160121_virtuality and authenticty_ella fleri soler_discourse

8/20/2019 160121_Virtuality and Authenticty_Ella Fleri Soler_Discourse

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Virtuality &

Authenticity


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Ella Fleri Soler M.Arch Year 1 / Semester 1

2015 - 2016

Contemporary Architectural Discourse

University of Malta


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Considering the Deleuzian concept of the

virtual as that which is in dynamic tension with the actual, and allowing for the

hypothesis that all architecture, built orunbuilt, is virtual in the Deleuzian sense.

Architecture, we propose, is not building,nor is it some privileged subset of

building. Rather, we posit architecture as

an emergent property of a range of media,buildings among them. Discussing this inthe context of conservation, where does

the notion of Authenticity take place?


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Architecture is information. Architecture is communication. Architecture is experience. (Jacob, 2012)


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Architecture is a range of media. Media is not architecture solely inbuilt form but architecture beyond its practice, architecture in itsdissemination and in its formation.

Architecture is that which makes building meaningful to an on-going tradition. As Reyner Banham puts it, “what distinguishesarchitecture is not what is done … but how it is done”. (Hayles &Gannon, 2012). In speaking of how things are done we speak oftransformations, changes, events. If architecture is then, an event inconstant ux, it is then a present reality, with a constant potentialfor the emergence of new realities. This reality with the potentialfor an emergence of further realities is exactly what gives birth tothe notion of virtuality.

Typical notions of the ‘virtual’ often centred on an entity which is ‘unreal’ or ‘articial’. However, Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattariintroduce a current which stirs the virtual towards its mostelaborated contemporary expression. This has led the virtual

to be introduced into architectural discourse by theorists andpractitioners cognizant of the impasse of previous appropriationsof the concept, opening the discussion of architecture to be seenin light of the Deleuzian concept - of the virtual being in dynamictension with the actual (Deleuze, 2005).

Looking at architecture from this point of view can at rst seem toset up some form of paradox. If the virtual is the state of ux, thenin any actually given circumstance it can only gure as a mode ofabstraction. In architecture, what is concretely given is that whichis – which is not what it will be when it changes. “The potential ofa situation exceeds its actuality” (Massumi, 1998). This means thatthe virtual cannot be contained in any actual form but must runfrom one form to another. This conrms the need to move awayfrom categorising architecture purely into its built form and to

accept it as “an emergent property of a range of media, buildings


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among them” (Hayles & Gannon, 2012).

Architecture is a function of embodied discourse, which is both

building and document (collectively media), not merely text or work, but existent physically or digitally, as object. The objectis actual, location specic, but the architecture is virtual, neverreduced to merely the tangible. Both architecture and object arereal, but architecture is in constant ux and in dynamic interaction

with the actuality of the object which only comprises of myriadindividual instances. In order for architecture to maintain itsDeleuzian virtuality it must be thought of as ineable, as to giveconcrete form to architecture would be to shift from the virtual tothe actual. (Hayles & Gannon, 2012). The greater challenge of thepractice is therefore to allow architecture’s virtuality to emerge fromactual media into actual things tangible and readable by man. Inspeaking of media we speak of ‘metereo-semiotic systems’ that enactthe circulation of signs (Hayles & Gannon, 2012). This circulationis twofold – rstly in circulation of signs through people – i.e.

documents, and secondly in circulating people through signs – i.e.buildings. The media emergent of such buildings and documentslinks the semiotic to the actual so that neither are reduced to merelymaterial objects nor discursive entities.

The recipe for a discipline capable of renewal and innovation istherefore a virtual architecture interacting with an actual media toinfuse innite potential in a physicality.


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Having accepted our discipline to embody both the actual and the virtual, the consideration of conservation of architecture suddenly

becomes more complicated than previously perceived. With aninnite amount of theories of conservation focussing on authenticityin light of object materiality and process of works (Jokilehto, 2009),perhaps throwing in a Deleuzian spin on the debate would openthe potential for an entirely new discussion.

In the discussion of conservation, irrelevant of the standpointbeing taken, time, and ergo the passage of time - duration, is of theessence. What we grasp when we think in terms of duration is analteration that is one with the essence or substance (materiality) ofthe object (Moulard-Leonard, 2008). However this thought alsoconveys an uncertainty and unpredictability of the future.

In order to maintain a Deleuzian frame of mind we must take astand point of a virtual realist (as opposed to a critical realist).

From this standpoint we can view old ‘depths’ as a certain folding,unfolding and refolding of the surface – the ‘fold’ being the potentialto dier from the original (Doel & Clarke, 1999). Therefore we arenot able to say that there is only one world, for this ‘one’ world isfolded in many ways.

“Real Virtuality is not duplicitous, but multiplicitous – it is animmanent manifold, the consistency of which depends, precisely,upon one’s point of view” (Doel & Clarke, 1999).

In arriving at the surface, which I understand to be the ‘new’ (andpossibly the ‘now’) we are freed from enslavement of the ‘depths’(the ‘old’) and must therefore negotiate another version of virtuality.

This new virtuality still interacts with the actual (the depths), anddoes not lack reality or authenticity (as simply a copy). Rather, it is

the actual that lacks virtuality. From this latter viewpoint, we may


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begin to notice the world to be ‘not full’, impoverished, as evolutionlags in realising its possibilities (Doel & Clarke, 1999). This said,it is inherent for our discipline to take on the role of creation and

invention in the form of experiments and mutations. This wayarchitecture can remain in ux, in movement, in event – surviving

virtually. In merely producing and reproducing we risk lling the world with actualities which lose touch with their virtualities.

As architects we can ‘conserve’ by allowing every conceivablepossibility to be realised, even if only in thought. “To think is tofollow the movement of the real, which is the movement of thoughtaswell” (Moulard-Leonard, 2008). French philosopher HenriBergson claims that duration must coincide with the virtual as “that

which redenes substance in terms of self-alteration” (Moulard-Leonard, 2008). This is where the Deleuzian point of view maycriticize the modernists in ltering out too many possibilities intheir formulae of ‘Form follows Function’ and ‘Fit for purpose’,resulting in starvation of imagination. Naturally, in engaging in all

manners of transgenic mutations the results may not survive in ourexisting environments, but there is yet the potential for creatingspecial reserves for them (Doel & Clarke, 1999).

“The world that is abandoned to us should be multiplied andmutated to innity….relief at last for a world of lack, for a worldthat lacks the realisation of innite dierence…” (Doel & Clarke,1999).

In this image of thought, it is the actual that is partial, awed andlacking, and can only be rectied by the virtual. The virtual canuplift the actual and free it of its constraints and shortcomings,most particularly its limitations in space – time. However, the

virtual is not seen as some added on contingency in eort of re-achieving ‘fullness’ of some original position, rather it complements,

supplements and integrates with the actual. Deleuzian thought


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follows that the actual naturally lacks what “the virtual will come tofurnish” in what Baudrillard refers to as the “virtual realisation ofthe world” (Doel & Clarke, 1999).

This hyper-realisation however is in no way an ex nihilo giftof nature, but is rather produced by the priority and privilege

we must give it in creating some special eect resulting in thefull supplement which will full the lack in the original. This isprecisely where the notion of the authentic culminates – or rather,the point of its abandonment. One should forget the quest for theauthentic representation, for there can be no Second Comings inthis world, and only a return of dierence. What this means is thatthings, rather than varying qualitatively in time, rather only dier indegrees from other things or from their ‘depths’ (Moulard-Leonard,2008). This is the essence of Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism.Perhaps what this shift in thought is directing us towards is not aconservation in the sense of the actual, authentic and untouched,but rather in conservation of the interactivity of the actual with its

virtuality. Deleuze speaks of an embodiment of dierence, whichis crucial for the survival of the interactivity (or dynamic tension) ofthe virtual with the actual (Massumi, 1998). A certain optimism mayemerge from this point – that not all is at the mercy of the passageof time – but that duration has the power to ground thought’srelationship to the world (or the relation between the consciousnessand the unconscious, the actual to the virtual) (Moulard-Leonard,2008). The survival of the past therefore need not depend on matterfor its conservation in time.


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Many questions come to mind with regards to what really existsor remains after conserving in the Deleuzian way. Is there any

authenticity in this new concoction? Or is the noumena truerthan the phenomena? Is the form more real than the appearance?(Moulard-Leonard, 2008). Echoing Bergson, Deleuze believesthat “the retrograde movement of the true is not merely an illusionabout the true, but belongs to the true itself.” (Moulard-Leonard,2008). The debate could be interestingly tackled from an angle oftechnological imagery, something emergent of our era, and thequestion of its authenticity.

Following Deleuze’s emphasis on the shift from authenticity tocreativity, the production of images “is no longer the reproductionof an original reality, but instead the production of a dierentreality” (Islami, 2008). What we must learn from this is to seeimages to create new realities, authentic in themselves because oftheir immanent logic and aective potential. To extend this thought

to our architectural practice, would be to counter any argumentsof the technological image being a fraudulent act or simply a ‘sideeect’ of a physical building, but to rather view any design, projector construction of image as a “legitimate extension of architecturaldesign” (Islami, 2008). In producing an architectural image, iconor brand, we are actually extending the life of an entity beyond itslimiting time and location specic boundaries and engaging andinterconnecting it with something beyond – most often mass media.

Deleuze cocoons this idea in his theory of the simulacrum, wherehe airms the creation of dierent realities in contrast to deningimages or architecture by their lack of authenticity. The simulacrum

“does not replace reality . . . but rather it appropriates reality inthe operation of despotic overcoding.” This is because simulation

“carries the real beyond its principle to the point where it is

eectively produced” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1984).


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Bringing these ideas to a local context we could begin to seeconservation as having successfully repositioned itself from being

regarded as a barrier to development to being regarded as an activeagent of change (Pendlebury, 2013). In this shift in ideology frompreserving to creating, the controversy caused by the City Gateproject is particularly relevant. In reacting to the project, the nationquickly divided into “in favour” and “against” but it wasn’t oftenthat people could explain why. The general public clearly felt thearea was very sentimental to them, and so they were reluctant tosee change, but perhaps they were not educated enough to fullyunderstand the values to be considered, in say, replicating a historicmonument such as the Opera House or passing on the opportunityof rejuvenating a static capital city entrance. Nonetheless, a closerstudy of the implemented design reveals Piano’s work to respectthe core elements of what Valletta is and what it shall be. Itscomplex temporality brings past and future together in order toreveal an ontology of becoming, unlike conservation processes

that strive to achieve an ontology of stasis (Williams, 2000). RenzoPiano elaborates on the nature of such projects as being “necessaryreassessments of the past and enriching realignments that are,nevertheless, enduring elements of a collective drive towardssurvival and permanence” (Buhagiar, 2013).

This thought of a past and future creating an active becomingechoes Eisenman’s claims on time and space, with the ‘gone’ and

‘yet to come’ being manifested in a ‘happening again’ (Williams,2000). Underpinning this argument is Deleuze’s ‘Dierence andRepetition’ theories for the opening up of possibilities by wideningthe gap between the visible and the articulable. In the creationof folds, dierences, we can move away from a conservation ofrepresentation and move towards the discussed creation.


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If this paper could achieve anything in the understanding of whereauthenticity lies may it be in an acceptance for an alternativeapproach to the discussion. In the current technological world

where a devotion to interaction with virtualities is quickly pickingup speed, a certain scepticism, reminiscent of Plato’s ‘allegory ofthe cave’, for the man-made phenomena of the ‘virtual’ is still everpresent (Islami, 2009). The fear for distraction from natural realityand possible obsession with material authenticity could certainlyinhibit creative progress and set us on a path towards nihilism ornostalgia. In no way suggesting the complete abandonment oftraditional philosophical models, an awareness of the potentialsthat could be born of Deleuze’s theories could indeed set upthe necessary optimism for an innovative future in the eld ofarchitecture and conservation.


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SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory (pp. 484-500).London:SAGE Publications Ltd.

Massumi, B. (May-June 1998). Sensing the Virtual, Building theInsensible. Hypersurface Architecture, Architectural Design

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Islami, S.Y (2009). The Architecture of Surface - The Signicanceof Surcial Thought and Topological Metaphors of Design

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