036 ON LABYRINTH, LAYERS and MASKS

notes on the personal, thus subjective (in) research

sans . . . N . . . (re. Perec, re-motely)

+ in response to some conversations (including the inner ones) related to PhD and other research projects, and to my position that research (of the urban) is not a mere profession, a job or another publication but a state of mind+

I _ _ _ _ _ _ DOODLE(s)

_ _ _ a messy croquis from my post 034 was only to remind me of (un)digested memories, of those overwhelming sequences of moments from two strange, intensive weeks of travel and insights which they have hinted at, to me . . . these fast drawn, variously coloured, transparent or opaque, slick or textured, horizontal, vertical and tilted layers were but a rough record of (f)actual spatiality of my movements through the events which were popping up far too quickly to be digested and left aside, for “some time later” . . . I doodle when lacking time, focus or words (e.g. I still have no explanation why most of my recent croquis depict people; to avoid the void? to inhabit it, perhaps) . . .

faster than thought, prone to an accidental stroke, such sketches are potentially potent portents of subliminal meanings, metaphors, possibly a raw material for some palimpsests to come

II _ _ _ _ _ _ QUESTION(ing)

_ _ _ responding to actual situations, that croquis resembled a labyrinth, spaces into which one (in that case – myself) searches for her/his own self, immersed . . . the shifts in perspective (yes, those that can move mountains) are of critical importance in re-search, making us re-start search; such re-views need self-awareness, critical inclusion of one’s own self

_ _ _ introspection is a sharpening tool of self criticism . . . rather than pretending that an exclusion of the subject is possible, critically (self)aware subjects reject the illusions of both an absolute objectivity (as desired by science) and total subjectivity (as celebrated by the artistic license) . . . dialectics between objectivity and subjectivity is at the very core of production of space, making architecture and urbanism (lived) fascinatingly complex

_ _ _ overlooking blind spots in research is irresponsible . . . we need rigorous questioning of the “unquestionable” (a corollary of Measuring the non-Measurable), precisely what Andrei Linde means when asking for “stupid” questions and poetic thinking, combined (in his case, in cosmology and physics; listen here, @cca. 52’; full interview recommended) . . . here I point out at the critical importance of (self)criticism, seeking ways to look and to see (ones’ own self), precisely as in Marxist dialectics between criticism and self-criticism, fully aware of the consequences (of own actions), grounded in clearly defined values

_ _ _ as the subject and the object of critique are identical, self-criticism sets base for true critical thinking

_ _ _ (at this very moment, at 23:37 to be precise, on ABC Classic Lang Lang plays Beethoven’s “Für Elise” . . . a torrent of memories, Lola, Eva, me, in her place, in one of the cities which I still consider to be my own; almost a tear, fittingly . . . sans N)

CUT !CUT !

III _ _ _ _ _ _ OPENING(s)

_ _ _ in that croquis now I (can) see a labyrinth, the layers and masks, three openings (towards our way), an accidental triad; I love the very potential, any (un)likely resonances with Lefebvre’s three-dimensional dialectics (duly aware of Schmid’s caution to “never explain dialectics through rules, since dialectics means interaction, contradiction, movement – the opposite of rules”, and his reminder that Lefebvre “goes far beyond Hegel and Marx; [as] he incorporates Nietzsche’s poetry, and thus develops a three-dimensional dialectic in which he constitutively includes lived experience in the formation of theory.” (cfr. “Henri Lefebvre and the Theory of the Production of Space”, 2022)

_ _ _ instead of drawing any conclusions here, I only point at that way (hodos), the path that could lead our thought beyond (meta) the constraints of a dominant paradigm, and trigger heuristic, perpetual search, re-search – joyful especially when grounded in desire to make the world a better place, nothing less . . . (although coincidental, similarity of both the pronunciation and meaning of Greek ὁδός 道,Chinese dao, Japanese do . . . may make one ponder)

IV _ _ _ _ _ _ ANSWER(ing)

_ _ _ I recall a moment, during the brainstorming session in a faraway place, with my colleague rooted in that culture of which I knew almost nothing . . . we were imagining and co-designing one complex international, cross-cultural project, seeking ways to ignite heuristic potential of our students, looking for the openings, for us . . . albeit two of us have never met before, an exhilarating sense of freedom in conversation and thinking has led to a brilliant, eye-opening half-joke, funny in tone, yet deeply serious in its essence . . . in response to my desperation that one idea won’t work because it was not logical, the reply was – “why does it have to be logical?” . . . huh! . . . only half-jocular, that reply shook my very cultural foundations! where has the rationality, a safe ways into our project, suddenly gone?! . . . to cut a long digression short, the unsafe road which we have decided to take led to a happy ending, to comprehension (even without understanding), to immense pleasures and important discoveries, all that by questioning the “unquestionable”

_ _ _ thus, regardless their relative sizes, each of our three openings, the labyrinth, the layers and the mask, while unique in itself, is also contained in the other two

V_ _ _ _ _ _ MASK(s)

_ _ _ masks are mediating instruments between the worlds, between outer (public, common perhaps) and inner (personal, private perhaps) realms . . . masks are well theorised across a wide variety of fields, providing an immense inspiration . . . as summed up in Descartes’ two words, Larvatus prodeo, the masks are (considered) ubiquitous, part of a societal imperative of going forth masked or (closer to our urbanistic focus) of appearing in public masked

_ _ _ within that, I am interested in (inhabited, enlivened) spaces . . . at this intimate scale, those are the relationships between faces, masks, and spaces between them . . . here, I am interested in faces behind the masks, in (parts of lives) lived behind the masks . . . I am interested in masks facing faces, in lives facing masks, in faces as masks, in faces with masks, in masks as faces . . . in faces pretending to be masks, in masks pretending to be faces . . . I am interested in (the idea of) a two-way mask, which helps asking what if on the other side is not a void, but another (form of) the self? . . . what if that is some other (kind of) the other . . . another Other . . . an (in)significant other . . . which side (of the mask) is, then, “empty”? large spaces outside the mask, or incalculably deep inside the mask (wearer)? . . . which side is (not) the mask !? . . . I am interested in what is going on in spaces between the mask and the face, in what is going on in the one behind, and in the one facing that mask . . . I am interested in what faces the face with the mask, what faces (the face of) the mask . . . . Larvatus prodeo, I am interested . . .

BUT . . . let’s blow the scale dramatically up – and stop!

_ _ _ the sizes of masks correspond to sizes of faces . . . the masks cover faces . . . building facades (from Italian faccia, the face) mask private lives of residents, hiding inner lives in/of buildings (captured in Steinberg’s drawing, below, as by Perec)

_ _ _ to labyrinths, layers and masks we might get back later; as the croquis which brought us here, consolidation of these themes also needs time ...

CUT !

P.S. 1

putting the mask on a robot . . . why? do the robots mask humanity, identity, by overcoming it . . . “overcoming” it!?

_ _ _ physical realities are eminently researchable: intangible human realities (dreams, emotions, fears) are fascinatingly elusive; that quality, a sense of fascination is what AI will never be able to conquer (of course, without previous, cataclysmic reduction of the human to humanoid ); AI only can, and it will (continue to) banalise the world (as conceived, perceived and lived by humankind) by reducing the complexity, by cutting out whatever reaches beyond understandable, by reducing it to the best that tech (of course already an abbreviation, simplification) can do . . .

_ _ _ although without any practical application, it is good to read again what (uneasy, yet magnificent) Martin Heidegger had to say in 1966, in his der Spiegel interview (<full text here; my highlights ):

– der Spiegel question: . . . Everything is functioning. More and more power plants are being built. People are hard at work producing. People in the highly technologized parts of the world are well provided for. We live in prosperity. What is actually missing here?

– Heidegger’s answer: Everything is functioning. That is precisely what is strange [unhetmiich; DR: I prefer the translation found elsewhere: uncanny] that it is functioning and that the functioning always drives to further functioning, and that technology increasingly tears humans away from the earth and uproots them [...] We do not need an atomic bomb at all; the uprooting of humans has already taken place. We only have purely technological relationships anymore [...] poet (René Char) — who could certainly not be suspected of sentimentality or of glorifying the idyllic—told me that the uprooting of the human that is taking place there will be the end, unless poetry and thought reach a position of power without violence.”

[and yes, we can now lazily not read but listen “Heidegger” <<< here . . . of course, cut to what we “need to know” . . . you can still read Heidegger’s thoughts on the question concerning technology <<< here]

_ _ _ alas, I can only repeat: nothing has changed . . . everything has changed

P.S. 2

_ _ _ should I mask my (banal, human) emotions . . . when N gives me advice? when a memory of Eva’s (and Andrija’s) version of Für Elise brings back her and Lola . . . of course I shouldn’t, not only because I can’t . . . that vulnerable perishable “I” is an invaluable aspect, at the very core of my (serious) research intentions

. . . and . . .