Comments for Diffusive Architectures

Comment on Operative Drawing I: Miralles by Plan as map: The Funambulist on Miralles – SOCKS

Plan as map: The Funambulist on Miralles – SOCKS — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 12:04:20 +0000

[…] more: Operative Drawing I, Miralles. by Carl Douglas on Diffusive […]

Comment on Drawing in Good Faith by NEGATIVE DRAWING | lldesignroom

NEGATIVE DRAWING | lldesignroom — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 15:43:01 +0000

[…] https://diffusive.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/drawing-in-good-faith/ […]

Comment on Paolo Portoghesi, Islamic Cultural Centre (1974) by “Gay errancy”: Hypermoderns (postmoderns) | The Charnel-House

“Gay errancy”: Hypermoderns (postmoderns) | The Charnel-House — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:42:38 +0000

[…] is well known that in Italy, Portoghesi launched a style that has been called “postmodern” with his Strada Novissima and a […]

Comment on Gunnar Asplund, Villa Snellman (1917-18) by Carl Douglas

Carl Douglas — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 06:51:39 +0000

In reply to Ari.

Thanks for the comment, Ari – it certainly complicates overly-simple definitions of architectural modernity.

Comment on Gunnar Asplund, Villa Snellman (1917-18) by Ari

Ari — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 06:23:04 +0000

It’s one of my favourite houses, possibly because I can’t quite decide if it is modern or classical. Whatever it is, it is incredibly interesting.

Comment on Latour on Foucault by Carl Douglas

Carl Douglas — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:37:12 +0000

Thanks for your comment catatau. I definitely think there are parallels between the ANT view of a population of actors and Foucault’s idea of a population of statements (although they’re clearly different propositions in terms of their scope). It would be interesting to hear Latour’s thoughts on that connection. I should go back and look at Foucault’s materialité de l’énoncé.

Comment on Latour on Foucault by catatau

catatau — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:58:02 +0000

Yeah, almost the entire Foucault is underexploited, unfortunately. Colin Gordon writed: Histoire de la Folie, an unknown book. The Archeologie du Savoir too, and also, and also… Maybe even Latour has underestimed Foucault. In We never have been modern, Foucault isnt quoted anywhere, even cited at bibliography, but there is several passages wen we could think that Latour is criticising Foucault. Even the “materiality” of the ANT could be compared with the materialité de l’énoncé foucauldien, and with the care of Foucault for do not fall in anthropological preconcepts. But sometimes Latour seems to not have the same care with the concepts (for example, in using modern therms like “unveal”, “to be the conscience of the modern Constitution turn us non moderns” etc.

Comment on On Diagrams as Surfaces of Encounter by Carl Douglas

Carl Douglas — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:21:14 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Andrew — you’re right, it’s definitely worth drawing attention to the constructive aspect of diagrams. I haven’t read ‘Alien Phenomenology’ yet, but it’s sitting on my Kindle waiting! I’m interested in how Bogost uses the term ‘carpentry’. I’d use a different term from ‘construction’, myself, because it connotes in my mind the assumption that some things are constructed and others aren’t. I like the term ‘composition’. Everything is composed somehow, and we’re quite happy with talking of the mineral composition of rocks as well as the composition of a drawing.

You’re making me think about the speculative use of diagrams, though—I’d been thinking of them as basically descriptive.

Comment on On Diagrams as Surfaces of Encounter by Andrew Heumann (@andrewheumann)

Andrew Heumann (@andrewheumann) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:14:22 +0000

I really like this idea of all encounters as diagrammatic. I think it’s worth emphasizing that not only do diagrams simplify or filter but may also actively construct new relations between objects. In this way the diagram functions as a speculative medium itself. I think this fits well with Bogost’s “Carpentry” in Alien Phenomenology although I imagine it to look something like the diagrams in Cyclonopedia or perhaps Perry Kulper’s art.

Comment on The Battle of Alexander at Issus, Albrecht Altdorfer (1529) by Lucas Issey

Lucas Issey — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:40:39 +0000

“A fierce sky caught in the dichotomy between the setting sun and the crescent moon dominates more than a third of the painting.”
from the wikipedia link

Comment on Failing POPS by esadespacespublics

esadespacespublics — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 20:42:42 +0000

Reblogged this on Espaces Publics.

Comment on Hydriotaphia: The Failed Case by Carl Douglas

Carl Douglas — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:02:00 +0000

In reply to Kevin Faulkner. Thanks for your view. The contrast I was trying to draw was between what I see as a more tightly-woven prose structure in Hydriotaphia and a looser one in Pseudodoxia Epidemica and Religio Medici. In my view, this is a result of Hydriotaphia's anchoring to a specific set of artefacts. Obviously the other two essays aren't completely unstructured (I certainly overstepped when I said that Pseudodoxia Epidemica has no discernible plan); but I do think there is a discernible difference. I've read all the texts in question so if it's nonsense it's first-hand nonsense, not regurgitation. I'd be interested to know who else has made similar suggestions, though.

Comment on Hydriotaphia: The Failed Case by Kevin Faulkner

Kevin Faulkner — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:17:12 +0000

Just the usual misinformed nonsense here. Religio Medici is structured in 3 parts on Faith, Hope and Charity. Pseudodoxia Epidemica follows the time-honoured structure of the Renaissance scale of creation, and IS systematic – Book 1 deals with error , there follows books on the mineral and vegetable worlds onto man, history and the cosmos. Why do people make these ignorant, misinformed statements, having never reading Browne themselves, merely regurgitating other misinformed statements ?

Comment on Krauss versus Latour on the singularity of objects. by Carl Douglas

Carl Douglas — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 04:50:04 +0000

In reply to J. S. Milam.

Hi Jeff. The idea of an internal life is counter to how I read Latour. He emphasises the externality of relations, and the flatness of relations. Objects, he suggests are like ‘black boxes’ that can be opened to reveal more objects. My phone can be taken as an object — it operates as a unit with capabilities and properties of its own; but it can also be opened up to expose the circuits, antennas, casings, switches, etc. In the classic sense of parts and wholes, these are parts that only take their significance from being elements of a ‘greater’ whole. But the being of the LCD screen in my phone is not exhausted by the strong relationship it has to the phone as a whole — its manufacture had environmental effects, effects on the person who sits at the LCD-fitting station of the factory, and it could be removed and used for an infinite number of other things. The LCD panel is not less than the phone as a whole. Latour repudiates the whole theory of parts and wholes. No object (phone, building or person) is more partial or more whole than any other object, only more or less connected.

So for me, it’s not a matter of pieces having internal lives, but external lives.

Comment on Krauss versus Latour on the singularity of objects. by J. S. Milam

J. S. Milam — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:09:22 +0000

Latour’s position is very interesting to consider socially as well. I don’t study architecture, but can pieces be considered to have internal lives? For instance, it is clear that a person “becoming” or evolving identity is reliant on his or her interaction with others, but this is clearly a mufti-faceted and reflexive on-going process that includes the internal dialogs and temporal events of the individual and the people and objects he are she interacts with. So, while the person is physically most singular in isolation, the singularity is only known in consummation. Could the same be said of objects?