For the Love of the Multitude: A conversation with Michael Hardt

by Dimitris Gourdoukis

In 2000 Antonio Negri’s and Michael Hardt’s book “The Empire” was published to what proved to be a very warm welcome. Their analysis of the system of global domination, the ways that it functions and operates, was indeed an effort long anticipated and much needed. Four years later, in 2004, their second collaboration was published in the form of “The multitude”. This second book is standing in several ways at the opposite side of the Empire. Of course it continues from where the later stops while it shares the same principles. However, while the Empire was looking at the dominating system, trying to analyze it and understand it, the Multitude is looking at the alternatives that we can have, or we are already having, to that system. At the same time, the more academic style of the first book gives its place to a more ‘pop’ – in Deleuze and Guattari’s terms – approach. The Multitude moves from passages about the Golem or Dostoyevsky’s Demons to pages that could have been part of ‘city guerilla’ brochure. Being true to its Spinozian roots, it goes through war and the analysis of the Multitude itself to end in a very positive and optimistic way with democracy.

Here the t-machine is presenting a discussion that we had with Michael Hardt almost a year after the publication of the book, in the spring of 2006.

DG: To begin with, you have a new book, co-written with Antonio Negri, the Multitude, which, if I am not mistaken, is the first after the Empire, right?

MH: Yes, right.

DG: How is it situated in relation to the Empire?

MH: Well, while in the Empire we were relatively satisfied with how we treated the present global system, or the system of domination, it had relatively little to say about the possible alternatives to that. So we thought that this book should develop more the possibilities or the alternatives to the Empire. And not only the alternatives that we could imagine, but the alternatives that are already happening, like what are the movements today, what are their poles and directions and what kind of alternative global world today point to us. So that is generally the distinction between the two projects.

DG: So in relation to the Empire you are trying to take a step forward.

MH: Trying to take a step forward and rather than describing the system of domination, describing the alternatives to that. Even the title, in the Empire we talked a little about the Multitude, but we had to say little about the Multitude, so now we thought that the idea will be to articulate the Multitude philosophically and politically.

DG: And you begin your book with war.

MH: Yes.

DG: You dedicate one third of the book to describe what you call war in the society today. By ‘war’ I suppose you don’t mean only the armed combat, right?

MH: Yes.

DG: And you also inverse the Clausevich formula, which is interesting. I am wondering why you choose war to describe the situation today.

MH: Well, there is a first and maybe it is not a good reason, but it is an immediate reason, that is hard to think today, after September 11, or really after the US reaction to September 11, it became increasingly difficult to think about making for a better world. Because of the state of war, that the US declared on terror, and various other kinds of real military combats, in addition to the other things we are saying. Whereas it might have been difficult but it seemed easier in 1999 to think about how a better world could be, suddenly it seems like we are lost in the mist of a horrible situation, so war was like an obstacle that we had to deal with before we can actually talk about. Like I said, this might not be the best reason, but nonetheless I think is really true also, which is thinking of the reader who says “how we can even imagine a democratic world today when we face with Bush?” And so it seemed to us like what we had to talk about at first. Part of the effort of that third of the book is to try to articulate how the problem is not only Bush. And the problem is not only the US war on terror. That is much larger… one needs to think about war as a kind of obstacle that opposes to political projects or alternatives, as something that is much broader, that does unfortunately include military repression but also is a broader political and social obstacle. One of the things that we are trying to confront in that first chapter and then came back to it later and I think is one of those things that we don’t yet understand or have an answer to, is the problem of the relationship between force of violence and political activism. I mean, it seems to me at least, that it makes no sense today to talk about a war of liberation in the way we talked about it 20 or 30 years ago, that makes no sense to talk about it in that way today. But neither does it seems to me that political activism should exclude the use of force. I think that we have to rethink, and as I say I don't have a way of, and maybe the general way of saying this today, we have to think what the relation between force and the politics of liberation is. So in addition to thinking what war is, we start to think what war for liberation is today. And is not an easy answer it seems to me.

DG: And the actual wars or armed combats how are situated inside this idea? They are part of it.

MH: Yes, I mean this is like a sort of our way into the discussion for us, which is to try to understand in the various kinds of armed combats, I mean I am not sure which ones you mean, I am thinking of the obvious wars where both sides are bad in some way, like India-Pakistan, Sierra Leone-Haiti, you know, we have those ongoing wars throughout the world, and what seems to me as a first obligation or task for thinking about this is to recognize how each one has its own specific causes. They are also related to one another as a global system of warfare. Warfare that functions as a kind of social repression.

DG: Yes, because those wars seem like they are more like ‘traditional’ wars, with specific causes.

MH: They are but I think that in many ways there is a, not a danger, but there can be a miscomprehension when something that looks like it is repeating something old but in fact is masking its new relationships. Like for instance, and that's something different, outside Mexico, and I mean mainly in Europe and the US, when the Zapatistas started in 1994 the first reaction was “well that is just an old guerilla army, its just a repetition of the old” while in fact it was something new, it takes quite a while to recognize the novelty of that old form.

DG: This idea of war, its seems that there are other thinks interested in that too, for example Virilio… or Manuel DeLanda… There seems to be a certain proximity between those ideas and your ideas. Is there such a proximity or do you see those ideas as a different approach?

MH: Well both of those books, the Virilio book…

DG: Pure War…

MH: I was thinking of an earlier one, but things are also repeated in that one, and then the first DeLanda book. Yes there are a lot in common with those books. The one hesitation that I have is with the kind of statement that “war or the military drives history”. I think that this is a point which… I don’t know, I prefer to like machiavellian thinking, where force for Machiavelli is important of course, violence is important, but its really on its own the weakest form of power. And I think that's important to recognize today too. The US military is incredibly important and does horrible things, but on its own it’s really a weak form of power. I think what one has to recognize when trying to understand the global system of repression is how this military elements only function when being embedded within, and collaborating with, force of power in various other fields. And I think that even in the thinking of the US military, it can be very instructive to read the things produced by the advisors to the military instructors, a little bit like reading the diary of a psycho killer, you know, its disturbing but at the same time its interesting to see how they think. Well, I was thinking in this regard that what I find most interesting, and it’s not really new, movements within the military is this notion of a full spectrum dominance. I think that is interesting because what they mean by ‘full spectrum dominance’ is that the military has not only to dominate in terms of violence and force, it also has to affect all the other domains, so that's what the full spectrum is, it has to dominate also the economy, has to do it politically, culturally. The US military used to say, during the Vietnam era, that they have to win the hearts and minds, not just kill the Vietnamese, but also to defeat them culturally, or form them culturally. This is really an expansion of that, because now the US military has been involved in nation-building which is dominating them politically. So it’s dominating politically, culturally, economically, this all the charges of the US military, and in Iraq we’ve seen that task and the failures of that task. And one theoretical thing that interests me about this and which I was formulating wrong few minutes ago, because their charge is not so much to dominate them culturally, is to produce them culturally. The form of power is required to be productive rather than simply a kind of repression. Like in Iraq, is obscure when you see it because they recognize that this is a task that they are completely unprepared to do it. The military’s task is to produce an Iraqi political system. It turns out to be an incredible disaster. Nonetheless that's what they see as their charge. And I think in this sense they are lucid, recognizing that it is not just a matter of military power, as even being the foundation, it only functions when it is in coordination with this various other spectrums. All this because I was hesitating with the notion of military force guiding history. I think that it is easy to put too much weigh on the military power of the US today. And I don’t want to say… I mean in military I assume that it is far more powerful than any other military. But the military isolated is insufficient for its task.

DG: And then we have Deleuze and Guattari’s war machines. Could we say that what you are describing here is a war machine that became too big and too powerful, that finally is taking, or already took, the place of the state?

MH: Yes. Well, the way I see Deleuze and Guattaris’ war machines… you know the insistence that the war machines are exterior to the state. They are different things. But nonetheless the state always requires a war machine, and there is a support between the two. And it seems that what we are trying to do in way is to describe the war machine that coordinates its functions with the Empire. If someone thinks of the Empire as form of sovereignty, not really state, but nonetheless a new form of sovereignty, it too has a war machine. A war machine that is exterior to it. That might be a way to pose it in their terms. They say in the end of that chapter, now I am getting very academic about it, but the last pages of the chapter on nomadology, or the apparatus of capture, I am not sure, either 12 or 13 to get Deleuze and Guatarrian about this, the last pages almost seem to me as an exact proposition of our hypothesis of the empire, when they are talking about the war machine and the global integrating of capitalism, I thinks it’s Guattari’s turm.

DG: I think it's the nomadology chapter. What I was thinking is that they think of the war machine not only like something big, and they say that it can be a multinational company, but it can also be a small group of people, which in your idea comes to be the multitude, right?

MH: Right. And my question would be, and I don’t have a answer yet, is that if we agree, and I think that most of us agree, that there are times that the use of force is necessary in politics, so what is the appropriate use of force today, against the system that is repressing us? I think the answer is that what we had years ago are so clearly not appropriate today. Urban armed struggle, in the sense of taking weapons, like in the 70s, rural guerilla movements, and I am thinking of the 70’s in latin America mostly, these seem to me, on one sense counterproductive and suicidal, on the other sense seems to me like today they are martial fantasies. But once we recognize the difficulty, what is that kind of force that is useful today? And that is what I am not sure about. I said that because when you mentions Deleuze and Guattari’s war machine… you know a war machine can be a line of flight. They can be the band of outsides that become a war machine as a kind of escape. So it’s not clear for me what that could mean. It reminds me of another line, and I think it’s in the dialogues book, where he says, I think they were talking about the line of flight as an escape, and I think it sounded too pacific to him so he says something like “yes the line of flight always fly but as you are leaving, grab a gun”. Which is a nice line, I think is a reference to George Jackson actually, and you know, I too know that gesture, but I also know that for me if we were to think what we should do today, to think of ways employed in the 70’s, I don’t thinks that that is productive. Anyway, I shouldn’t go on with that, but for me, part of the question about war is this.

DG: In this work we have on one hand the Empire and on the other hand we have networks. You write somewhere that “it takes a network to fight a network”. Does it mean that the Empire might transform itself into a network and it might also get rid of its center or of its hierarchy?

MH: Well, not necessarily get rid of its hierarchy. Again, when you say that, it makes me think of these Hollywood movies like Terminator where the dominant thing is this network of machines, the imagination is something like that, but I think again if we read the literature within the US military about how their theorists think it needs to transform, they are arguing that it needs to become more like a network. Networks don’t yet say anything about hierarchy. Because what they argue for in the US military, by these reformers of the military, is not that it will lose its authority, but that it will not be structured as a traditional direct hierarchy, and in a way that there will be teams of soldiers that cooperate together. But they are still of course under a hierarchy. Networks of course, they don’t even have to have a center to have a hierarchy. To the extent at which the Empire doesn’t have a center, and I think there are some ways in which it does and some ways in which it doesn’t, to the extent that it doesn’t, it doesn’t mean at all that it doesn’t have a hierarchy. It's a hierarchy that functions in a different way. Like for instance: when we were talking, even in the initial part of our hypothesis, when we were saying that the Empire is form by a network of the dominant states plus the dominant capitalist corporations etc. Those dominant nation - states, there is already a strict hierarchy, for instance between the US and France. But they can still function as a network even with that hierarchy. And it does seem to me that the US military is recognizing the ways in which it has to become more like a network in order to combine the kinds of challenges that is facing.

DG: So, you are saying that despite this war and despite the Empire being so powerful, we have hope.

MH: Right.

DG: And we have hope not only because of the Multitude, but also because of the Empire itself, because it is the Empire that gives rise to various forms of resistance. And much like the Empire, the Multitude is also like a network. Which are the ways in which it gets organized or what are the reasons for which these singular units are coming together in order to form the Multitude?

MH: Well, someone will say “look, you say that the Empire is a network and then the Multitude is a network, so what is the difference?” So, one has to say that it is not the network form in itself, but the kind of network, the relations within the networks that define the difference. I would say that there are certain qualities of relationships that define the Multitude. The singularities are existing subjects so much as a political project. And it will be a political subject formed by the equality of the cooperating singularities, but they are different and they are remaining different. They‘re not merging into a single agenda, a single form of authority etc. They are rather a horizontal network. Then you say why or how do these singularities come together? Maybe there are two ways of approaching such questions. On the one hand one could, and I am sure that we do, try to address it theoretically, but sometimes its better to say “what is it that the people are doing?” “What are the people that are coming together, what are the kinds of projects in which this is happening” and look at that. Like I said before, rather than asking what is it to be done, start by asking the question “what the people are already doing?”. Because there is throughout the world a numerable amount of horizontal movements that are forming. Using them as a point of departure might be the easiest way of addressing these kinds of questions. Like movements in India or in Brazil, or like the assembly movements in Argentina. These are all, in their own ways, with their own peculiarities, they are different experiments in the formation of a local kind of Multitude. What’s interesting about those political reflection, is that it’s not really talking about a world that could be, it’s trying to give a name to what’s happening today. I will give you another example that is purely anecdotic or personal: I’ve been very involved, as I was coming to political consciousness, with the Italian notion of autonomy and that movements from the 70’s in Italy, and so I was interested during the last years that I was traveling in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and each time meeting with activists that their primary term is autonomy, I mean like the picateros in Brazil or the Zapatistas in Mexico, and each timed I asked them “where does this idea of autonomy come from?” and they said “it comes from our own experience, from what we doing”, and I believe them. And it is a interesting phenomenon, I don’t know the answer to why, but it is an interesting phenomenon that, first having the absolute coincidence of using the same word, but it is more general, why today throughout the world are there being form alternative movements that are working with this process, that are trying to experiments with the concepts of autonomy and independence, or a horizontal network formation. My initial assumption or reaction is that “is it throughout the world activism or reacting to similar kinds of situations and challenges and that this notion of autonomy comes from that” I don’t even know why I went into that… oh the formation of multitude and how those things come together, yes, maybe its not so much in theory, “why they should do this” but maybe trying to realize “why they are doing this”.

DG: Also, the way that you describe the Multitude, it brings in mind the idea of the rhizome, as described again by Deleuze and Guattari. What do you think about that?

MH: Yes, I think that it reminds of it. But then again, the further complexity that you are already pointing to is that, you know when you read the beginning of “A Thousand Plateaus” you can think “ok, rhizome is good, tree is bad” and then its turns out that there are good rhizomes and bad rhizomes and that's in essence what we were talking about here. You can say the US military might organize itself as a network but that is not going to make it good, in fact it’s going to make a more “evil” kind of enemy. And so someone has to look at the criteria. But yes, I think that the notion of the rhizome, or the line of flights. In fact one of the most important it seems to me Deleuze and Guattari’s idea that's central for us here is that, when we think of the multitude as formed by an assemblage of singularities, now I sound like Deleuze and Guattari, and the most important thing is that these singularities are not fixed identities, they are always and each becoming different. And they are always and each multiplicities. And that will be a different from, now in the US context, it might not make sense from the Greek point of view, a difference from a certain perspective of identity in politics in which the assumption of identity is fixed and stable. Where the notion of becoming different is already part of the Multitude.

DG: At the same time those singularities are without knowledge of the Multitude, right?

MH: Right, that's another difference with the national identity.

DG: So there is no model to explain how people come together; each time they come together in their own ways and they form the Multitude.

MH: Yes… I think that's true, there is no original way of doing it and there is not only one way, but one shouldn’t discount how much communication has effect on these things. The old term in communist relations was about “a cycle of struggles”, that in a way the inspiration and translation of what is going on in St Petersburg for instance is translated in Shanghai in a different way and taken up etc. I think that today is not exactly the same thing but there is a kind of communication that does help in the formation of groups elsewhere. I mean that the recognition of how a community in Chiapas is formed does then help in Barcelona thinking in a very different context how these singularities might come together. I wish there were more communication… Let me give you an example: Toni and I were together in China last year and one of the things I was really interested in at the time and I kept talk about with people was the crisis in agriculture, the problem of the land and people having to move from the country to the city etc, and as I was talking to people, that were really intellectuals interested in agriculture, not the peasants themselves, but we kept saying “why don’t you start making contacts with the Lamas movement in Brazil, because it is different but they have a similar situation, especially when China enters into the WTO, and it was very hard for them to understand, we didn’t make much. And it seems very practical to me to seek for the translations of what is going on elsewhere to help in this formation of… I said all this because what I was trying to resist is the notion that it could sound spontaneous. Because I think that what is not spontaneous is in fact communication.

DG: You also write that the multitude has to be productive. It has to be productive in terms of labor, or in terms of politics or networks? Because it looks like this idea of productivity is important to you…

MH: It is. Now, stepping back a minute about this, it seems like there is for the last 30 or 50 years, there is a recognition of a problem, an obstacle, within a certain tradition of Marxism. That is productiveness. That puts such emphasis on the economic productivity, that in a way creates a new kind of prison, or even reinforces the same prison. The classic example of this is the notion of this guy in Soviet Union, (something between a myth and a real person) who was more productive than anybody else, and he was doing the work of ten so everybody should be like him. It seems to me that there two ways of responding to this: Because I too am reacting to this notion of communism as more work. There are two ways theoretically to react to this: one is to refuse the notion of productivity and therefore to seek liberation outside of it. As something that is outside of productivity, that has nothing to do with that. The other is, and this is the one that Toni and I are part of, is to work towards a better conception of productivity. That is not strictly economic, but its much better that what is considers a wage liver. I think that Deleuze and Guattari, since we are talking about them, are relevant to this. When they say at the begging of Antioedipus that everything is production, and when they are talking about all these machines, in a way I am trying to think of a very wide spectrum of productivity, it’s not just the productivity in the factory, but the productivity of desire, all of these things, so these are desiring machines, so all this productivity. That's a long explanation to get to the point where we were thinking… what’s really involved. What’s really requiring the production, and I think that's what politics are, is the production of society. It’s not society as a given formation but is something that is constantly produced or reproduced. So what it would mean for the proletarians to take power, for the Multitude to liberate itself? Would be autonomous to be able to produce society, I mean to produce society every day, to produce social relations. So it is a kind of an extension if you like of the notion that the communist revolution involves the ability of the proletarian to be able to produce without the capitalist class. It is a generalization of that to the entire society. And it is in away that seems to me to at least change that repressive notion of production as obligation. So in a way rather than creating a theory that moves away from labor, it transforms productivity and what it means. It's like Deleuze and Guattari which seems to me as a convenient example of that.

DG: And in the end you think that the Multitude can lead us into a democratic state, which means that it will give an end to the Empire and at the some time it will not give birth to something that will take the place of the Empire. And, I don't know but I keep thinking again of Deleuze and Guattari when they say that at the end of every revolution there is always betrayal and disappointment, and also that it doesn’t matter because what matters is the becoming of revolution… But you are actually saying something different, you are saying that the multitude can actually lead us to something that it will be better.

MH: Yes… I remember that in Marx’s 1844 manuscripts he says two things that are contradictory. In one point he says, and he is giving a dialectical formulation, and he talks about the way that communism will be the result of the contradictions within capitalist society, that will pose an end to history. And because it will resolve all the class conflicts etc, communism will be the end. And there is another point where he says thought, he describes that movement from capitalism to communism where he says communism which will be the next stage, the next step in human history, and then of course there will be something that comes after and something that comes after. So in a way you are asking me about this division here. Are we talking about revolution as the end of human history? And I agree with you: no we are not. It seems to me even undesirable. But also unreasonable. It doesn’t seem as the right way to think about it. That's not to say though that revolution involves just a repetition of the same. It would be in fact a better stage. I think there is not, and I don’t know if I should be critical of myself for this, but I can not think of those things without thinking in terms of progress. And why I say that I might need to be critical? Because I can recognize many critiques of progress scenarios. Which I think is justified. One that shows progress as an inevitable and even objectively proceeding course; and one that shows that progress has a telos and is leading history towards that. I think rather there is a telos, especially the way that Toni and I speak about it, there is a totally immanent telos that's guided by the desire of those who rebel. It is a peculiar kind of telos I think because it just means that we who struggle, want something different. So the construction of that, and the force of that desire, rebellion, etc. will be a better society. And even looking historically, we are reading history as a progression of progress that is the accumulation of the desires of the repressed or the struggles against repression. Which is another kind of progress. But I am ending one and one that's simple the continuing expression of the desire of those who struggle. At any case, I think you are right to point out that the project of the multitude isn’t a project for the end of history…

DG: Or one that will lead us to a stage where we can say “that's it!”

MH: Yes, right.

DG: Another question, that maybe goes back to what we were talking about before, is, since the Empire is a network and the Multitude is a network, how can we say which is which? I mean, aren’t there places where the limits are starting to blur and you can not really say where one ends and the other starts?

MH: Yes, I bet that there are many ways in which you can not tell which is which but that doesn’t mean that conceptually they are not different. Let me try to give an example of that: It’s not like everything in ones life in the whole world is easily categorisable. Like a Hollywood movie, you say that's an expression of the Empire, but there are also elements that pose an alternative to that and a possibility for other things, so I think that in most experiences the portions of repression and the possibilities of liberation can not always be disentangled or separated. But conceptually or in principle there is, you can not risk confusing authority and repression with equality and freedom. It sounds very old fashion but that what’s at stake here.

DG: You have this juxtaposition: transcendence and immanence. It seems important, right? So I was thinking if it is just a way to exclude any possible metaphysical explanation or if there is more into that, if there is another reason…

MH: I think there are several reasons. There is the philosophical perspective where like you say the reason is to avoid metaphysical explanations. Transcended power as a source. But politically, and there are many ways to pose it, transcendence means in many political frameworks the dictation of a central authority. So either in an old tradition of European, political philosophy, think of Hobbes for instance, that the power that stands above society, the state also the party, you know, various other institutional structures that stand above society, and then in a more basic, introductory kind of argument for immanence as part of the tradition of politics of the abolition of the state in its various forms. But also in a more immediate political organizational way. I think the importance for us arguing for immanence is against the politics of vanguardism. That the vanguard stands above. It's a kind of topology, if you know what I mean, because it’s metaphorical in the sense that the vanguard transcends, you know, stands above the political movement. But it is a way of linking in this way, an argument against a philosophy of metaphysics, of metaphysical explanations, of metaphysical powers and the politics of vanguardism and authority. So the proposition of absolute immanence for us tries to bridge those two and finally imagine a politics that doesn’t require hierarchy within a political formation.

DG: I was wondering how you write your books. I mean since you are two, what is the process that you are following?

MH: The process is this: First, after talking about things and feeling like we have something to say, we sit together and make outlines, usually for several days, weeks, until we work it out, at least the first version of what the argument will be, and then we divide up sections and each person writes a first draft of that section. But then we exchange the drafts and the other person rewrites what the first person wrote. Usually goes back again, rewrite again. Generally it ends up that we don’t remember who wrote what because it gets changed so much. And Toni writes in Italian and I write in English which also makes the things, you know, its gets translated and confused.

DG: So it is already something multiple…

MH: It’s already something multiple, yes. I love the first line of “A Thousand Plateaus”…

DG: That's exactly what I had in mind…

MH: I remember someone saying to me once “but don’t you sometimes disagree with what Toni says?” And I said “well, I often disagree with what I say”, which is like Deleuze and Guattari saying “we were each already many when we came together, so there was already a crowd”. It’s also true that sometimes Toni doesn’t understand what I am saying and sometimes I don’t understand what he is saying, but sometimes I realize I don’t understand what I am saying. You know when you try to work out an argument…

DG: Thank you very much.

MH: Thank you.

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What comes first: the chicken or the egg? Pattern Formation Models in Biology, Music and Design.

by Katerina Tryfonidou & Dimitris Gourdoukis

The popular saying that wonders if the egg is coming before the chicken or vice versa, implies a vicious circle where all the elements are known to us and the one is just succeeding the other in a totally predictable way. In this article we will argue, using arguments from fields as diverse as experimental music and molecular biology, that development in architecture, with the help of computation, can escape such a repetitive motif. On the contrary, by employing stochastic processes and systems of self organization each new step can be a step into the unknown where predictability gives its place to unpredictability and controlled randomness.

01. Music

The Greek music composer and architect Iannis Xenakis in his book Formalized Music ^[1] divides his works -or better the methods employed in order to produce his works- into two main categories: deterministic and indeterministic models. The two categories, deriving apparently from the mathematics, are referring to the involvement or not of randomness in the compositional process. As Xenakis himself explains, “in determinism the same cause always has the same effect. There’s no deviation, no exception. The opposite of this is that the effect is always different, the chain never repeats itself. In this case we reach absolute chance – that is, indeterminism”[2]. In other words a deterministic model does not include randomness and therefore it will always produce the same output for a given starting condition. Differential equations for example tend to be deterministic. On the other hand, indeterministic or stochastic processes involve randomness, and therefore will produce different outputs each time that the process is repeated, given the same starting condition. Brownian motion and marcov chains are some examples of such stochastic mathematical models. Xenakis’ compositional inventory includes processes from both categories[3].

As said above, the use of stochastic models in composition has as a result a process that produces a different outcome each time that it is repeated. For example, using Brownian motion[4] (see figure 01: particles generated using Brownian motion[5]) in order to create the glissandi of the strings, means that the glissandi are generated through a process that includes randomness, therefore if we try to generate them again we will get a different output. At the same time, all the different results of the process will share some common characteristics. With that in mind someone would expect that such a musical composition would vary –at least in some aspects- each time that it is performed. However that is not the case with Xenakis’ works. While he was employing stochastic processes for the generation of several parts of his scores, he was always “translating” his compositions using conventional musical notation, with such detail that he was leaving no space at all for the performer to improvise, or to approach the composition in a different way. In other words the generation of the score involves randomness to a great extent, but the score becomes finalized by the composer so that each time that it is performed it remains the same.

Figure 01: Brownian motion. Object-e architecture: space_sound. 2007.

What is maybe even more interesting is that Xenakis did compose scores that are different each time that they are performed. However, those scores usually are employing deterministic mathematical models, therefore models that do not include randomness. In those cases the situation is inverted: the generation of the score is deterministic, but the performance may vary.

An example of the last case is Duel, a composition that is based on game theory[6]. The composition is performed by two orchestras guided by two conductors, and is literary a game between the two that in the end yields a winner. Each conductor has to select for each move, one out of seven options that are predefined by the composer. A specific scoring system is established and the score of each orchestra depends on the choices of the two conductors[7]. The result of this process is that each time that the composition is performed, the outcome is different. Therefore, a deterministic system where there are seven specific and predefined elements is producing a result that varies in each performance of the score. To make things even more complicated, the seven predefined musical elements are composed by Xenakis with the use of stochastic processes. To summarize the structure of Duel: Xenakis generated seven different pieces using stochastic processes, therefore seven pieces that include randomness. However those pieces were finalized by the composer into a specific form. Then those pieces are given to the conductors that are free to choose one for each move of the performance. The choice of each conductor however is not random: “… it is [not] a case of improvised music, ‘aleatory’, to which I am absolutely opposed, for it represents among other things the total surrender of the composer. The Musical Game accords a certain liberty of choice to the two conductors but not to the instrumentalists; but this liberty is guided by the constraints of the Rules of the Game, and which must permit the music notated by the score to open out in almost unlimited multiplication.”[8] So the choices of each conductor are based upon the strategy that he follows in order to win the game, and consequently upon the choices of the second conductor. Therefore the final performance of the score is different each time.

Xenakis was quite specific with his decisions regarding the use of deterministic or indeterministic processes. In most cases he employs models from both categories for each composition. More importantly, while he names his music “stochastic music”, the stochastic part, the place where randomness occurs, is always internal to the process and totally controlled by the composer. The final result - the score that reaches the performer, or even more the listener – is always specific. Even in the cases where the outcome may vary, it still does so in a set of predefined solutions already predicted by the composer.

02. Life Science

The study of morphogenesis, one of the most complex and amazing research topics of modern biology, aims to provide understanding on the processes that control the organized spatial distribution of cells during the embryonic development of an organism. In other words, how starting from a single fertilized egg, through cell division and specialization, the overall structure of the body anatomy is formed[9]. According to Deutsch and Dorman[10] there is a continuum of different approaches to the problem; on the one end there are theories of preformation and on the other end systems of self organization. The concept of preformation assumes that any form is preformed and static. Therefore any new form is always a result of a combination of the already existing forms. Taking a different approach, self –organization implies a de novo pattern formation that is dynamic and gets developed over time. Morphogenesis in the self-organization model depends on the interaction between the initial cells or units. Preformation is a top-to-bottom idea, while self-orgazination is a bottom-up system. In both cases, research uses computation as the necessary medium for the simulation of the biological processes. We will argue that according to the latest research in biology, morphogenesis can be approached as a process which involves both the notion of preformation as well as self-organization.

During morphogenesis, cells proliferate and specialize, i.e. they choose which subset of proteins to express. But how do cells know when to divide or where to specialize? How do cells know where to become skin or bone or how many fingers should they form? It turns out that the key to understanding morphogenesis is the way cells sense and respond to their environment.

Cells obtain information about their environment by using proteins embedded in their membrane to sense specific “message” proteins that are located around them. When such a “message” protein binds to a membrane protein, the cell “receives” the message and acts accordingly[11]. Therefore, during morphogenesis there is a constant interaction, through such “message” proteins, between each cell and its neighboring cells. This interaction helps cells to understand where in the body they are located, when should they divide and when do they need to specialize into some particular type of cell.

The above function, or better, sequence of functions, has been the focus of scientific research for the past two decades. Nowadays, molecular biology can accurately describe many steps of the reactions between proteins and how they are related to cell specialization[12]. It has been proved that these reactions follow specific physical laws which can be described by mathematical models. For example, given a pair of proteins, the properties of the resulting interactions are known. Because of the physical laws that are being applied, the model of the function of cells is a deterministic one, since it is made of many elementary interactions between proteins that have well defined inputs and outputs. Going this notion a step further, one could argue that the function of the cells implies the idea of preformation, that is, from two predefined elements only one possible combination can occur. In a way, the deterministic rules that the reactions of the proteins follow can be seen as a model of preformation, where there is only one output given a specific input.

Although the reactions between the proteins inside the cell follow specific rules that have been defined, yet there is a great degree of unpredictability at the life and function of each cell. Why science cannot predict exactly which will be the next “moves” of the cells, thus controlling all the functions in a (human) body? Although the nature of the outcome of the interaction between two proteins has been studied and analyzed, it is not possible to define deterministically when and where this interaction will take place, since proteins move randomly in space and they can interact only if they come into proximity and under proper relative orientation. This is true for proteins inside and outside the cell. Furthermore, it is not possible to define the exact location of neighboring interacting cells, when each cell will sense the presence of a “message” protein, when and how much will the cell respond to this signal by secreting its own “message” proteins, and when its neighbors will sense this signal. Given the number and complexity of the functions in each cell, as well as the vast possibilities of interactions with its neighboring cells, the large number of processes that could potentially happen cannot be expressed by deterministic models.

Since there is, to a certain degree, randomness in cellular functions, science turned to stochastic models in order to explain them. That is, instead of deterministic mathematical models, scientists use models that incorporate probabilities, in order to include the large amount of possible actions. Brownian motion, for example, is the stochastic model that describes the movement of particles in fluids, and therefore is used to describe the movement of proteins inside the cell. Stochastic processes can describe the spatial and temporal distribution of interactions inside cells and between neighboring cells.

To understand the importance of the stochastic component of cell function, here is another example: even though monozygotic twins have exactly the same DNA, they look similar but not identical. If the cell-response system was purely deterministic, then babies that have the same DNA should look identical. Nevertheless, this kind of twins look very much alike, but they are not identical. The small differences in their physical appearance occurred because of the stochastic nature of protein motion and interaction during morphogenesis. Even though the initial information was the same, and even though the outcome of protein reactions follows deterministic rules, the exact location of cells and proteins can only be described in a stochastic mode.

The stochastic part of cellular functions could, at a different framework, be seen as a model of self-organization. For people outside of the scientific biological community the introduction of randomness at research seems particularly intriguing. Instead of a process of preformation, (specific aspects of cells function that can be described by deterministic models) in the self-organizational model, cell function results in something different that cannot be described by deterministic rules. Cell functions depend on the fact that each cell is part of a whole. Together with their neighbor- cells, they react to external stimuli and to a large extent define the characteristics of the whole, as part of a bottom-up process. Deutch and Dorman, focus on the absence of distinction between organizer and organized in self-organized systems: “In self-organized systems there is no dichotomy between the organizer and the organized. Such systems can be characterized by antagonistic competition between interaction and instability”[13]. To a certain extend, the cell functions acquire a self-organizational character, because the transformations depend on the interaction of the cells with each other.

There are many examples like the above in molecular biology to make the point that both deterministic and stochastic processes are used to describe the phenomena of life. As an overall assumption, many of the microscopic phenomena in life science follows deterministic rules, but the macroscopic outcomes can be described only in a stochastic way. Following this thought we argue that models of preformation and self-organization, as described above, can exist simultaneously in a system. The case of the cell-cell interaction in general and in the morphogenesis in particular depicts the complex processes that occur and highlights which part of the processes suggest a deterministic, preformatted model, and part of it follows a stochastic model of self-organization.

03. Design

The two cases we already examined – Xenakis work in musical composition and the study of morphogenesis in molecular biology – are both dependant to a great extent on the same medium: computation. Xenakis used computer as the means to transform mathematical models into music almost from the beginning of his career. At the same time, it would be impossible for researchers today to study the extremely complex phenomena that are involved in the development of life without the use of the computer.

The use of the computer, of course, has also become one of the main driving forces behind design today. The encounter of computation with design happened rather late and in the beginning took the form of an exploration of the formal possibilities that software packages were offering. That initial –maybe “immature” but still experimental– approach soon gave its place to a widely generalized dominance of digital means on every aspect related to architecture: from design strategies to the construction industry.

However, using the computer in an architectural context does not necessarily mean that we are taking advantage of the opportunities and the power that computation has to offer. More often than not, the use of computers in architecture today serves the purpose of the “computerization” of already predefined processes and practices – aiming usually to render them more efficient or less time consuming. That might be convenient, it does not promote however the invention of new ways to think about architecture. As Kostas Terzidis notes, “computerization is the act of entering, processing or storing information in a computer… [while] … computation is about the exploration of indeterminate, vague, unclear and often ill-defined processes”[14]. While automating and mechanizing every-day architectural tasks may be useful, the true gain for architecture in relation to digital media lies in the understanding of what a computational design process can really be. Only this way we can use computers in order to explore the ‘unknown’; in order to invent new architectures. We believe that the already mentioned examples in biology and the music of Xenakis can offer the means to better understand where these creative possibilities of computation are laying. Of course computation has numerous applications in several different fields, the selection of those two specific cases as guidelines however, has a very specific motivation: The biological approach is providing scientific, highly developed techniques that have been tested thoroughly and at the same time can show us how computation and digital tools can become the bridge between complex processes taking place in the physical world and the way that space is created. Xenakis’ work on the other hand, is an example of computational techniques used outside their strict scientific origins; that is in order to compose a musical score. Therefore they can provide insights about how those methods can be used in order to create an art-form.

The work of Xenakis is pointing out one of the most import aspects that computation is bringing into (architectural or musical) composition: the introduction of randomness. One can argue of course that architects always had to take decision based on chance. However humans are not really able of creating something totally random. For example if we ask somebody to draw a random line; between the decision to draw a line and the action of drawing the line, there are several different layers that affect the result: ones idea of what a line is, ones’ idea of what random is, the interpretation of the phrase “draw a random line” etc. On the contrary computers are very good at producing randomness (see figure 02: stochastic algorithm positioning and scaling a box randomly). If we program a computer to draw a random line, then the computer will simply draw a line without anything external interfering between the command and the action. The ability to produce randomness, combined with the ability to perform complex calculations is defining the power of computational stochastic processes. And as we have already seen with the work of Xenakis, randomness can be controlled. Therefore the architect/programmer can specify specific rules or define the range within which the stochastic process will take place and then the computer will execute the process and produce results that satisfy the initial conditions. The advantage of such a process lays in the fact that through randomness the architect can be detached from any preconceptions that he or she may have about what the result should be, and therefore it will become easier to generate solutions initially unpredicted. By defining the rules and letting the computer generate the results, we open ourselves to a field of almost endless possibilities; designers can produce results that they couldn’t even imagine in the beginning of the process, while they can still maintain control of the process and the criteria that should be met.

Figure 02: Stochastic distribution. Object-e architecture: space_sound. 2007.

The most important aspect that is crucial to realize, and Xenakis’ work is making it easier to see, is that the power of algorithms used in composition lays in the process and not in the final result. If it is a building that we need to produce, then a building might be produced in the end, as a musical composition was produced in the end by Xenakis. However the importance is moving from the final result to the process that we use to generate it; the architect is not designing the building anymore, but the process that generates it. To point it out once again: computation is defining a process, not an output. And exactly because it allows us to focus on the process and not the results, those results can be unexpected.

Figure 03: student: Josie Kressner

While Xenakis emphasizes the importance of process over the final output along with the stochastic properties of algorithms, the example from biology, when applied to architecture, is highlighting another important aspect that the use of algorithms is raising: that of self-organization. Architectural tradition, starting with the renaissance, is heavily based upon the idea of the “master”: an architect with a specific vision, which he or she materializes through his/her designs creating subsequently a style. Self-organization however implies a totally different idea: the architect does not actualize through his design something that he or she has already conceived. On the contrary: the architect creates the rules, specifies the parameters and runs the algorithm; the output is defined indirectly. Through computation and after many iterations, even the simplest rules can provide extremely complex results, which are usually unpredictable. Moreover, by a simple change in the rules something totally different may arise. The top-bottom idea of architecture, with the architect being at the top level and his/her creations being at the bottom, is inverted: the process begins from the bottom. Simple elements interact with each other locally, and through the iterative application of simple rules, complex patterns start to emerge. The architect does not design the object anymore, but is designing the system that will generate the final output.

An example of a pattern formation model with self-organizational properties is that of cellular automata, which are extensively in use in several different fields, and lately also in architecture. A cellular automaton is a self organized system where complex formations arise as a result of the interaction and the relations between the individual elements. The simplicity of the model combined with its abilities to produce very complex results and to simulate a very wide range of different phenomena makes it a very powerful tool that allows the architect to be disengaged from the creation of a specific output and to focus instead on the definition of a process. (see figure 04: a one dimensional ca and a surface generated byt the acceleration of the rules.)

Figure 04: student: Lauren Matrka

The possibilities arising for architecture are virtually infinite: from the creation of self-organized and self-sustained ecosystems to the study and planning of urban growth. In the place of externally imposed “sustainable” rules, we can have internally defined rules that form the generative process. In the place of applying external “planning” strategies to the cities, we can study urban entities as organisms, as system that are growing following specific rules that define the interaction between its elements.

Yet, as noted in the example of the protein interaction, self-organization is not encountered on its own. It is always functioning together with other, deterministic or pre-formed, systems. The same way that Xenakis was using indeterministic processes in relation to deterministic ones.

What stochastic processes and self organization are offering to architecture, are the means to engage the unknown, the unexpected. The means to move away from any preconceptions that define what architecture is or should be, towards processes the explore what architectures can be. As Marcos Novak writes, “by placing an unexpected modifier x next to an entity y that is presumed – but perhaps only presumed – to be known, a creative instability is produced, asking, ‘how y can be x?’”[15]. In that sense, by placing models of self organization next to models of preformation, or stochastic processes next to deterministic processes, we are not only inventing new systems or new architectures, but we are also discovering new qualities of the systems that we already know – or we thought that we know.

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[1] see Xenakis, I. Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition New York: Pendragon Press, 1992.

[2] see Varga, B.A. Conversations with Iannis Xenakis London: Faber and Faber limited, 1996, p.76.

[3] In the “deterministic” category of Xenakis’ work fall compositions like Akrata, Nomos Alpha and Nomos Gamma, while examples of the “indeterministic” approach can be found in compositions like N’Shima (Brownian Motion) and Analologigues (Markov Chains).

[4] Brownian motion in mathematics (also Wiener process) is a continuous-time stochastic process. In physics it is used in order to describe the random movement of particles suspended in a liquid or gas.

[5] Figures 1-2: from the project space_sound, Object-e architecture, 2007. Figures 3-4: student work, School of Architecture, Washington University in St. Louis.

[6] Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that studies the behavior in strategic situations, where an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others.

[7] For a detail description of Duel see Xenakis, I Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition New York: Pendragon Press, 1992. p. 113 – 122.

[8] Xenakis, I. Letter to Witold Rowicki. see Matossian, N. Xenakis New York: Taplinger Publishing Co. 1986, pp. 164-165.

[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphogenesis, 03/22/08

[10] see Deutch A. & Dorman S. Cellular Automaton; Modeling of Biological Pattern Formation, Boston: Birkhauser, 2005.

[11] see Sudava D., et al, Life: The science of Biology, Freeman Company Publishers, 2006.

[12] see Lodish H., et al, Molecular cell biology, Freeman Company Publishers, 2007.

[13] see Deutch A. & Dorman S., Cellular Automaton; Modeling of Biological Pattern Formation, Boston: Birkhauser, 2005.

[14] see Terzidis, K. Expressive Form, a Conceptual Approach to Computational Design New York: Spon Press, 2003, p.67.

[15] see Novak, M. “Speciation, Transvergence, Allogenesis: Notes on the Production of the Alien” AD vol 72 No 3 Reflexive Architecture, Spiller N. (ed.) London: Wiley Academy, 2002, p.65.

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Architecture, science and the social: A conversation with Antoine Picon.

by Dimitris Gourdoukis

Antoine Picon is a historian and theoretician that has focused with his writings mainly on the relation between architecture and science, or architecture and the technologies. A relation that in the current situation of architecture is extremely important, if we think about the impact of the use of computers in architectural design and the ‘uncertainty’ that new technologies brought into architectural practice. Writer of several books and numerous articles, while at the same time a Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology and Director of Doctoral Programs at the GSD, Antoine Picon is offering a better understanding of that relation, through its history, but also through a critical approach to its current condition.

This discussion presented here on the t-machine, took place in the spring of 2006, at Washington University in St Louis. The questions were made together with Matthew Toth.

DG: You write often about the relation of architecture to science. Also it is obvious that during the last years this relation has been strengthened. Why do you think this is happening?

AP: I think there are various reasons at various levels. The first one I think is related to the very specific context in architecture. I would say that we are in the middle of a state of incertitude regarding guidelines for architectural practice and reflection today. We are no longer entirely modern, we have abandoned the post-modernism, and even the kind of Koolhaas global architecture is wearing thin. So there is a need of trying to find one guiding principle. That would be a first reason. Probably a second reason is that science seems to be unfolding today a pretty fascinating world, which is pretty much tuned with what people perceive, for example, a world that is both computable and totally unpredictable, which is something that quite strikes me. If you take the financial market, for example, they are totally computerized and totally unpredictable. In a way, science is closer to some of the fundamental intuition that we have of our world. So this is another reason. And then a third reason is of course the computer, and the advance of digital culture and the possibility of circulation of models between the two domains. So I think that it is the convergence of all that that might explain this renewed interest in science today.

DG: You often argue that architecture was always virtual in the sense of design. How is that virtuality of architecture related to what we encounter as virtual in architecture today, in the computer? Is it the same notion or are we referring to two different notions that just happens to be described with the word?

AP: Well, historians will tell you that it is an expression of the same thing. I think virtuality is a fundamental component of architecture. This is what I tried to explain in the text you are referring to. Architecture is always as much a promise of unfolding as something that is already there; it is always something that is in between the ‘there’ and the ‘not yet there.’ I think this is something that has not changed. What has changed is the way it manifests itself. In the article that you mentioned (Architecture and Science) I mention how ornament was part of the former virtuality of architecture, which today is no longer the case. To go back to the problem of computation and form, the virtual has more to do with the relation between computation and poetics, in some ways, which is something relatively new.

DG: But in a way is it the same idea and the computer is only the medium to helps us experience it?

AP: No I strongly believe that the computer alters the way, it alters even what we call materiality. The computer is as much a machine that redefines the experience we have of the world, as it is a pure computing device. So the experiential level, our relation to the physical world, is changing because of the computer. An example I always like to give is zoomability: we used to live in a world that images were static; now we are more and more accustomed to images that are clickable, and in a way an image that is not clickable is strange. So clickability, zoomability, has become a natural condition. It is this experiential dimension for me that is really altering. I mentioned images, but there are others too. Our relation to light is changing, because now light is something we can manipulate, in a much more detailed way, we can parameterize it. So a lot of things are changing and thus the way we perceive architecture is changing profoundly as well as the kind of promise architecture is about.

MT: Does that affect the way we produce architecture too? Or the way we perceive the images?

AP: Absolutely, although we do not know yet to what extend the way we produce architecture is going to change. I believe it is going to change enormously, but we have not yet fully realized that. For example, since everything in a computer process is theoretically reversible, you have to make choices, and the computer forces you to be more strategic. That is why the strategy of the path you follow is becoming more and more important. The computer is a machine that can produce so many different scenarios, that the selection is more crucial than before.

MT: It seems to me that the reverse would be true, that before computers you needed a strategy because you could only produce one variation, but now you can have 15 different variations, variations in the colors of the façade just by some quick clicks.

AP: Yes, but you can argue that it is a little bit like consumer culture, before, when you had only one product to buy, you just bought the product. If you have 50 available, you will have to ask yourself “why am I going to buy this?” The diversity of the computer forces you, in a way, to have a clear vision of what you want, in order not to get lost in the indefinite diversity. To give another example that always strikes me, think of the writing of a text: before, typing a text, using the typewriter, was such an ordeal that when you were done with it, you usually kept the text as it was, except if really there was something totally wrong. Today you can always redo or modify, so you have to make a decision on when this is over, on when the text is finished. It might look more arbitrary, but it is really what I call a more strategic decision. And for that you have also to set your goals more clearly, because the production of the text becomes so flexible, you can cut, you can paste, so you have to define what the aim you are pursuing is.

DG: There seems to be some certain thinkers connected with these new conditions in architecture, like Deleuze and Bergson. How do you think that those things come together? Do you believe that they can provide a theoretical background for digital architecture?

AP: Hmmm… I’ll be very honest with you. I like philosophy, but I think philosophy is always a provisory dress for architecture, and that architecture has got to find its own self-motivation. Of course there are intuitions in Deleuze, from Mille Plateaux to Le Pli, or later, that are in tune with some of what architects are pursuing. However, I am not sure that this is going to provide The Theory, because I think architecture needs to provide its own understanding of things.

DG: So it just provides inspiration?

AP: Yes, it provides a provisory to theorize things in a way that we have not yet totally come to terms with. That’s at least my take of the question. Of course there are a few things like what Deleuze writes on ornament, etc, that are in correspondence, which is natural, as architecture is a cultural production, is intoned with all other cultural production, but I do not think that architecture has never found in Emmanuel Kant or in Hegel its ultimate justification. It could be inspired by some of the concept of philosophy, but then it has to be a unique understanding of things.

DG: Then, do we need an architectural theory today?

AP: It depends on what you call theory. If you call theory a closed system of principles, then no, I do not think we need that. If we speak of guidelines, of a way to define objectives, then yes. To give another example, which is also one of my obsessions, I am pretty convinced that we have also to address social issues today. They’re back, so to say. And blobs are not enough. The real question is how to articulate new ways to do architecture, with new expectations from the people and so forth. It cannot be cynical any more in the kind of discourse in global architecture, or fashion design, that you find from Koolhaas to Van Berkel- even Koolhaas is changing these days. So I do not think we need a theory, but we need to reassess the way architecture relates to the social demand. We need to see how to relate to the social demand without falling back to the utopian discourse of modernity. So, I think architecture is in need of theoretical questions, probably more than theoretical answers.

MT: Is this architectural theory something that’s built or something that is written?

AP: I think it’s always in between the two. Architecture is something that goes back and forth between material production, very material production and lighting, images, and feeds on both. I think it feeds both on very material realization and imagination. Ahhh… How could I state it? Architecture must be inspiring. And you are not inspiring if you are only a beautiful object, you are inspiring if you suggest a different world, if you make proposals for a different world, a different way to perceive things. So there is always the need of the two: architecture is always both in the building and in the commentary of the building, if you like.

MT: So, is it possible to build a theory?

AP: Again, it depends on what you call a theory. I would say rather than a theory as a corpus of principles, something that identifies what matters at a certain point. If you look at Le Corbusier buildings, there is a certain number of things that matter, and “Theory” is about exploring what matters for a certain type of architecture at a given moment.

DG: Let’s go back to the notion of materiality in architecture; we could say that today we have reached a point where we can design the materials we are going to use. So, in an extreme situation, it is possible for an architect to design something and then say “now let’s create the materials to build it,” which I suppose changes the way we understand materiality. But at the same time using the computer, we find a new kind of materiality. When you have to work with a certain software package and use the geometries it employs (NURBS for example), you have to understand in a way the materiality of the software. So where do those things bring us, and how could we understand materiality in architecture?

AP: I think what you say is true, today we can design materials, although that doesn’t happen for the first time, today it is possible to an extend that was not before. Another thing is that today materiality is extremely abstract and extremely concrete. It is both in the software and in the codes of the software as well as in the very things you are going to touch. So the new materiality has probably to do with those very conflicting categories. That said I do not think that we are at a stage where we know towards where we are actually going.

DG: But you do recognize it as an important issue?

AP: I think actually it is one of the most important issues today. We are defined by the way we define what is not us, and materiality is very much about what is not us. Therefore there is this strange relation between redefining what is materiality and what is man. And we are in a period where the definition of man is changing.

DG: Could we also say that the computer gives a different value to the idea of materiality? An architect that has to work on the computer, in a way becomes a craftsman in order to understand the properties of the things he is working with. I suppose we used to think of the architect as someone that does not go to that level of craftsmanship.

AP: I am not necessarily persuaded… I will mention Kostas Terzidis, he thinks that architecture goes to an algorithmic level… I am not convinced this is always necessary. I think you can do a lot of things without knowing their principles. What you need then is to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve so that you are not trapped totally in what the machine or the tool wants. If you do not want to be a prisoner of the tools, there are various things you can do, one is to know perfectly well all the internal logic of the tool; another thing is to define your goal and choose the tool in function of the goal, which is a different way. I believe probably architects are prone to the second approach. The new generation that will come will be incomparably savvier in computer coding. But that said, I do not think that they will always have the time to play with the code, etc. because in the design profession there are so many other things to do. So my guess is we should return to the idea of the strategic, and that architecture is very much in need in defining better its goals today. The question is what you want to achieve with design, because it is clear you cannot achieve everything.

MT: That is why, as you say, the social issues are becoming the focus of the discourse again?

AP: Absolutely. Today we have reached a state where we have to redefine what architecture brings, or the question becomes too complex… Architecture was never a purely philanthropic activity, it is as much an art, but a bizarre social art, in which there is always the ambition to reshape sociability and society. So it’s a bizarre thing. It is more complex than planning. Planning is totally good citizenship… Architecture is more perverse. Today we have to reevaluate both all the internal goals of architecture and how do they relate to other goals which are of more social nature.

DG: There also seems to be an obsession with the form or the image. The visualization that the computer is producing.

AP: Yes, I think it is normal in some ways. Because we believe that beyond the images there is something; if it was just for the sake of the images we would be “ok, so what?” But I think beyond that, there are things at stake. A comparison I use from times to times is with the Renaissance, not necessarily because we are in a new Renaissance. When people were playing with perspective, they were playing with images, and they were totally fascinated with images. But images are important. They do reshape the world in which we live. So I would say that we do not know exactly how computer images are going to reshape the world in which we live, but we are pretty much there, already. So a play with images may seem a little bit superficial, and indeed some are totally fetishizing the image, but I think there is something deeper.

DG: Is the image always a part of architecture?

AP: Architecture has to do with images and there are two functions for images. The first one is to synthesize heterogeneity. This is why the architect reasons through images, because the problem of design is that it has to take into account very heterogeneous factors and problems. This is where it is different to engineering, engineering usually deals with relatively homogeneous types of problems. Of course any technical system can be extremely complex but it is more univocal than architecture, which has to synthesize very diverse things. And an image is something that unifies, you can put extremely different things on an image, and the fact that they are on an image unifies them. Look at a surrealist image, you have an apple next to a locomotive, but bizarrely because it is transformed into an image it makes some sense. So I think architecture uses images for that purpose. Also because images are part of the social imaginary, part of what people expect from the world. I think architecture is also a play on the expectation, raising expectation of meaning etc.

MT: Is the computer image the latest model of architectural style or trend? I am thinking of automotive design over the past century and the lifestyle implications, and the way a particular design suggests a certain society.

AP: Yes, and do not forget that the computer image is totally in continuity with videogames and that kind of things, which are powerful images today. Even if you look at the way we tend to circulate in models today, a little bit like Super Mario… And it has an impact on architecture; you could very well argue that the Foreign Office Yokohama Terminal is a manifestation of the age of video games, sliding, going up and down, attracted by topological holes, attracted by that kind of things. A French poet once said: “Nothing is more profound than skin”, images are just like skin, both totally superficial and extremely profound.

MT: When people think of computer designed buildings, they have a certain image associated with that and in that sense people in that line of work are pretty successful. You mentioned blob architecture. Is this image of the computer design important, is this a lasting image, is it going to be the next legacy, or is there something else about computers more important? Is it the process about using computers that will have the real impact? Is the multifaceted skin portrayed in three dimensions and constructed, is that what is important, that we are taking away from computers, or is there something else?

AP: I think we are taking away a lot of other things. Frankly, I do not know, I am not a prophet. I am interested in digital architecture regardless, not necessarily as the ultimate answer we can bring to questions, but more in what questions it raises. For example if you take the blobs, the blobs are what they are, they raise a couple of interesting issues, for example this issue of formal freedom, what is formal freedom today. Another issue raised is aesthetic judgment, we do not know if a blob is beautiful or not. That is another interesting question. So they raise a couple of interesting questions. That said, I am not sure if the blob is the only solution we can bring. I recently wrote a piece for a friend of mine, the architecture of whom is probably still in its infancy, but his idea is that we could also envisage a relation between thecomputer and the virtual, that could rather lead us to a new minimalism. I would say you have the blob in the one hand but minimalism is also an answer today. I do not think that the blobs are the only solution. I think they raised interesting questions. But I do not think they are necessarily the only future we have in front of us. I happen to be pretty eclectic on that matter. There are some blobish people I am interested in and others that I am not at all interested. Some projects of Jesse Reiser or Goulthorpe are even in a plastic term interesting, probably less convinced by some of Lynn’s creations, although the most recent ones, the more ornamental ones, are probably more interesting than the former ones. But we do not know yet where it is leading, and the worst thing to do is to be trapped believing that this is the truth. The good thing is that it has a kind of experimental dimension. It is a good time to be a young architect. For example there are all the things, you take sustainability, nobody knows what sustainability really means in architecture, and that’s why to give a meaning to sustainability will be a major challenge. And probably the computer will be one of the dimensions involved in sustainability today. To go back to architecture and science, one of the things that both architecture and science share today is this experimental dimension. Architecture is more than ever an experimental practice.

MT: So, what is the relation of architecture to sustainability?

AP: One of my strange obsessions these days is that the new limit of our world is no longer the digital. In the 1950s the digital was the frontier. The new frontier of the world has more to do with the levies of New Orleans, global warming, a lot of very concrete, old fashioned stuff that have to do with mechanics, hydraulics, that kind of things. And probably one way we have to cope with them is through an extreme level of calculation, and this is where the computer comes back into the picture. It is not the computer as a machine only. In order to find a solution, we better figure out a way to be extremely smart. But if you are to think like that, even a can of coke, remember there is this classical study on the can of coke, the metal comes from Australia, then it is treated in Sweden, the soda comes from one place… it is totally absurd. Even the can of coke. Today if the entire planet was to consume batteries in the rate it is done in the Western world, there would not be enough metal, cadmium. To figure out a solution it will take a lot of intelligence.

DG: What would be the role of a historian in these new conditions in architecture?

AP: To be honest, I do not think that the period now in architecture is especially prone to historical thinking. It is pretty clear that there is a steady decline in the presence of history in the schools of architecture, I am conscious of that. Contrary to some of my colleagues, I am not going to cry about it, first of all you have to be realistic and ask yourself why this is so, and it is not because students are not more stupid than what they used to be. I would say that the stupidity of student/professor is pretty constant from one generation to another. I think it has to do precisely with this period being so experimental. Contrary to the post modern where the problems were essentially seen as linguistic, you do not seem to need as much history today. That said, I do not think that history, I might be wrong, but I do think that history will ever disappear from architecture for various reasons. One is, I believe, that architecture is as much a tradition as a discipline, and it has to constantly rethink critically of what it has achieved in the past. Its definition of the past can vary; Babylonian architecture is of little interest to a school of architecture, let’s be clear, even Gothic is to the limit. But, rethink critically about itself is an important dimension to architecture. This is the first reason to be optimistic. Second reason is that I believe that some critical thinking is quite necessary, especially in a profession that is going to change a lot, which does not have the easiest economical and professional condition on earth. I think history can help a student to be a little more aware of himself and aware of the difficulty to make choices. I do not believe that history provides you with ready made solutions but history is, strangely, the study of the indetermination of the present. That is also why I am interested in the virtual. The fact that each present is full of potential. So, strangely, I believe history should be a lesson in freedom in the schools of architecture. You wouldn’t be a designer if you thought that everything you designed is totally determined, and over determined. History is really an exploration of this freedom of the designer. After all, it is not a drama that doesn’t attract crowds, there is the need of its presence. To give you a very personal thing, after the Croatian war, you know all the things that happened in former Yugoslavia, I felt a little despaired… You would have thought that people who had experienced the horror of the concentration camp and that kind of things, during the Second World War, would not do ethnic cleaning. This means one thing: that people have not necessarily learned. It is not because you show two slides of concentration camps to an entire generation of kids, that these same kids when adults, will not do horrible things. So do not expect history to be efficient in that respect. That said, if you stop producing history, and by history I do not just mean books for public at large, but research in history, then, gradually the exigency of truth disappears. Then, gradually, you will have people that will say, with total impunity that camps never existed, and so forth.

MT: Well, we have those people today.

AP: Yes, but fortunately they are checked by archives and historical research. Even in architecture, to be reminded that the latest fashion is not the ultimate truth, is also a good thing.

MT: If we can find an ultimate truth…

AP: Precisely, I do not think you can ever find an ultimate truth. But at least it becomes difficult to sell it to others as the ultimate truth. I think it plays a role of sanitation of the debate.

DG: It might also be an opportunity for history to be re-approached, since it is becoming less important, the chance of seeing architecture again and approach it in a different way or teach it in a different way.

AP: Yes, for historians also it creates interesting questions, because you have to ask yourself if the discipline’s position is weaker than it used to be, then it probably means that it has got to be practiced in a slightly different way. It’s not just a question for architects, it is also a question for historians.

MT: It is interesting to see the impact of speed in history. People have talked about the Post Modern era or whatever era we are in, in terms of an increasing speed of exchange and rate. Thinking of what is important to an architect practicing now, taking the argument for instance, which is not my stance, that Gothic or Greek architecture is no longer important, even modern architecture; we are doing computer renderings, then history is still equally as important, it is just the time, it approaches something of news.

AP: Let’s be clear. Let’s go back to the Greek, not only because we have a Greek person here. Not that I would argue that everything is [necessary] you could dispense with the Greek if you want and with the Gothic, but that said, if you want to understand Mies truly, then Mies is totally indebted to Neo classicism and, guess what, Neo-Classicism is indebted to a certain reading of Greece. If you want to understand Le Corbusier, the Acropolis experience, just like for many people of his generation, was totally essential. I would say you cannot know everything in the world, so there is not a single knowledge that is absolutely irreplaceable. But I would say, once you begin to be interested in the complexities of understanding what you are, then a lot of things reappear, because you are trying to understand where you come from. By the way, the reading we have of Greece is very far from what the Greeks had in mind at their time. So in a way, it is more about rethinking from what tradition we come from. And do not forget that these questions of lineage, paternity and so forth, are still so important in the psychology of people. I think for an architect to know where he comes from, and it is not necessary from the Greek, you can have other lineages, I think an architect has to reflect from where he sees himself coming from. But again, today, very few things are utterly irreplaceable. One of the merits of history is probably that it is the less systematic of the humanities and social sciences. Which is also why it goes pretty well with architecture. Where sociology was always more problematic because sociology is much more dogmatic so it goes less well with architecture.

MT: I would like to ask a last question. What do you think is important in the education of an architect, what is your advice for an architecture student?

AP: Well, do not forget that I was trained first in Science and engineering, so I am a hybrid… I do believe the core is the design practice, the studio is to me the core of architectural education, and it might be strange for this to come from a historian, but I strongly believe it. The core is not necessarily something that should contaminate everything else. You must have as an historian in the school of architecture, my firm belief is that, that in perspective it must be “useful” between brackets for students, but “usefulness” can be pretty distinct from direct application. I do not believe that a history class is directly applicable. I think it has a meaning to aim at.

I do not know whether I have really an advice for an architect. I will make the following remark: Which is that, the most difficult thing in architecture is to find the right proportion between being critical and a-critical. If you are too critical, you do not do anything, if you are too a-critical, you do stupid things. No, I am not joking. If you take design practice, design practice is not very critical contrary to what architects say very often, architects tend to resent… You still have the temptation to make design research as strictly equivalent to academic research. I think it is not true. Because design research has its own a-critical stands, because it tries to produce something. Which is why you must have disciplines like history and others that give you this critical dimension. And you must find your own way to manage these two so contradictory impulses. Just like the good architect is a bizarre blend of a man of action and an intellectual. Architecture is a form of action, but at the same time, you must be an intellectual, which is not very simple. To me this is why architecture is ultimately political. A great politician is a man of action, that gets the job done, but also has very contemplative stands that enable them to set vision, goals and so forth. Architecture is a little bit like that, and this is very hard to teach. This is why self-teaching is so important in architecture, because you must find the right equilibrium for you, and that’s not very simple. Especially these days, when I mention the rise of the strategic, I think there is this very strong urge to find new ways to be both a-critical and critical. I do not buy totally Sarah Whiting’s position on the post-critical, I think we still need to be critical, but there is also the need to do things without criticizing every step. It created a small debate in the east coast [the post-critical], not very fundamental. I think it is not so simple to be an architect, because you are neither in the realm of knowledge, and you are neither totally in the realm of pure action, and you are proposing always something that is in between the two.

DG & MT: Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us.

AP: Well, thank you.

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