Critic: Gabriel Esquivel
The goal of this project is to produce High density on a specific downtown area in Columbus, Ohio, located between W. Rich St. and Cherry St. along Civic Center Dr. The site is currently occupied by the Columbia Gas Building. The program was offices, apartments and hotel rooms.
Artists create affects and percepts, "blocks of space-time", whereas science works with functions, and philosophy creates concepts. On various grounds, however affect in a common use of the word, does not involve anxiety or excitement, that it is comparatively inert and compatible with the entire absence of the sensuous element, it is generally and usefully distinguished from passion. The quest of this studio is to challenge this particular notion that affect is separated from the sensual the erotic, how can we incorporate the sensual element into the work? For a consideration of these and similar problems, which depend ultimately on the degree in which the affections are regarded as voluntary, when you affect a situation, you have an effect on it. Architects and technologists have largely ignored emotion and created an often frustrating experience for people, in part because Affect has been misunderstood and hard to measure. This studio would attempt to develop by the use of technology and specific theories that could advance basic understanding of affect and its role in human experience. The aim would be to restore a proper balance between emotion and cognition in the design of technologies for addressing human needs.
This affect in culture needs to offer an argument of sensibility that implies a much more careful understanding of the rejection of mood and atmosphere. My inclination is an argument from Deleuze in relation to what Nietzche analyzes about Wagnerian Opera. Within my appropriation of the Deleuze argument, this “violent or radical surface” is part of the interiority , it is real movement not opposition of mediation in this sense the theatre of the comic and the tragic produces a new theatre, a theatre of repetition, a theatre of movement , where we experience forces, dynamic lines in space which act intermediary upon the spirit. This is the claim for this new operative emotion, the production of active and reactive in the pursuit of affect, what we would call the conatus. This new condition I will refer to it as theatricality, it links you directly to nature and a history with a language that speaks before words’ where new uses of metaphors is possible. Al so called “terrible power” an Affect. Theatricality is a spectacle of movement but not of representation.
The radical surface of affect deals with its technological components but is not simply performative, it operates at different levels, offers the same emphasis on plasticity, continuity and dramatic effects evident in the work of the Baroque, these surfaces suffused with theatricality, producing a radical aesthetic environment where the dramatic use of light, opulent ornamentation inspired by floral iconography, and the application of frescos produced an undeniable affect. The comparison between the baroque surface and its affects and the Wagnerian opera relies on the fact that both included the idea ornamentation, exoticism and opulence but through the notion of theatricailty of the affect has to have more violent implications.
The employment of pattern and ornament is crucial to produce new architectural affects. This surface is an architectural device whose architectural affects come from its microsection and the fact that it erases a tectonic history of the discrete elements of the wall, network or landscape. It has a complex geometric qualities. These adaptable surfaces resulted in part from the creation of an experimentation with the behaviors of heterogeneity and diversity. The objective is to produce an emerging, adaptive architectural surfaces derived from shifts/transformations produced by systemic hybrids.
The thesis of how you can develop new tectonic and material systems using analog experimentation first and combining them later in the process with digital interpretations. The focus is to develop techniques of “affecting” form derived by the study conditions of culture, geometry, color, etc. and “nurturing” or the application of movement, growth etc. What we have earlier referred as conatus. towards a hybrid and “mutual integration”. But what binds them together?
Let’s go back to Wagner’s composition, particularly those of his later period, which are notable for their contrapuntal texture, rich chromaticism, harmonies, opulence, orchestration, and elaborate use of leimotifs. A leitmotif is a recurring musical theme, associated within a particular piece of music with a particular person, place or idea. Although usually a short melody, it can also be a chord progression or even a simple rhythm. Leitmotifs can help to bind a work together into a coherent whole, and also enable the composer to relate a story without the use of words, or to add an extra level to an already present story. The operative qualities in leitmotif are required in the contemporary architectural work where there is the condition of integration for different ontological constructs. Today those leitmotifs have become digital technologies that can assist in that integration not only through systems of image production, but with new parametric systems that can bind and explore those philosophies with construction technology.
