A Summary Presentation on Sanford Kwinter's Genealogy of the Model - Hammer and the Song

8/10/2019 A Summary Presentation on Sanford Kwinter's Genealogy of the Model - Hammer and the Song

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Modern position of the Diagram (pg. 59)

Idea originates from Discipline & Punishby Michael Foucault

Panopticon - ageneralizable modelof functioning ... it is adiagramof a mechanism of power reduced to itsideal form. - Foucault

Is a machine which... induce in the inmate a state of consciousandpermanent visibilitythat assures the automatic functioning of pow

- Foucault

Foucaults diagram functions as an embedded entity...separateyetindissociablefrom the concrete work-event. Itanimatesin which

resides. - Kwinter

generalizable model - able to serve other functions/programmes where similar needs for the power are needed. i.e hospitals, barracks, schools

ideal form - the hierarchy of the diagram seem to result in a specic physical form

embedded entity - the effects of the diagram and its physical existence are intrinsically tied

A prisoner, in his cell, kneeling at prayer before the central inspectionN. Harou-Romain, Plan for a penitentiary, 1840. From: Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish.

Panopticon prisonJeremy Bentham - The works of Jeremy Bentham vol. IV, 172-3

POWER FIGURE

INMATE/PRISONER

(constantly conscious /

permanently visible)


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Deleuzeisolatedthe diagram from their concrete events via a phenomenon calledabstract machines.- Kwinter

Conceptually and ontologicallyseparate from material reality, but are fully functinoningmachines.- Kwinter

Abstract machines are organized shaping forces, micro-morphologicalregimes.

REALITY

ABSTRACTMACHINE

(assemblage,organisation,

deployment,etc)

RAW MATTER(something in a state

of disorder)

OBJECTS /

COMPLEXES(ordered)

COMPOSITIONALEVENTS

machine - agencies of assemblage, organisation, and deployment

morphology - a study of structure or form

Modern position of the Diagram (pg.59)


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They (abstract machines) are part of larger assemblages through which they communicateas if across a continuum.

Events from one place transfer their effectsto other places andscales.

Forms, things and objects are mere chimerasof these underlying processes! - Kwinter

continuum - from a relativistic view, it is a coherent whole (eld?) characterized as a collection, sequence, or progression of values or elements varying by small degrees of changes

chimera - dream, fantasy, delusion. or an optical consequence of something else.


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Approaching theincorporealis a major challenge of contemporary design practice.

Used to be innocent times where this was done with little self conscious and brilliance (does it mean designers today are too self conscious?)

Eisenman, Fuller, Moholy Nagy, constructivists, Kubrick, etc... had clear intuition of the interstitial space they had to occupy as diagramm

It is a space ofsynthesis,integrationand catastrophe... where forms arelaunchedand ltered,not made. Genotypic diagrammatism underlyingphenotypic/formal expressions as mechanistic genetic approach to design:

Kwinter insists that the diagram lies here, between

the space of the two, in a wild eld of cybernetic

interactions.

incorporeal - not having material existence

synthesis - the combination of components or elements to form a connected whole

catastrophe - (in a drama) the point which introduces the close or conclusion / the height of a play. Kwinter might be suggesting that the Diagram is the height / peak of form generation?

cybernetics - of regulatory pressures, channels and control loops (based on Deleuzes termactualizationwhich is taken from Bergson)


genotype

(rudimentary instructions)

phenotype

(beautiful shapes and their

concatenations)

intermediary space

(regulatory processes)

(A)adenine

(G)

guanine

(C)cytosine

(T)

thymine


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Three phenomena of Cybernetics :

integration :

organization : occurence ofpatternsfrominternal controls... throughsequenced events

...that give rise to both differentiationandstability

coordination : smoothand graceful transitions between variety of states..

....exhibiting coherentbehaviours /rhythmic morphology

Cybernetic models operate throught the ow of time and duration.

Hence the diagrams effects or materiality can only be felt throughtime.

The sciences and cybernetics provide the understanding of diagram... as dynamic,algorithmicnature.

bound

ary/discontinuit

y

with

the

world

ground

(threat)system of

correlation and

exchanges

feedba

ckloop



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...every moment represents a succesive individuation-differentiation of matter from the state that preceded it...

...everything... its qualities, its effects, its structures may be apprehended in space... but in time, and only in time, do matter and world reveal themselves...

- Kwinter

photography as a tool to freeze sections of time, and thus form.


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tissue formation from congregation

of multiple cells

brazilian favela mud-brick-palm house in Ghadames, Libya.

gure ground drawing of manhattan, nyc ever shifting delineation of national boundaries solar system in motion interaction of celestial bodies in the galactic scale

a single human cell

visible observations of cybernetic models of integration, organization and coordination in the natural world

...active and exible... in continual communications with the ground through feedback loops... throwing out boundaries of order......occurence of patterns from internal controls... through sequenced events... that give rise to both differentiation and stability....

...smooth and graceful transitions between variety of states... exhibiting coherent behaviours / rhythmic morphology

- Kwinter


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A Summary Presentation on Sanford Kwinter's Genealogy of the Model - Hammer and the Song