Hypersurface

 

Rearticulating classical divisions of architectural design is at the basis of Stephen Perrella's Hypersurface theory: 'Hypersurfaces are an interweaving and subsequent unlocking of culturally instituted dualities.'43 In attempting to situate the development of this theory in relation to the imperatives investigated here, the hypersurface can be twisted into a roaming verb so as to encounter the potentiality of its actions. It becomes a useful expression of the becoming explicit of extra-dimensionality.

'Surface', in common parlance, is generally understood as the exterior boundary of things, the outer skin of any object. In this sense, surfaces are actual, material, textural entities that are the most directly felt aspects of the world. They are that which we directly encounter. The surface is also taken to be something that conceals: 'it was not what it appeared to be on the surface'. It is when things surface that they become evident; they appear out of a previously concealed latency. Surfacing is an action of becoming explicit, of becoming experientially apparent in a movement from virtuality to actuality - of becoming expressed across the limits of perception. Surfacing is the process of becoming perceptible and actual.

To be 'hyper' is to be overexcited, super-stimulated, excessive, on edge. This state of intensity is a mode of over-being: an excess of being in that the processes of becoming exceed constraints to existence. Things foam at the edges. The 'hyper', when conjoined with 'surface', turns up the volume on emergence: it is a becoming more than simply explicit, an 'even more pronounced expression [of] its processual dimensions'. Between the explicit act and the myriad of potential acts, consciousness'4 finds its emanative expression. Hypersurfacing unleashes the surface into bearing witness to an even more pronounced expression of the conditions of emergence. Hypersurfacing is an act of falling into the surface.

Pia Ednie-Brown Hypersurfacing Hypersurface Arhcitecture. A&D



 

Odile Decq and Benoit Cornette Hyper Tension

Today's society is caught in a moment of complexity and acceleration. Speed, movement and displacement have changed our vision of space, cities and Landscape. The rapid development of communication networks compresses time to such an extent that we can no longer build up a clear image of the city or of the Living space.

We are all nomads, travelling between reality and unreality. Moving from city to city, sending faxes, channel-surfing, tele-conferencing are all means by which we navigate space and meaning. This globalisation of our society, through the mechanisms of information-exchange and travel-exchange, reconfigures our comprehension of space in motion.

The architecture of these new territories could therefore be perceived as imperfect, unlimited and evolving. Cities and territories are becoming redefined as a network in continuous flux.

From the Power of Contemporary Architecture, ed P Cook and N Spiller, Academy Editions