R.A. Gorny
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1
On Boundary-Drawing Practices
An Eco-systemic Take on Interiors
This chapter argues for a conception of interiors that no longer identifies them (and spaces in general) as (sub)units or parts of an external whole. This partial conception fails to understand in its own terms what constitutes interiors; what they are in their own right; and most importantly how they are, meaning how they are produced and what they thus do. As a queer architecture theorist, I take the liberty of a transversal perspective that attempts to cut through the historical divides between architecture and its perspective of interior as a subdiscipline. Through an immanent vision of environmental systems, and a more eco‑systemic – that is embodied and embedded, relational and affective – notion of interiors, interior spaces, and space in general, I want to problematise part‑to‑whole relations, and the resulting oppositional otherness of interiors and exteriors. [...]
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This chapter argues for a conception of interiors that no longer identifies them (and spaces in general) as (sub)units or parts of an external whole. This partial conception fails to understand in its own terms what constitutes interiors; what they are in their own right; and most importantly how they are, meaning how they are produced and what they thus do. As a queer architecture theorist, I take the liberty of a transversal perspective that attempts to cut through the historical divides between architecture and its perspective of interior as a subdiscipline. Through an immanent vision of environmental systems, and a more eco‑systemic – that is embodied and embedded, relational and affective – notion of interiors, interior spaces, and space in general, I want to problematise part‑to‑whole relations, and the resulting oppositional otherness of interiors and exteriors. [...]
The notion of ‘worlds’ has gained much traction in recent discourses. Across the sciences, humanities and arts, including architecture, studies centring on ‘worlds’ aim to establish a new condition for theorising systems and their wider entanglements. Especially in architecture, there is a plethora of studies that often use a cartographic approach to chart various material (trans)formations of planetary spaces, and/or the wider discourses on spatial practices that may serve as the basis for theorising and practicing towards other possible worlds and futures. In this review I attempt to further these inquiries into spatial production by such ‘other’ means, by calling for a complementary posthuman account in which, following Braidotti, environmental, social, and technological transformations can no longer be understood in isolation. Here, I argue, it is necessary to resume and extend Foucault’s initial call to subsume the formation of built environments (and the various practices that create them) under the general history of technē, here generalised in terms of (cultural) technologies and cosmotechnics. With this aim, the following discusses theoretically-grounded approaches through the spatialisation and coupling of (cosmotechnical) difference.
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The notion of ‘worlds’ has gained much traction in recent discourses. Across the sciences, humanities and arts, including architecture, studies centring on ‘worlds’ aim to establish a new condition for theorising systems and their wider entanglements. Especially in architecture, there is a plethora of studies that often use a cartographic approach to chart various material (trans)formations of planetary spaces, and/or the wider discourses on spatial practices that may serve as the basis for theorising and practicing towards other possible worlds and futures. In this review I attempt to further these inquiries into spatial production by such ‘other’ means, by calling for a complementary posthuman account in which, following Braidotti, environmental, social, and technological transformations can no longer be understood in isolation. Here, I argue, it is necessary to resume and extend Foucault’s initial call to subsume the formation of built environments (and the various practices that create them) under the general history of technē, here generalised in terms of (cultural) technologies and cosmotechnics. With this aim, the following discusses theoretically-grounded approaches through the spatialisation and coupling of (cosmotechnical) difference.
Introduction
Socio-Techno-Environmental Entanglements
Our present condition urges those critically and creatively engaged with it, to address the transformative potentials that are brought about by a highly intertwined triad of changes. As the posthuman philosopher Rosi Braidotti notes, these three changes can no longer be addressed in isolation or in the context of singular disciplines. At an environmental level, we are entangled within deteriorating ecological systems, global changes in climate that affect areas and populations in vastly divergent ways, and massive species extinction that disrupts a variety of symbiotic relationships. At a social level, we are entangled in increasing structural injustices brought about by economic and political systems going increasingly haywire. Finally, at a technological level, we are entangled in new techno-logical developments mostly related to developments in cybernetic-informational systems redefining the human and life in general, (design) intelligence, and related systems of bio- and necro-political governance and control, that accelerate in their longstanding dehumanizing and disindividuating logics and effects.1 Given its urgent multi-layered social, psychological, and environmental dimensions, this latter technological condition in particular cannot be answered through technology alone. It requires a compound view that ought to be not just multi-, cross-, or inter-disciplinary, but fundamentally trans-disciplinary, in order to address issues in a transversal manner.
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Our present condition urges those critically and creatively engaged with it, to address the transformative potentials that are brought about by a highly intertwined triad of changes. As the posthuman philosopher Rosi Braidotti notes, these three changes can no longer be addressed in isolation or in the context of singular disciplines. At an environmental level, we are entangled within deteriorating ecological systems, global changes in climate that affect areas and populations in vastly divergent ways, and massive species extinction that disrupts a variety of symbiotic relationships. At a social level, we are entangled in increasing structural injustices brought about by economic and political systems going increasingly haywire. Finally, at a technological level, we are entangled in new techno-logical developments mostly related to developments in cybernetic-informational systems redefining the human and life in general, (design) intelligence, and related systems of bio- and necro-political governance and control, that accelerate in their longstanding dehumanizing and disindividuating logics and effects.1 Given its urgent multi-layered social, psychological, and environmental dimensions, this latter technological condition in particular cannot be answered through technology alone. It requires a compound view that ought to be not just multi-, cross-, or inter-disciplinary, but fundamentally trans-disciplinary, in order to address issues in a transversal manner.
EDI-related event in the context of BK Diversity & Inclusion Office
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EDI-related event in the context of BK Diversity & Inclusion Office
From Epiphylogenesis to General Organology
Introduction to “The Epiphylogenetic Turn and Architecture: In (Tertiary) Memory of Bernard Stiegler”, Footprint 30
The work of Bernard Stiegler (1952–2020) provides invaluable material for rethinking the built environment as a sort of inorganic spatial memory that enables the evolution of life by means other than organic life. Following Stiegler’s theoretical turn toward epiphylogenetic processes, Footprint 30 is devoted to revisiting the built environment as middling between individuating technical ensembles and niche construction processes. It offers a platform to the transdisciplinary field of posthuman scholarship dealing with existential niches from a technological angle and the concomitant architectural thought that advances such speculative recasting.
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The work of Bernard Stiegler (1952–2020) provides invaluable material for rethinking the built environment as a sort of inorganic spatial memory that enables the evolution of life by means other than organic life. Following Stiegler’s theoretical turn toward epiphylogenetic processes, Footprint 30 is devoted to revisiting the built environment as middling between individuating technical ensembles and niche construction processes. It offers a platform to the transdisciplinary field of posthuman scholarship dealing with existential niches from a technological angle and the concomitant architectural thought that advances such speculative recasting.
The built environment exerts an essential effect on life. Over the past decades, it has been greatly reconceptualised through various posthuman, ecosystemic, new materialist, material-discursive approaches, which explored the socio-spatial, technological, cognitive, relational, and affective relations that material arrangements, such as architectural ones, shape. As technē, architecture is intricately intertwined not only with processes of easing and facilitating (human) life, but also the management of dynamic processes involving both living and non-living matters. In view of the latter, architecture is ‘life by means other than life’ (Stiegler), shaping living matters by means of non-living matters. The chapter respectively surveys several streams of recent theoretical discourse that developed from Deleuze and Guattari’s as well as Foucault’s thoroughgoing reframing of the agency of matter on life-constituting processes. In the aim of reconsidering and repositioning architecture as a posthuman technique of existence, this cartography charts – with the help of a central navigational diagram – these co-evolving discursive streams in their differing topical-conceptual starting points, and their various converging and bifurcating lines of thinking, in the aim to elaborate on the novel conceptions they have helped distil in the pursuit of a fuller understanding of those material-discursive practices within the relational ecologies of architecture.
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The built environment exerts an essential effect on life. Over the past decades, it has been greatly reconceptualised through various posthuman, ecosystemic, new materialist, material-discursive approaches, which explored the socio-spatial, technological, cognitive, relational, and affective relations that material arrangements, such as architectural ones, shape. As technē, architecture is intricately intertwined not only with processes of easing and facilitating (human) life, but also the management of dynamic processes involving both living and non-living matters. In view of the latter, architecture is ‘life by means other than life’ (Stiegler), shaping living matters by means of non-living matters. The chapter respectively surveys several streams of recent theoretical discourse that developed from Deleuze and Guattari’s as well as Foucault’s thoroughgoing reframing of the agency of matter on life-constituting processes. In the aim of reconsidering and repositioning architecture as a posthuman technique of existence, this cartography charts – with the help of a central navigational diagram – these co-evolving discursive streams in their differing topical-conceptual starting points, and their various converging and bifurcating lines of thinking, in the aim to elaborate on the novel conceptions they have helped distil in the pursuit of a fuller understanding of those material-discursive practices within the relational ecologies of architecture.
A Flat Theory
Toward a Genealogy of Apartments, 1540–1752
A Flat Theory presents a first step toward a yet-to-be-completed, larger project: a genealogy of apartments. While centering on the historical formation of apartments, it does not offer a straight-forward history of apartments or flats. Rather, as a contribution to a wider history of the present, it draws together the first synthetic study of the complex processes through which apartments have initially taken form. To do so, it proposes an eco-systemic and assemblage-theoretic extension of genealogical modes of inquiry so as to draw together an epiphylogenetic mapping of this complex process. After situating and specifying this approach, A Flat Theory charts three converging lineages that mark the ‘material-discursive’ formation of appartamenti and appartements as an (I) architectural concept, (II) spatial phenomenon, and (III) residential system during the 1540–1780s in western Europe
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A Flat Theory presents a first step toward a yet-to-be-completed, larger project: a genealogy of apartments. While centering on the historical formation of apartments, it does not offer a straight-forward history of apartments or flats. Rather, as a contribution to a wider history of the present, it draws together the first synthetic study of the complex processes through which apartments have initially taken form. To do so, it proposes an eco-systemic and assemblage-theoretic extension of genealogical modes of inquiry so as to draw together an epiphylogenetic mapping of this complex process. After situating and specifying this approach, A Flat Theory charts three converging lineages that mark the ‘material-discursive’ formation of appartamenti and appartements as an (I) architectural concept, (II) spatial phenomenon, and (III) residential system during the 1540–1780s in western Europe
Reclaiming What Architecture Does
Toward an Ethology and Transformative Ethics of Material Arrangements
Learning to account for material formation as 'embodied and embedded, relational and affective' figurations amounts to nothing less than an ethical project. This paper speculates on the agentic status of material arrangements to address a certain impasse yet to be overcome in the productive understanding of the built environment. In its central parts, it respectively revisits two favorite clichés of architectural theory—the Foucauldian dispositif (apparatus) and the Deleuzo-Guattarian agencement (assemblage). Therein I will reclaim their different conceptions of arrangements with the aim to outline where architectural theory could advance a radically more productive understanding of the built environment. The paper here proposes a tactical alliance with the flat, monist, and process-ontological angles of new materialist perspectives. Proposing that there is a clear project waiting for post-critical theory, the paper concludes with some consideration on how architectural theory could affirm this new theoretical agenda.
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Learning to account for material formation as 'embodied and embedded, relational and affective' figurations amounts to nothing less than an ethical project. This paper speculates on the agentic status of material arrangements to address a certain impasse yet to be overcome in the productive understanding of the built environment. In its central parts, it respectively revisits two favorite clichés of architectural theory—the Foucauldian dispositif (apparatus) and the Deleuzo-Guattarian agencement (assemblage). Therein I will reclaim their different conceptions of arrangements with the aim to outline where architectural theory could advance a radically more productive understanding of the built environment. The paper here proposes a tactical alliance with the flat, monist, and process-ontological angles of new materialist perspectives. Proposing that there is a clear project waiting for post-critical theory, the paper concludes with some consideration on how architectural theory could affirm this new theoretical agenda.
New Figurations in Architecture Theory
From Queer Performance to Becoming Trans
The editorial introduction to this Footprint issue maps some of the latest developments in the field of queer studies and the realm of architecture and urban design. The aim is for a productive exchange between the fields since queer theory can be instrumental in moving beyond the heteronormative dominance in architectural thinking, which is characterized by an essentialist approach based on binary notions, rather than an understanding of architecture as an interface in material processes of becoming and producing differences. After a brief discussion of the history of exchanges between queer studies and architectural history and theory, the authors propose to complement the notion of queering with the new developments in the field of trans studies, which propose to rethink architecture in terms of a materialist understanding of buildings as bodies which are in a constant flux of change and becoming instead of fixed and stable objects or identities.
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The editorial introduction to this Footprint issue maps some of the latest developments in the field of queer studies and the realm of architecture and urban design. The aim is for a productive exchange between the fields since queer theory can be instrumental in moving beyond the heteronormative dominance in architectural thinking, which is characterized by an essentialist approach based on binary notions, rather than an understanding of architecture as an interface in material processes of becoming and producing differences. After a brief discussion of the history of exchanges between queer studies and architectural history and theory, the authors propose to complement the notion of queering with the new developments in the field of trans studies, which propose to rethink architecture in terms of a materialist understanding of buildings as bodies which are in a constant flux of change and becoming instead of fixed and stable objects or identities.