creating an implied continuation of space where is only an image on a wall, by utilizing systems that simulate the perceived world, such as perspective. Thus the Virtual is a conceptual extension of the object – be it an image or otherwise – leading to a detachment of the virtual from the actual.
Influences other than progressively conceptualized spaces have been crucial in this split of virtual and actual, or at least the considerable expansion of the virtual. Contributing to the rise of confidence into digital tools is not unrelated to their seemingly unstoppable development. This has been consistently following a pattern described by Moore's law, which essentially the capability of available equipment doubles approximately every two years. The trend has so far been continuing for more than half a century and does not yet show signs of waning. 11 Exponential growth of possibilities brought on by this fact has fuelled an explosion in digital exploration and an ever-expanding virtual realm through a series of specialized digital tools.
The notion of a fluid universe along with tools that enabled the exploration of such entities to be explored it in some way and an appropriate philosophical mindset has led the way, amongst many other things, to a certain approach to architecture. Many physical examples can be explored, but having been ‘tarnished’ by their materialization it is perhaps more sensible to explore the key issue behind the buildings that resulted. In conceptual terms this is perhaps best touched upon by Manuel DeLanda’s concept of the ‘anexact’ 12 that stems from Deleuze’s concepts of virtuality and particularly the transformations of objects.
Although the anexact as a concept may have in some way been present in though much earlier on, it only recently became possible to directly explore it through digital tools. Not because they didn’t exist in any form or case before, but primarily because they became widely accessible and could be instantly manipulated by a large enough number of individuals. This applies particularly the Bézier curve and its spatial cousins, NURBS surfaces. Contrarily to strict and regimented Cartesian space where each point is either defined through its given coordinates or its reciprocal relation to another similarly defined point, the anexact forms are merely anchored in defined points and the shape taken in between is defined by various processes of calculation.
A straight Cartesian line can never be more straight than any other. However anexact paths corresponding to various mathematical formulas, can easily be tweaked and transformed to be more curved than others rooted in the same anchors. Similarly, they can be additionally reshaped by various additional formulas to be applied either locally, or across the entire entity.
The result is a complex system of interdependent entities (be it lines, surfaces or shapes) that have only little to do with their anchoring points. Their shape is thus not defined by any one process but as a result of numerous overlapping ones. The result is essentially a fractal and an attempt to materialize it by having it drawn to a specific scale or made into a physical model in effect ‘tarnishes’ its actual complexity because a large portion of its shape is lost due to this translation into materiality.
Regardless, the principles of anexactness and the shift from Cartesian black-or-white to Deleuzeian shades-of-gray approach have been implemented into architectural thought. This is partly due to their inherent formal style, but also because of their hyper-efficient structural qualities. The result of the latter is, according to Balmond, an ‘informal’ arrangement where Cartesian repetition and predictability are replaced by an adaptable system that responds to localities and in turn generates a better response to a given situation.
A question does arise whether this shift towards the anexact is in fact a change towards a better architecture, or an over-excited response to a newly available set of tools, or perhaps an (unintentionally) honest response to the existing zeitgeist and state of society as a whole – both in terms of spirit of thought and material reality of the built environment within which it exists.
