Liquid Architectures Inward Cyberspace

Novak, M. 1991. Liquid architectures inwards cyberspace. In Cyberspace: First Steps, M. Benedikt, Ed. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 225-254.

Novak’s chapter is really interesting. It begins amongst the assertion that, “Our interaction amongst computers so far has primarily been 1 of clear, linear thinking. Poetic thinking is of an alone dissimilar order” (225-6). The mission is set out every bit such: “The greater business volition non endure to impose scientific discipline on poetry, but to restore poesy to science” (226).

Novak indulges inwards about poetic writing most the sense of cyberspace:
“Every paragraph an idea, every sentiment an image, every icon an index, indices strung together along dimensions of my choosing, together with I locomote through them, sometimes amongst them, sometimes across them. I gain novel sense, nonsense, together with nuisance yesteryear combination together with variation, together with I follow the aroma of a character through sand dunes of information. Hints of an attribute attach themselves to my sensors together with guide me yesteryear the irrelevant, into the companionship of the important; or I select to browse the unfamiliar together with spill through volumes together with volumes of cognition nevertheless inwards the making. Sometimes I linger on a pattern for the sake of its strangeness, together with every bit it becomes familiar, I grow into about other self. I wonder how much richer the patterns I tin recognize tin become, together with surprise myself yesteryear scanning vaster together with vaster regions inwards times shorter together with shorter. Like a aeroplane of prey my acuity allows me to glide high inwards a higher house the planes of information, seeking jewels amid the grains, seeking knowledge” (230).

That’s lovely. But it’s in all likelihood consummate BS. Does anyone sense the Internet similar this??? The lesson from Novak’s creative writing exercise is that all sorts of not-so-great things tin endure justified together with sold on the poesy of its description. So poesy tin endure “restored to science” if we’re going to strength it on cyberspace thusly; but maybe nosotros should halt kidding ourselves, rely less on the eloquence of our optimistic dreaming most cyberspace, together with genuinely brand it, itself, inherently poetic. In other words, let’s non simply push clit it to a greater extent than poetically; let’s create it on a to a greater extent than poetic logic.

Then the chapter turns utopian every bit Novak hails cyberspace every bit beingness this plough to the poetic: “Cyberspace is poesy inhabited, together with to navigate through it is to go a leafage on the air current of a dream” (229). He introduces the concept of liquidity yesteryear stating that, “Poetry is liquid language” (229) – i.e. embodied fiction, which nosotros tin rewrite, changing its important according to our whims. Then, he argues further:

“Cyberspace is liquid. Liquid cyberspace, liquid architecture, liquid cities. Liquid architecture is to a greater extent than than kinetic architecture, robotic architecture, an architecture of fixed parts together with variable links. Liquid architecture is an architecture whose form out is contingent on the interests of the beholder; it is an architecture that opens to welcome me together with closes to defend me; it is an architecture without doors together with hallways, where the side yesteryear side room is ever where I quest it to endure together with what I quest it to be. Liquid architecture makes liquid cities, cities that alter at the shift of a value, where visitors amongst dissimilar backgrounds come across dissimilar landmarks, where neighborhoods vary amongst ideas held inwards common, together with evolve every bit the ideas mature or dissolve” (251).

This is a bully illustration of the libertarian vision of the Internet: liquid equals free! The occupation amongst liquid is that when yous endeavor to grasp it, it slips through your fingers. How desirable is liquidity, really? For example, who would select liquid friendships over company ones? Could nosotros not, rather, do goodness from about concreteness? Further, consider the implications: “It is a symphony inwards space, but a symphony that never repeats together with continues to develop. If architecture is an extension of our bodies, shelter together with instrumentalist for the delicate self, a liquid architecture is that self inwards the deed of becoming its ain changing shelter. Like us, it has an identity; but this identity is only revealed fully during the course of pedagogy of its lifetime” (251). How are nosotros to covert a reality that is constantly morphing? – constantly vanishing at the minute nosotros attain out to touching on it? Again, is this libertarian vision genuinely desirable?

Novak also makes a form of aside most the nature of our lived reality: “Cyberspace, every bit a Blue Planet of our creation, makes us contemplate the possibility that the reality nosotros be inwards is already a form of ‘cyberspace,’ together with the difficulties nosotros would accept inwards agreement what is existent if such were the case. Architecture, inwards its strategies for dealing amongst a constraining reality suggests ways inwards which the limitations of a fictional reality may endure surmounted” (243). This is something that I volition come upwards dorsum to when I write most Ryan’s mass Narrative every bit Virtual Reality.

A to a greater extent than useful invocation of poesy inwards this cyberspace discourse has to do amongst the ways inwards which poesy forces us to stretch our imaginations, so allowing us to come across beyond what nosotros mightiness accept before. Novak discusses what this way to architecture:

“Just every bit poesy differs from prose inwards its controlled intoxication amongst meanings to endure constitute beyond the limits of ordinary language, so visionary architecture exceeds ordinary architecture inwards its search for the conceivable. Visionary architecture, similar poetry, seeks an extreme, whatever extreme: beauty, awe, structure, or the lack of structure, enormous weight, lightness, expense, economy, detail, complexity, universality, uniqueness. In this search for that which is beyond the immediate, it proposes embodiments of ideas that are good beyond what tin endure built. This is non a weakness: inwards this just is to endure constitute the poignancy of vision” (244).

This has go a recognized blueprint technique: “Piranesi’s serial of etchings entitled Carceri, or Prisons, marks the commencement of an architectural discourse of the purposefully unbuildable” (245). How freeing this is! I was thinking that my PhD would require that I blueprint something that could work; but immediately I’m realizing the contribution that I could brand yesteryear suggesting alternatives that – at to the lowest degree for immediately – are purposefully unbuildable. This mightiness together with so compel people to get to develop their thinking inwards a novel direction, i.e. towards realizing these ‘unbuildable’ designs. Novak includes this bully quote from Gropius (New Ideas on Architecture, 1919): “… create inwards the imagination, unconcerned most technical difficulties” (247). I shall brand this my novel motto.

Lastly, I was especially intrigued yesteryear this passage: “Against the increasing constriction of architectural practice, Piranesi drew an imagined Blue Planet of complex, evocative architecture. His championship recalls a phrase yesteryear George Bataille: ‘Man volition escape his caput every bit a convict escapes his prison’” (245). The ground I similar this phrasing is because it harkens dorsum to the Weberian “iron cage” yesteryear which nosotros accept go imprisoned. Should nosotros ever intermission out of this cage, we’re going to quest to curvature our minds a bit. It’s similar the minute that the man child explains to Neo inwards the Matrix that “There is no spoon.” The cage is an illusion; to come across this, yous accept to curvature your heed (not the spoon, every bit it were).

Novak fifty-fifty suggests about adept sentiment experiments for getting us to intermission out of our caged thinking: “What would it endure similar to endure within a cubist universe? a hieroglyphic universe? a universe of cave drawings or Magritte paintings? Just every bit choice renditions of the same reality yesteryear dissimilar artists, each amongst a exceptional style, tin convey to our attending otherwise invisible aspects of that reality, so every bit good tin dissimilar modes of cyberspace furnish novel ways of interrogating the world” (244). There are a few artists inwards exceptional that I would dearest to utilization every bit inspiration for the edifice of choice cyber-worlds: e.g. Matta, Blake, Malevich, together with my favorite architect, Zaha Hadid (and I tin in conclusion – happily – lay that MFA grade to about use!).