kibbutz

moshav

THIS http://www.salottobuono.net/projects/manualofdecolonization.shtml

Architecture after revolution : Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency / Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal, Eyal Weizman.

You know When you get to Serenity?

That is what I have always been thinking of. Architecture is to fashion what fashion is to architecture. An embodiment. But it is not quite as easy to recognize, and reconcile, since the truth won't come. The truth won't happen due to a passing cloud. The truth is already here, within. But don't get me wrong, not necessarily within reach.

At the top of the Montain She has always been waiting for her, for her fiancée. She has not arrived yet, but she feels the calmness of an imminent arrival. She know she's coming...

Her hands have felt warmer today, she thinks the pressure is down. Maybe she's wrong. Looking far ahead the wind has changed direction, and is suddenly coming towards her.

[the fiction of choice encapsulated in modular white store interiors is now recreated] 

She has found Love in herself. After so much hatred, so much Red. But...Wait a minute. The world is still spinning, but in her imaginary doesn't show as a circumference, but as fire-warm sliding lava. Her breath has been recovered.

Manier times people has not believed the Tale of Serenity, but its only because they have not been there. Their hearts remain cold, where the fog gathers and dissolves peoples surroundings into a sea of white. From serenity they look confused, and they seem to walk in circles. Full Circle. has never happened. Maybe this is the Pinnacle of Serenity?

If Serenity has been whispering your ear, she has not intended to frighten you. On the contrary, she is trying to reach your soul, depending how much is buried

[you soul deepens every time you access controlled environments where the generic prevails]

Maybe you have found security in Insecurity. Maybe you have found a new Serenity. That place needs to remain yours, for its the place of inspiration. Believe me. A crown will make you taller, but it will make you feel smaller, for you have to bear the ring of perfection. Full Circle.

[data has been stored in your browser for further tracking, analysing...]

State Security(SS) is a must, and lies within your pants. Bring them down, and you will lead the nations to a halt. Or so has been said in Serenity. Overall I hope you are not being ridiculous, I hope you have had it, had it enough, to the exent of satisfaction. If not, maybe it is the time to try again. For love remains not high in the mountain

[I have worked for all of this therefore it remains mine]

it lays within.

Currency as Language

I am using Currency instead of Language, because the idea of medium of exchange, is far more interesting and suited to my writing here, as opposed to the specificity of money.

I have been thinking about money, and the reasons why it is so prevalent, not only for its presence, but for its symbolic use, and its ability to translate and impose a certain order of value(s). Added to this, it has the power of being easily understood, manipulated and exchanged, although its transparency can be challenged in current processes of digital transactions, like in high-frequency-trading. But overall, due to its consolidated presence as unmovable truth, thanks to the galvanising effect of mathematics and scientific numbers, money goes unquestioned as Reality, rather than a tool, or a form of representation. This is by all means, a form of currency that needs to be questioned not only for its use, but for its hidden logics.

To start with, money finds it difficult to accommodate difference. Money can't accept affection as a form of exchange. I know this sounds mad, but the fact that money can't buy all that we can get otherwise, gives this specific type of currency, a not-wanting-to connotation. Meaning, money buys unwillingness.  This doesn't mean that money can't buy other, more tangible, things. Labour is constantly commodified by it, as it can commodify sex, or identity, or media, etc. In this sense money can buy what cannot be quantifiable, or easily monitored. 

If you think of identity as the representation of a ways of living, this means that anyone with money can buy this identity, or form of representation. This is why fashion, or haircuts have such big impact on how people perceive us, since we associate different meaning to different forms. Not surprisingly, the more money you have, the more, and faster you can morph, or wear a different set of costumes, without necessarily having to change your ways, or ways of living. This is why design is to blame, when it talks about honesty, truth, sustainability, and all these words that have in the end, no correlation with the finished product, but rather with its forms of becoming and production. Truly following these words would mean changing our protocols and processes in achieving a specific set of aims.Otherwise this is just real-life puppeteering.  

Still, this is one of the most astonishing qualities of money, for it has no persona or personality. It is by all means impersonal, non-contextual. It has the ability to disassociate itself from what it touches, providing a means of circulation that does change the terrain without leaving any sort of trail behind. Being able to tell the world that it speaks true its a lie, what it does best is to regiment and tightly control, by appealing to its scientific goddess of irrefutable truth.  

All in all what we need to ask is, what is the Language of Currency? What does this language prioritise? How does it designate and mobilise Resources/Value? And why above all should we speak this Lingo?

Is there (anti-)neoliberal architecture? / Ana Jeinić, Anselm Wagner (eds.).

Urban asymmetries : studies and projects on neoliberal urbanization / editors Tahl Kaminer, Miguel Robles-Duran and Heidi Sohn.

What is it replacing?

New Forms of Social (Re)Production II

If these follies are to perform these causes, can we all think of that which we are missing. Architecture can't provide a solution, but springboards for the recording and inscription of public/social commentary. In this case then Architecture as much as it is Experiment, does not aim to remain, but to attain relevance. How can it be relevant then? By challenging contemporary cultural conditions that we find nasty, or degrading. You name it: binary gender distinctions, alienation from nature, alienation from end product in labour processes, the decimation of social life, the public, and the (physical)public sphere, the lack of transparency of public institutions, etc. This means that Architecture in no sense possesses the ability to propose more transparent institutions, or more levelled gender identities, instead it can only reconsider the interactions between what we consider material culture, and its users. How can then the formation of Architecture, through its processes of production, construction, consolidation, distribution, maintenance and habitation, renegotiate these transactions and their consequences. This means that Architecture will not follow the motto of Art for Art's sake, but that it would have another, more specific social agenda, where the material acts upon new imaginary conditions for its producers, dwellers and consumers.  

New forms of being ourselves, of relating to others and the environment, this is;

 New Forms of Social Reproduction

It is true that after all, if we live in a transient society, providing a space of unlocked resources must happen. Obviously Architecture with all its solidity, and its faint attempts at creating community, mean that it goes against the so called contemporary labour market, and the dispersion of its energy intensive, high need to extract and transform resources. Going against the system cannot happen through resistance as this implies neglect. Resistance can only happen as new forms of living, or doing originate successfully, deeming old prototypes less benign or productive.

But we should stress that benign and productive are not the same, as they attend to the values of the bourgeois and of the working class respectively, and they cannot by any means be reconciliated, since one works towards capital (re)production and accumulation, and the other towards subsistence, which makes it all the more difficult, since our ideals, i.e. bureaucracy, planning, counselling, healthcare, etc. are geared towards the consolidation of the values of the Bourgeois.

This makes radical change impossible, but can there be space for the renegotiation of these forms of subsistence? If all of our judging and thinking stems from Bourgeois thinking and values (and it does), this emancipatory process cannot start in academia, for it was born from their uterus. Emancipation can only start in the imaginary, and needs to be novel, this is; not reactionary.

Imagining new social landscapes can be a difficult task, since their graphic representation can pose several difficulties due to their limitations. Moreover, the production of a graphic representation of modes of sociality, can be descriptive by translating living forms to modes of witnessing. This would be an exercise in representation, this is; picturing the existing. How can we then be novel in the representation of forms?
This is a tricky question, since the design of the new requires foreseeing, and therefore it requires the placing of limitations. The questions are multiple, and pertain the implications of these limitations, and the accommodation of choice, so these structures can accommodate issues around multiplicity, function, and adaptability/habitability in relation to new forms of (co)existing. This exercise in proposing new forms of living, and of relating to others is tentative and should not be seen as a final model, but as follies that questions the current modes of social (re)production by generating new possibilities: what if? How can these new models stir social commentary, or peer review?

That is a whole new question, and something that you will have to answer by yourself.

from The New Mathematics of Architecture

 Glossary

• Acoustic Optimization
• Algorithm
• Ammann Tiling
• Arup Optimizer
• Aperiodic Tiling
• Catenary Models
• Cellular Automation
• Chaos Theory
• Complexity Theory
• Control Theory
• Danzer Packing
• Curvature
• Developable Surfaces
• Dynamic Relaxation
• Embedding
• Elliptical Geometry
• Emergence
• Evolutionary Shape Optimizer
• Finite-element Analysis
• Evolutionary structural optimization
• Fixed-point Theorem
• Fuild Dynamics
• Fractals
• Four-dimensional Space
• Functional Analysis
• Functional Surfaces
• Graph Theory
• Game Theory
• Hill Climbing
• Homology
• Immersion
• Inversion
• Kelvin Conjeture
• Lindenmayer Systems
• Knot Theory
• Minimal Surfaces
• Multi-dimensional Spaces
• Non-euclidean Geometry
• Multi-object Optimization
• Non-linearity
• Non-orientable Surfaces
• Pareto Optimization
• NURBS
• Penrose Tiling
• Reachability
• Ruled Surfaces
• Recursion
• Series and Sequences
• Singularity Theory
• Topological Transformations
• System Dynamics
• Topology Models
• Toroid Patch
• Voronoi Diagram
• Vierendeel Truss
• Weaire-phelan Model

On the precariousness of the precarious/On the idea os transcendence and the work of Art/ On the idea of aesthetic autonomy /On the idea of the frustrated Multitasker

Today I am writing about a set of ideas I consider important to consider. The first one is that systems are predictable as far as they remain conceptual (manmade), and if you wish to succeed you have to no loner pose your sight  in the short-terminism of achievement, but to look-make use of the manual. This is; systems are defined and therefore to be learnt, not necessarily discerned. Once a system is learnt, it can be challenged (understood) whiting its social and material constrains. That is nevertheless, a step ahead.

Not abiding to the system means that the system will not allow you to enter, since it can't relate to your logic, or your ability to discern out of itself. Failure can be read as structural rather than personal. And although this is a gross simplification, it should be observed that life systems do contemplate flexibility, contingency, etc. These spaces of shredded fabric allow for the multiple existence of components that constitute inadequacies in relation to a given system. Interestingly enough because the system favours neat components (those which follow the logic of the system) it pours more resources to the abiding components. Therefore this complex works toward its own consolidation. The more resistance some parts offer, the more they get neglected, for they offer no benefit (clogging). This means that precariousness, is a sign of disintegration. Is the precariousness of the precarious.

Arguably, living systems fight for their survival, and the betterment of the conditions of their survival (or towards what they perceive to be betterment). Hoping to address this condition means that they have to work towards and with the tools that can provide betterment. If these tools are embedded in a complex system (like a social system) with a set of rules and hierarchies, the living systems may want to act with the flow (follow the system, like fish) or by resisting these system (beaver dam). But resistance sounds reactionary, and creativity, our ability to associate different elements, can be used in being propositional, this is, progressive. This means that we can be subversive when it comes to the tools (an arm to create warming fire), or the associations (a corporation to produce social progress) etc. Why subversive? Because the river we navigate is not natural, it doesn't precede us, is more and more regimented and regulated by us; its become a canal. If the layman calls it a river, it is because he has never swam sideways and realised there are concrete walls retaining the water...the water that sHe hierself has to ingest! sHe has been forbidden of hiers own amphibian condition! This frustration can be projected onto the imaginary, where change and thought become symbolic rather than real. This is the realm of art, where change can be represented but nor produced. It can be evoked but not performed. It lives in the imaginary, and as powerful as that might sound, not always has the ability to break the cage.

But Art is an altogether different topic. Art has the ability to transcend many aspects of that what we call Reality. And we should remain careful, and incredulous towards its ability to produce change. One of the reasons being the power of the aesthetic in decontextualising the art object, that is, of removing any sort of connections beyond the gallery, and alienating the work from its very meaning, and still offer an experience that we might call phenomenological; a space of pure sensation. This would be conflicting in as much as the piece is hoping for Real change. This is both one of the strengths and weaknesses of the work of art; it can embrace multiplicity and therefore personal inquiry, but also appropriation, disconnection, and dislocation. This quality makes for its transcendence, as it can still stimulate the beholder with its purely aesthetic qualities, which might or might not remain enticing at the time of contact. This is therefore a form of Autonomy.

Claiming to be a frustrated multitasked means that Reality can be quite dizzying, for it might make not much sense, and uncertainty can be the only light to follow. If you are looking in all directions, performing tasks that lead to empty glooms, you have joined the class of the frustrated multitasker.

Fast Fact about SHL (numerical reasoning test)

• Commonly used in private companies' selection process
• Online test solving a total of 18 questions in 25 minutes
• Once you have clicked next question, you can't go back to change your answers of the previous questions.
• The most common types of questions are:
  • Chart/Table/Data interpretation
  • Ratio problems
  • Percentage problems
  • Currency conversion problems
• The most difficult questions are NOT always placed in the end of the test