Man with a Chain Saw: Post-Truth Architecture
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Man With a Chain Saw: Post-Truth Architecture A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture in the School of Architecture and Interior Design of the College of Design Architecture Art and Planning by Grant Wagner Bachelor of Science in Architecture, University of Cincinnati March 2020 Committee Chair: Elizabeth Riorden Committee Member: Michael McInturf a. ABSTRACT The toll of in-authenticity has rarely rung as loudly through the character-limited halls of public discourse as it does today. Controversy around “Fake News” guides our current political moment, and the impact of social media on our collective grip on reality is difficult to doubt. We, the voluntary prisoners of these situations, forgo re-establishing authenticity as we collectively craft new realities from discreet narratives within new sets of contexts. Within these alternate realities, typical questions of authenticity are subverted and new possibilities are allowed to take over. As with most things, this will eventually be heard in architecture. What new realities can architecture be a part of if its own conventions concerning authenticity are drawn into question? Digging for meaning, the architect will play the role of cultural archaeologian. Following excavation comes exhibition, during which a narrative is constructed about a constructed reality; artifacts of “fake” architecture are re-staged to unhinge a mise en scène of cult objects. Architecture is the stage set for post-truth society, and is made aware of it under the auspices of cultural milieu. vi vii PREFACE Thanks to all my professors for their support and their constructive criticism, my friends for their company through the long hours (both in studio and at Arlinn’s), and Jade, for keeping me sane. x xi CONTENTS abstract vii preface xi I. Dank Memes, Trump Tweets, and B-Movies 1 II. Stage-Setting / Table-Manners 15 III. Questioning Authenticity (Within Architecture’s Micro-culture) 25 IV. How to Start a Cult 37 bibliography xlv image sources xlix xii xiii I. DANK MEMES, TRUMP TWEETS, AND B-MOVIES “Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.” - EB White It is difficult to describe the world we are living in a format like this, but in the interest of the “pure scientific mind”, an attempt must be made. This document, thousands of words long, comprising of months of work, constantly re-hashed and discussed at length, was generated by a series of ideas composed in an instant. These ideas were then disseminated in an instant, and consumed in the same instant. The Internet, since its rise to prominence at the turn of the new millennium, has enlarged these instants, which has led to the democratization of intellectual capital, the unification of small communities of all kinds, and an accelerated pace for both commerce and justice; but also: the proliferation of misinformation and the widening of the gaps that separate the old demarcations of class and ideology. Be they Tweets, posts, emails, or memes, these instants have immense 1 “real” Cornell Box “fake” Cornell Box image 1.1 image 1.2 power in the world of today. getting harder every day. When this real versus fake dynamic The digital world has such power over the non-digital is subverted, new possibilities emerge, because a fake is not because it is independent from reality. Digital space, despite (or beholden to the same questions that hem in the real. To be perhaps because of) its adherence to a modified set of rules, is real, something must follow a specific narrative. To be fake, that at least as good a real space. This discovery was made very early narrative must be reinvented. What might this mean for society, on in the formation of digital space, with the Cornell Box1. Seen and what might this mean for the built environment? in images 1.1 and 1.2, it presents a test for digitally rendered As far as society at large is concerned, one of the many images. Can you tell the difference between the “real” object ways this has affected things is by forming a petri dish of micro- and the “fake”? It is not easy with current technology, and it’s cultures. The term micro-culture describes the social dynamics, 1 Cindy M. Goral, Kenneth E. Torrance, Donald P. Greenberg, and Bennett Battaile. Modeling the Interaction of Light Between Diffuse Surfaces. Siggraph 1984. 2 3 ethos, and rules of small groups of people2, which behave similarly to cultures of broader scales, such as global culture, or subcultures based on class, race, and geography, but they contain far fewer members and are likewise much more specific. In the pre-digital era, you may have been the only person in your town that, for example, listens to a certain band. But online, you can connect with every other member of that fanbase anywhere in the world. When all those people gather together in chat rooms, forums, and social media feeds, there is a new sense of normalcy automatically constructed among members of that group. Because of this, what may have been a dissenting set of tastes in a larger context, in fact now has its own conventions, structures, and mores. The heightened and abstracted sense of reality present here mimics the same kind of “fake-ness” present in the Cornell Box, but on a social axis rather than a spatial one. Internet micro-cultures often form consisting of people who have constructed an entire identity around enjoying a piece of entertainment, but they also can be based on stapling bread to trees3, disseminating pictures of chairs underwater4, speculating on the daily problems of beings of higher dimensions5, imagining a popular cartoon cat as an eldritch monstrosity6, or because they’ve formed a cult of personality around Nicholas Cage7. The 2 Coscia, Michele. “Competition and Success in the Meme Pool: A Case Study on Quickmeme.com.” International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 2013. Page 1 3 reddit.com/r/breadstapledtotrees 4 reddit.com/r/chairsunderwater 5 reddit.com/r/fifthworldproblems aesthetic micro-cultures 6 reddit.com/r/imsorryjohn image 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 7 reddit.com/r/onetruegod 4 5 number and kind of micro-cultures are vast, and have varying degrees of self-awareness. The typically unspoken cultural rules of these communities are equally as drummed-up as the communities themselves, but that’s not to say they don’t exist. Many of the ideas of these micro-cultures are most readily legible in their “aesthetic”, an oft-memed term that carries a lot of baggage in these circles. David Ruy, at a 2016 symposium at the Yale School of Architecture entitled “Aesthetic Activism”, explores the variety of ways these micro-cultures represent their identities through the objects they consume, seen in images 1.3-58. One image 1.6 could expect that through these aesthetics, each of these micro- cultures might have a position on architecture. the next, he hardly knows him. He can also circumvent normal Amongst the many cults of personality that have staked channels of government inquiry. Someone can be on the stand claim at the depths of Western culture, one figure understands testifying against him and he can discredit them before they’ve today’s subversion of the real/fake dichotomy better than most, even finished talking, possibly from his toilet. Furthermore, he and he has leveraged it to such an extreme that he was elected can invent narratives that, despite being demonstrably false, in President of the United States. One of the ways Donald Trump’s aggregation generate a form of alternate reality that his followers presidency has been characterized is by his use of Twitter. This - supports and dissidents alike - reside in. In this reality, the fiction particular social media platform started in 2006 as a place to of his positions become truth9. Obvious lies, such as in images share short inconsequential thoughts, but by 2016 had been 1.6 and 1.7, have no impact on his credibility with his base. become a platform for the most powerful man in the world to They, like most Americans, are used to ideas ceasing to exist communicate with the American people, dictate government once they leave their news feed. When ideologies exist on such policy, and attack political opponents. Trump has used the an accelerated timescale, each idea has no context but itself. temporality and isolation of the medium to great effect - he can If these ideas are “instant” enough, they have less time to be change his positions on issues at the drop of a hat and few will checked against a larger context, and are easier to justify within be the wiser. One minute, he thinks someone is a great guy; its own ideological echo chamber. The summation of what the 8 Ruy, David. “Subculture Aesthetics,” n.d. http://www.munyicheng.com/ 9 Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. Sep 6, 2019, 10:29 AM. https://twitter. subculture-aesthetics. com/realDonaldTrump/status/1169981017794535432 6 7 However, he goes on to say: Faced with the claims of competing taste cultures, it is scarcely possible to talk about Good Taste and keep a straight face. The subject is pure ‘’Saturday Night Live.’’ Bad Taste is more useful. In a pluralistic world, lightning rods are more reliable than compasses. And the wrinkled nose is a universal symbol of the desire to feel superior to whatever seems threatening10. The micro-culture surround Donald Trump also has an aesthetic Left unchecked, such a lightning rod might start a forest fire.