62/ Ecologies of Architecture IV: Chaosophy, PhD Seminar MMXVII

ABE 008

Advanced Architectural Theory Research Seminars
Ecologies of Architecture IV: Chaosophy

Course Data Course code ABE 008 Course type Advanced courses on a range of topics involving architectural/urban theory, philosophy, cultural analysis and science Most appropriate for PhD candidates at all stages Costs Free for PhD candidates of A+BE Graduate School Number of participants min. 10 /max. 12 Name of lecturer(s)/coach(es) Dr.ir. Andrej Radman (lecturer), ir. Stavros Kousoulas (assistant) Course load Active period: 28 hours contact (seminar) plus 28 hours self-study (preparation) Graduate School credits 4 Assessment Attendance and active participation Period Once a year in Spring Upcoming course dates and times Spring 2017, Mondays 14:30-18:00 (see detailed schedule in course description) Enrolment Contact: a.radman@tudelft.nl

Course Description

Advanced Research Seminars

The Theory Section (formerly DSD) of the Architecture Department is offering a new doctoral seminar, entitled ‘Advanced Architecture Theory Research Seminars’, to PhD candidates and advanced researchers affiliated with the Graduate School whose research topics relate to architectural and urban theory, philosophy, and contemporary concerns of spatial, social, cultural and scientific relevance to the disciplines of design. The course is framed within a fortnightly seminar structure in which participants will engage in guided readings and group-discussions on the thematic of each individual session. Ultimately the aim is to generate an intense research environment in which all participants will not only gain knowledge on a specific topic, but will also develop a set of useful methodological and research skills. The course was launched in Spring 2014 with the pilot seminar ‘Ecologies of Architecture’ [æ] under the guidance of Andrej Radman (Theory Section). æ2 in 2015 dealt with the Affective Turn (A. Radman and S. Kousoulas) and æ3explored the concept of Futurity (A. Radman and S. Kousoulas). æ4 will be devoted to the concept of Chaosophy.

æ4: Chaosophy (Spring 2017):

          The key error of Western thought has been transcendence. We begin from

          some term which is set against or outside life, such as the foundation of

          God, subjectivity or matter … Transcendence is just that which we imagine

          lies outside (outside thought or outside perception). Immanence, however,

          has no outside and nothing other than itself. … Deleuze argues for the

          immanence of life. The power of creation does not lie outside the world like

          some separate and judging God; life itself is a process of creative power …

          To think is not to represent life but to transform and act upon life

          (C. Colebrook, Understanding Deleuze, xxiv).

New Materialisms in general, and the Affective Turn in particular, seem to be gaining momentum to such an extent that even some of the scholars of this affiliation urge caution. As it happens, many a logocentric thinker has been unjustly turned into a straw person. However, as far as the discipline of architecture is concerned, this otherwise healthy dose of scepticism is not only premature but also counterproductive. Somewhat paradoxically, architecture has historically undergone a gradual disassociation from the material realm and become an ultimate white-collar profession. The consequent withdrawal from reality ("into itself") has been seen either as (bad) escapism or as a (good) strategy of resistance. The urge to ward off the givens and to continue to contemplate alternatives is most worthy. Especially in the light of the recent tendency to jump on the band wagon of ¥€$ (is more) "pragmatic yet utopian [sic] third way." Architects seem desperate in their effort to catch up with the media. The spearhead of critical theory in architecture Michael Hays laments how the most theoretically aware contemporary architects have unfortunately rejected what he sees as the most important operative concept of the theory of architecture at the moment of its re-foundation in the 1970s, namely autonomy. But this idealist bracketing comes at a price. Architects end up painting themselves into a corner of impotence by depriving themselves of the means to intervene which, after all, has always been the main trait of (any) materialism. As Eugene Holland admits, "any [posthuman] postmodern Marxism worthy of the name will want to abandon teleology and adopt contingency and emergence as better paradigms for understanding history." Félix Guattari’s Chaosophy provides a viable strategy of resistance which lies not in opposition but in strategic affirmation. His groundbreaking schizoanalysis replaces Freudian interpretation with a more pragmatic, experimental, and collective approach rooted in reality. Unlike Freud, who utilised neuroses as his working model, Guattari adopted the model of schizophrenia--which he believed to be an extreme mental state induced by the capitalist system itself, and one that enforces neurosis as a way of maintaining normality. Guattari’s post-Marxist vision of capitalism provides a new definition not only of psychopathology, but also of the micropolitical means for its subversion.

Schedule

February 20, 2017 / 14:30-18:00 / 1+.Oost.860

Session 1: Introduction

•   Capitalism: A Very Special Delirium [CS 35-52]

•   Psychoanalysis Should Get a Grip on Life [GR 69-73]

March 06, 2017 / 14:30-18:00 / 1+.Oost.860

Session 2: Anti-Oedipus

•   Capitalism and Schizophrenia [CS 53-68]

•   The First Positive Task of Schizoanalysis [GR 77-94]

March 20, 2017 / 14:30-18:00 / 1+.Oost.860

Session 3: Subjectivities

•   Balance-Sheet for "Desiring-Machines" [CS 90-115]

•   Regimes, Pathways, Subjects [GR 95-108]

April 03, 2017 / 14:30-18:00 / 1+.Oost.860

Session 4: Schizoanayisis

•   The Best Capitalist Drug [CS 141-153]

•   Semiological Subjection, Semiotic Enslavement [GR 141-147]

April 24, 2017 / 14:30-18:00 / 1+.Oost.860

Session 5: Microfascism

•   Everybody Wants to be a Fascist [CS 154-175]

•   The Place of the Signifier in the Institution [GR 148-157]

May 08, 2017 / 14:30-18:00 / 1+.Oost.860

Session 6: Minor Politics

•   Becoming-Woman [CS 228-231]

•   Microphysics of Power/Micropolitics of Desire [GR 172-181]

May 22, 2017 / 14:30-18:00 / 1+.Oost.860

Session 7: Machinism

•   Cinema of Desire [CS 235-246]

•   Ritornellos and Existential Affects [GR 158-171]

June 12, 2017 / 14:30-18:00 / 1+.Oost.860

Session 8: Conclusion

•   Molecular Revolutions [CS 275-281]

•   Subjectivities: for Better and for Worse [GR 193-203]

Learning Objectives

In a desperate attempt to catch up with forms of contemporary image culture, architects tend to forget where their strength lies. To speak of culture as forms of life, as Scott Lash argues, is to break with earlier notions of culture as representation, as reflection. It is to break with judgement for experience, with epistemology for ontology, and finally to break with a certain type of cognition for living. While accepting multiple scales of reality the Ecologies of Architecture opposes the alleged primacy of the ‘physical’ world discovered by physics. By contrast, it posits that what we have to perceive and cope with is the world considered as the environment. The emphasis is on the encounter, where experience is seen as an emergence which returns the body to a process field of exteriority. The ultimate goal of the Ecologies of Architecture is to debunk hylomorphism - where form is imposed upon inert matter from without and where the architect is seen as a god-given, inspired creator and genius – and to promote the alternative morphogenetic approach that is at once more humble and ambitious. Action and perception are inseparable at the ‘mesoscale’ which is commensurate with life. In other words, if the objects of knowledge are separated from the objects of existence, we end up with a duality of mental and physical objects that leads to an ontologically indirect perception. By contrast, the premise of the Ecologies of Architecture is that perceptual systems resonate to information. This ‘direct realism’ is grounded on the premise that, from the outset, real experience is a relation of potential structure – distribution of the sensible - rather than a formless chaotic swirl onto which structure must be imposed by cognitive process. The world is seen as an ongoing open process of mattering, where meaning and form are acquired in the actualisation of different agential virtualities. Following Deleuze's argument, it is possible to assert that the genetic principles of sensation are thus at the same time the principles of composition of the work of art(efact).

At the conclusion of each seminar / course the participants will have:

•   gained knowledge and understanding on the specific thematic and context of each seminar (content-based)

•   associated the contents of the seminar to his or her own research topic, expressing this relationship in concrete, relevant ways (argument-based)

•   developed skills relevant to carrying out advanced research: from following intensive readings and discussing them in a peer work-group, to preparing an academic research paper for publication (method-based)

Teaching Method

This course will follow a seminar structure and advanced research methods. Depending on the individual seminar leaders, the seminar will follow a series of formats, but generally will be based on fortnightly research output presentations, followed by a discussion on sources, references and bibliographies, which will involve the creation of an information nexus for the seminar discussions. The ultimate goal of each seminar is to assist the participants to develop reasoned and convincing argument, as well as to develop scholarly research papers for publication.

Reading

Guattari, Félix, Chaosophy, ed. Sylvere Lotringer (Los Angeles: Autonomedia/Semiotext(e), 1995). [CS]

Guattari, Félix, The Guattari Reader, ed. Gary Genosko (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996). [GR]

About the Lecturer

Andrej Radman has been teaching design studios and theory courses at TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and The Built Environment since 2004. In 2008 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Architecture and joined the teaching and research staff of the Delft School of Design (DSD). As a graduate of the Zagreb School of Architecture in Croatia, Radman received a Master's Degree with Honours and a Doctoral Degree from Delft University of Technology. His current research focuses on new materialism in general and radical empiricism in particular. Radman is a member of the National Committee on Deleuze Scholarship, and production editor and member of the editorial board of the peer-reviewed architecture theory journal Footprint. He is also a licensed architect with a string of awards from national competitions, including the Croatian Association of Architects annual award for housing architecture in Croatia in 2002.