This essay was published as part of the interdisciplinary & collaborative exhibition “I think of touching sharp objects as if they think of touching me” shown at the Städelschule Rundgang in 2020.
sharp corners of a boundless matrix
2020
Figure
1: Diagram signifying the stratifications of the designed world ranging from
the scale of one’s personal space to the entire planet.Sharp corners of a boundless matrix
Welcome to the designed
world! Yes, we humans have solely designed it all; from the font that this text
is written in, to the metal junk outside of the atmosphere encircling us while
you read this text. Everything- a product of our design intervention, nature
included. Even the failures in our designed environment are failures as per
design. We have gladly left our fingerprints on anything and everything with
full intention that we be found as the source, the genius, the mastermind
behind these masterpieces if in case there’s an extraterrestrial forensic
investigation of our designed objects. We embody our designed world as much as
it swallows us whole. From the invention of the wheel to our Siris and the
like, we have designed these artifacts as much as they have designed us. ‘Maslow's hammer’ is
a cognitive bias caused by an over-reliance on
a tool. As Abraham Maslow said in 1966, "I suppose it is tempting, if the
only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."[1]
As a discipline, architecture is an endless exhibition of this phenomenon. In accordance with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, every move in architecture is offered as an opportunity for negotiation between the user and their future selves. Starting with the door handle, each encounter with objects in the built space determines how we accommodate the object into our being. Even with a casual walk within a building, one notices how architecture is an exercise of composing with forms and voids(space) that dictate a predetermined choreography that the designer envisions and the subjects enact despite themselves. And so we participate and live our lives in the matrix of this white-washed design world, saturated and blinded by the false promise that design upholds in its flimsy skeletons- the promise of being of service to us.
In I think of touching sharp objects as if they think of touching me, exposing the fluidity and smoothness with which design proliferates in the meaning of being human formed the core of the exhibition. The exhibition design was driven by the idea that one navigates through various stratifications of design in their daily encounters with architecture and the city. Each stratified layer is complete in and of itself but is also informed and shaped by the layers adjacent to it. The design of the Städelschule, building and institution, is housed within the design of the Städel Museum, whose design, in turn, is surrounded by the design of the city of Frankfurt. At the core of, and depending on the layers outside of it, is the design of the exhibition itself (fig. 1)
As a discipline, architecture is an endless exhibition of this phenomenon. In accordance with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, every move in architecture is offered as an opportunity for negotiation between the user and their future selves. Starting with the door handle, each encounter with objects in the built space determines how we accommodate the object into our being. Even with a casual walk within a building, one notices how architecture is an exercise of composing with forms and voids(space) that dictate a predetermined choreography that the designer envisions and the subjects enact despite themselves. And so we participate and live our lives in the matrix of this white-washed design world, saturated and blinded by the false promise that design upholds in its flimsy skeletons- the promise of being of service to us.
In I think of touching sharp objects as if they think of touching me, exposing the fluidity and smoothness with which design proliferates in the meaning of being human formed the core of the exhibition. The exhibition design was driven by the idea that one navigates through various stratifications of design in their daily encounters with architecture and the city. Each stratified layer is complete in and of itself but is also informed and shaped by the layers adjacent to it. The design of the Städelschule, building and institution, is housed within the design of the Städel Museum, whose design, in turn, is surrounded by the design of the city of Frankfurt. At the core of, and depending on the layers outside of it, is the design of the exhibition itself (fig. 1)
Conceived as a device to display the stolid,
dystopian whiteness of the classic museum white-cube, the artworks are
presented in a new space within a shell that hovers in the exhibition room.
Devoid of accessories, ornaments and objects, and therefore devoid of feelings,
fingerprints and histories except our own, the shell enframes the artworks and
presents them as new artifacts eager for bodily transmogrification. The walls,
ceiling, and floor of this shell are made porous so as to allow the subject to
see through them. Through the translucency, the artifacts in the room- windows,
doors, sink, speakers, lights, curtains, etc.- assume a sense of actuation as a
result of being enframed.
So here we have the sink, designer unknown, history as far as one can imagine, estranged by the frame- the boundary of the shell- in a silent dialogue with the artworks housed inside. Thus, each object that occupies the room outside of the translucent shell actively contributes to the artworks exhibited within it and vice versa in an endless confrontation- old histories meeting new futures. It is within this ensuing dialogue that the subject enters the exhibition. Challenged by the hovering aloofness with which the shell occupies the space, the subject climbs into the shell and immediately becomes enframed- a designed object on display, one among many. There is no way to avoid this role reversal from subject to object, no corners one can hide in.
In this suspended state of being exhibited, empathy, or Einfühlung as coined by Robert Vischer, is demanded from the subject by the artworks in the show, bearing an uncanny resemblance to human bodies, faces, and daily items of use. According to Vischer, empathy works when the subject “unconsciously projects its own bodily form- and with this also the soul- into the form of the object.”[2] He understood empathy as a process of “central projection, exchange, and return” between subject and object. In this way, the subject, that is, the observer, achieves the most intense aesthetic identification with the object[3]. Vischer goes even further claiming: “...architecture seems to me the best proof that the whole world of phenomena, that everything can be felt as projection of the human self”. In relation to architecture’s ability to produce affects, Antoine Picon writes:
“Architecture does not necessarily ‘speak’... Rather it possesses an expressive character; it conveys affects, emotions and thoughts. In contrast to nature, architectural form is entirely intentional and its effects purposefully created.”[4]
Therefore, in order to ensure the unhindered projection of affects between the subject and objects, the framing device (shell) was designed to be as minimal and non-invasive as possible. It was designed to look designed- effortless, smooth and ‘clean’- like every recent design object. The concentric forces diffused by the surfaces of walls in the space are broken by the 2-channel sound piece played through four speakers from the corners below the floor of the shell. This shape shifting sound piece applied on the pure geometry of the shell alters the density in the space, shifting weights and forces without warnings and ungrounding the visitor. The Moiré effect of the fabric that makes the ceiling and the walls adds a sense of movement to the room revealing the artifacts with various degrees of opacity and resolution depending on where the subject stands. The charged environment compels the subject to ‘walk-around-eggshells’ in the shell propelling them towards the exit; out of the shell but into just another.
Well, everything that was to be said about the exhibition’s design has already been said before, multiple times in the history and theory of art. This re-telling is only for the non-humans, the ones untouched by the heavy hand of design (the undesigned?). This is a documentation of the theories, histories, and shadows under which we found inspiration for the choices we made and did not. We do not claim that there is any novelty in the design of this exhibition. Of course, with the over-saturation of designed images of design, we are sure that we only created another version of the Great Designed Artifact. The architecture of the exhibition I think of touching sharp objects as if they think of touching me looks as invisible as is the usual case, but through its deliberate transparency it affected the subject stronger than solid walls; a howling that echoed from the sharp corners of a boundless matrix.
[1]Maslow, A. H. (1966). The psychology of science: A reconnaissance. New York: Harper and Row, p. 15.
[2] Robert Vischer, “On the Optical Sense of Form: A Contribution to Aesthetics” (1872), in Empathy, Form, and Space. Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893, trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou (Santa Monica, CA: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1994).
[3] Rainer Schützeichel (2013) Architecture as Bodily and Spatial Art: The Idea of Einfühlung in Early Theoretical Contributions by Heinrich Wölfflin and August Schmarsow, Architectural Theory Review, 18:3, 293-309, DOI: 10.1080/13264826.2014.890007.
[4]Antoine Picon, Ornament: the Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity (Wiley, 2013), p. 59.
So here we have the sink, designer unknown, history as far as one can imagine, estranged by the frame- the boundary of the shell- in a silent dialogue with the artworks housed inside. Thus, each object that occupies the room outside of the translucent shell actively contributes to the artworks exhibited within it and vice versa in an endless confrontation- old histories meeting new futures. It is within this ensuing dialogue that the subject enters the exhibition. Challenged by the hovering aloofness with which the shell occupies the space, the subject climbs into the shell and immediately becomes enframed- a designed object on display, one among many. There is no way to avoid this role reversal from subject to object, no corners one can hide in.
In this suspended state of being exhibited, empathy, or Einfühlung as coined by Robert Vischer, is demanded from the subject by the artworks in the show, bearing an uncanny resemblance to human bodies, faces, and daily items of use. According to Vischer, empathy works when the subject “unconsciously projects its own bodily form- and with this also the soul- into the form of the object.”[2] He understood empathy as a process of “central projection, exchange, and return” between subject and object. In this way, the subject, that is, the observer, achieves the most intense aesthetic identification with the object[3]. Vischer goes even further claiming: “...architecture seems to me the best proof that the whole world of phenomena, that everything can be felt as projection of the human self”. In relation to architecture’s ability to produce affects, Antoine Picon writes:
“Architecture does not necessarily ‘speak’... Rather it possesses an expressive character; it conveys affects, emotions and thoughts. In contrast to nature, architectural form is entirely intentional and its effects purposefully created.”[4]
Therefore, in order to ensure the unhindered projection of affects between the subject and objects, the framing device (shell) was designed to be as minimal and non-invasive as possible. It was designed to look designed- effortless, smooth and ‘clean’- like every recent design object. The concentric forces diffused by the surfaces of walls in the space are broken by the 2-channel sound piece played through four speakers from the corners below the floor of the shell. This shape shifting sound piece applied on the pure geometry of the shell alters the density in the space, shifting weights and forces without warnings and ungrounding the visitor. The Moiré effect of the fabric that makes the ceiling and the walls adds a sense of movement to the room revealing the artifacts with various degrees of opacity and resolution depending on where the subject stands. The charged environment compels the subject to ‘walk-around-eggshells’ in the shell propelling them towards the exit; out of the shell but into just another.
Well, everything that was to be said about the exhibition’s design has already been said before, multiple times in the history and theory of art. This re-telling is only for the non-humans, the ones untouched by the heavy hand of design (the undesigned?). This is a documentation of the theories, histories, and shadows under which we found inspiration for the choices we made and did not. We do not claim that there is any novelty in the design of this exhibition. Of course, with the over-saturation of designed images of design, we are sure that we only created another version of the Great Designed Artifact. The architecture of the exhibition I think of touching sharp objects as if they think of touching me looks as invisible as is the usual case, but through its deliberate transparency it affected the subject stronger than solid walls; a howling that echoed from the sharp corners of a boundless matrix.
[1]Maslow, A. H. (1966). The psychology of science: A reconnaissance. New York: Harper and Row, p. 15.
[2] Robert Vischer, “On the Optical Sense of Form: A Contribution to Aesthetics” (1872), in Empathy, Form, and Space. Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893, trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou (Santa Monica, CA: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1994).
[3] Rainer Schützeichel (2013) Architecture as Bodily and Spatial Art: The Idea of Einfühlung in Early Theoretical Contributions by Heinrich Wölfflin and August Schmarsow, Architectural Theory Review, 18:3, 293-309, DOI: 10.1080/13264826.2014.890007.
[4]Antoine Picon, Ornament: the Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity (Wiley, 2013), p. 59.