| First Steps, ed
M. Benedikt. MIT Press
Liquid Architecture.
Marcus Novak
The appearance
does not hide the essence, it reveals it; it is the essence. The essence
of an existent is no longer a property sunk in the cavity of this existent;
it is the manifest law which presides over the succession of its appearances,
it is the principle of the series.
...But essence,
as the principle of the series is definitely only the concatenation
of appearances; that is, itself an appearance.
. . . The reality
of a cup is that it is there and that it is not me. We shall interpret
this by saying that the series of its appearances is bound by a principle
which does not depend on my whim.
Jean-Paul Sartre,
Being and Nothingness
The relationship
established between architecture and cyberspace so far is not yet complete.
It is not enough to say that there is architecture in cyberspace, nor
that that architecture is animistic or animated. Cyberspace calls us
to consider the difference between animism and animation, and animation
and metamorphosis. Animism suggests that entities have a "spirit" that
guides their behaviour. Animation adds the capability of change in location,
through time. Metamorphosis is change in form, through time or space.
More broadly, metamorphosis implies changes in one aspect of an entity
as a function of other aspects, continuously or discontinuously. I use
the term liquid to mean animistic, animated, metamorphic, as well as
crossing categorical boundaries, applying the cognitively supercharged
operations of poetic thinking.
Cyberspace is liquid.
Liquid cyberspace, liquid architecture, liquid cities. Liquid architecture
is more than kinetic architecture, robotic architecture, an architecture
of fixed parts and variable links. Liquid architecture is an architecture
that breathes, pulses, leaps as one form and lands as another. Liquid
architecture is an architecture whose form is contingent on the interests
of the beholder; it is an architecture that opens to welcome me and
closes to defend me; it is an architecture without doors and hallways,
where the next room is always where I need it to be and what I need
it to be. Liquid architecture makes liquid cities, cities that change
at the shift of a value, where visitors with different backgrounds see
different landmarks, where neighbourhoods vary with ideas held in common,
and evolve as the ideas mature or dissolve.
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