T4T LAB 2019 Texas A&M University. Invited Professor: Joris Putteneers.
Team: Hans Steffes, Fernando Rosas, Aaron Scheffield, Rebecca Romero
Counterfactual
Counterfactuals, or discourses concerned with the
alternative outcomes of situations, have been foundational to architectural
discourse over the past century. They have been of particular interest in the
post-modern, neo-liberal context in which movements like modernism and speculative
realism have emerged from. Counterfactuals allow the architect to speculate
about what society would look like if the ideals behind the discourse were
unilaterally accepted. Epistemological questions asked through the lens of
counterfactuals allow us to wonder how our experience can justify thought and
allow us to talk about remote possibilities without the limitations of our
immediate episteme.
These speculations raise very serious questions about why we
accept our immediate reality and what is to be done about it. Counterfactuals
hold a particular allure to architects as they blend fact and fiction,
justifying any speculation as long as it purports a realist or scientific
basis. The critical issue facing speculative realism is the distinction between
fiction and lies. Fictions are told with the understanding that they are not
truth and are intended to convey some moral, lesson, or hope. Lies are the
blatant misrepresentation of reality in order to achieve some end, or convince
others of the projects validity. While science and fiction are not incompatible
they are not replacements for each other, thus the very subtle difference
between science fiction and fiction science. This is the danger of
counterfactuals, their inherent ungroundedness makes them easier to accept as
truth, especially when engulfed in a fire hose of untruth and propaganda. When
immersed in such fictions, all this project can be is counterfactual.
In 1944 at the Democratic national convention, incumbent
vice president Henry Wallace overwhelmingly won the nomination for Vice
President to Franklin D. Roosevelt for his fourth consecutive term, making him
the 33rd president of the United States. Following the end of second world war
following the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and Japan, Wallace and Stalin signed
a treaty promising that in exchange for Soviet ownership of Alaska, both sides
would denuclearize and instead spend research funds on public interests such as
humanitarian crises and materials and architecture research. The groundbreaking
development of self replicating and repairing material allowed for the
construction of large infrastructural and public works projects such as high
speed trans-continental railroads, public housing, and immigration centers. The
potential prosperity flaunted by the proponents of these innovations never
came.
The miracle technologies were quickly co-opted by corporate
powers and used to produce larger and more monotony. The wealth and prosperity
promised by the efficiency of these new technologies was swallowed up by those
with the capitol to utilize them and the wealth gap spiraled to record levels
giving rise to a populist movement. The Henry A. Wallace Immigration Center was
one of the first and only unique architectural expressions to come out of the
“Architectural Revolution.” It was constructed in 1965 and served for 54 years
before the rising populist movement condemned the flow of migrants into the
United States from the northern border and the center was deemed a threat to
national security.
● When they set up the fire hose of falsehood they are asserting that
they are not constrained by reality
● There is nothing so humiliating and degrading as trying to
prove the truth
● The goal is to rob facts and reality of their power
○ It's the stories we tell about facts (or counter facts) that influence
people
● “Truth isn’t truth”
● Facts and objective reality don’t matter to people,
interpretation does
● Don’t tell open ended stories, they can be distorted to mean whatever
someone wants
● Speculative realism is in a particularly vulnerable position in that
its disregard for reality
leaves it open to being co-opted by those who might use it
for unsavory purposes.
● The critical issue is between lies and fictions, fictions have morals
and are not intended
as replacements for reality, lies are intended to be believed
as reality.
○ Lying that things are based in science and presenting them as
engineered,
scientific solutions is dangerous to the profession and the
discourse.
