Rhizogramming and a Synesthetic Transformation of Designer´S Mind
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FourFaces_s1_210x250_0822_2 05-08-23 12.56 Page 4 concept medium programme – an essay dedicated to the study of architecture rhizogramming and a synesthetic transformation of designer´s mind Mahesh Senagala Figure 1. Rhizogram, Mahesh Senagala. R.00 Edit Time 10.46 Authors’ Note: This paper is intended to be a rhizome. You may connect to it in +1 any way you wish, including reading the sections sequentially (spatially) or by 21.47 following the edit time (chronologically, for the adventurous readers), or com- +2 pletely randomly. A + sign indicates a different day, though not necessarily the 11.59 following day. +3 20.50 4 FourFaces_s1_210x250_0822_2 05-08-23 12.56 Page 5 mahesh senagala R.01 11.22 Abstract 11.42 Architectural education places great importance on transforming the visual per- +1 ception of the designer through spatial, tectonic and visual exercises. Little or 17.36 no emphasis is given to drawing non-visual and temporal phenomena. 17.50 Rhizogramming involves a process of sketching non-selective synesthetic sensa- +2 tions of the non-visual phenomena perceived by the designer at any specific mo- 00.00 ment of time. The emphasis is on ‘diagramming’ (the process) as opposed to the +3 ‘diagram’ (the product). Although, like any other type of diagram, the rhizo- 21.49 grams can be used directly to generate a formal concept, the power of rhizo- +4 gramming lies in actually altering the perception of the designer. 10.18 Rhizogramming significantly differs from the more direct formal techniques employed by Bernard Tschumi, Christopher Alexander, Coop Himmelblau, et al. Rhizogramming ‘draws’ from the Deleuzian notion of rhizome and helps lib- erate the designer from the clutches of conscious choice that limits the mind in the early stages of (architectural) design process. Emphasis is placed more on a playful perceiving and discovering than on the product. The true effects of this technique are manifested in a reorientation of the designers’ perception from rigid, preconditioned and regimented way of looking at the world visually and spatially to that of a creative immersion in temporal, auditory, tactile and olfac- tory experiences. R.02 12.42 Of Diagrammatology +1 What is a diagram? In general, diagrams are best known and understood 17.10 as visual tools used for the compression of information... The essence of +2 the diagrammatic technique is that it introduces into a work qualities 14.10 that are unspoken, disconnected from an ideal or an ideology, random, 14.24 intuitive, subjective, not bound to a linear logic – qualities that can be 14.12 physical, structural, spatial or technical. 14.43 (Ben van Berkel, et al. 1999) +3 17.56 There can be no design without a diagram. Between perception and reflection, +4 thought and action, inspiration and design, between desire and realization, be- 18.00 tween the conceptual and the architectural lies the diagram. A diagram is not – +5 in Deleuzian terms – a ‘tracing’; it forms a rhizome, with the informal concept 10.23 at one end and formal manifestation at the other end. Diagrams belong to that 5 FourFaces_s1_210x250_0822_2 05-08-23 12.56 Page 6 rhizogramming and a synesthetic transformation of designer´s mind +6 epistemological space which allows connections to be made from the images 21.25 and ideas abstracted from the world. Rhizograms, in particular, aim to foster 22.24 rhizomatic connections while conventional diagrams are more arborescent with 22.33 a taproot, stem and branches of carefully articulated hierarchies. +7 22.09 Architecture of the diagram is as crucial as diagramming an architecture. Ben van Berkel et al. would want us to believe that diagrams are immune to ideolog- ical intrusions. In my view, diagrams are essentially ideological as they are, to a large extent, agencies of mediation. Every technique of diagramming necessari- ly brings a certain bias into the design process. Normally, architects are educated to draw formal and visual characteristics in a chosen scene. Unsurprisingly, most architects end up drawing buildings and other static objects – a static representation rendered in exquisite but hardly in- sightful detail. Thus a privileging of the static, the visual, the physical and the ob-vious (in front of the eyes). This involves admirable skill but no significant perceptual shift. Such a perception breeds an equally static and uninspiring ar- chitectural reality. Architectural students are usually introduced to typological and functional dia- gramming as a way to get started with the design process. Such things as ‘bubble diagrams’ and ‘adjacency diagrams’ have become normative. The results are, more often than not, less than enticing and hardly conducive to creatively ex- ploring and generating architecture that is both viable and acknowledges the systemic complexities and the myriad interconnections between the compo- nents of the life-world system. A (good) diagram is NOT a tree. There are linear diagrams and then there are non-linear diagrams. To borrow Charles Jencks’ terminology, linear diagrams are monovalent and resist multiple readings. Nonlinear diagrams are multivalent and allow (mis)readings, (mis)interpretations and (re)connections at multiple levels. Rhizograms, being nonlinear diagrams, are necessarily multivalent. Moreover, rhizograms are fundamentally oriented toward transforming the de- signer (psychosynthetic) than toward producing a visual/spatial artefact. 6 FourFaces_s1_210x250_0822_2 05-08-23 12.56 Page 7 mahesh senagala R.03 11.24 What is a Rhizogram? The Story of Felix 11.39 A rhizome has no beginning Felix flexes his arm and arches his back as 11.46 or end; it is always in the he sits down on the rough concrete ledge 11.52 middle, between things, in- where he faces the Sombrilla Square in the +1 terbeing, intermezzo. The centre of Univer City. It is half-past eleven 14.36 tree is filiation, but the rhi- on a sunny Friday morning. His hand +2 zome is alliance, uniquely holds a pencil as if it were a small flagpole. 17.34 alliance. The tree imposes His eyes seem to be on autopilot, tracking 17.48 the verb ‘to be’, but the any movement in the visual field. His 17.51 fabric of the rhizome is the senses seem to be heightened and attuned +3 conjunction, ‘and… and… to sight, sound, smell, touch and taste 21.10 and…’ events. His eyes direct his head in a fluid, 21.17 (Gilles Deleuze and Felix perceptual field of the moment. The hand 21.18 Guattari, 1994) that holds the pencil moves freely and +4 jumps merrily like a tadpole on the sketch 10.17 They [biograms] are more paper as if bypassing his brain. He is NOT +5 than visual. They are event- looking at his sketch at any point. He feels 18.27 perceptions combining sens- he is effortlessly absorbing the energy of the +6 es, tenses, and dimensions events that unfold around him. He is im- 22.16 on a single surface. Since mersed in his experience. Felix is en- +7 they are not themselves vi- thralled by the animated complexity of the 10.03 sual representations, they moment. +8 cannot be accurately repre- 22.28 sented in mono-sense visual Within a minute or two he stops whatever 23.10 form... The biogram is a lit- he seems to be doing and looks at the seem- 23.15 eral, graphically diaphanous ingly random lines on the paper. He +9 event-perception. It is what knows those lines are not random at all. 22.06 is portended when you re- They are the analogous recordings of spe- +10 member seeing time in cific events that he experienced. Those are 06.49 space. the lines, arcs and curves that are a record (Brian Massumi, 2002) of what he has sensed at that moment in his world. He has just made a rhizogram. Etymologically, the word diagram derives from Greek dia (across, Now, he looks intently and consciously at through, apart) and gramma (writing the diagram. It is intricate, intriguing or drawing) meaning a drawing or and inviting him to imagine all kinds of writing that connects across two possible sections and full-blown multidi- different realms. mensional scenarios. It is as exquisite as 7 FourFaces_s1_210x250_0822_2 05-08-23 12.56 Page 8 rhizogramming and a synesthetic transformation of designer´s mind Rhizograms are not typical diagrams. the silhouetted branches of the leafless tree Rhizogramming is a process wherein that weaves the sky into a complex tapes- the designer observes what is chang- try. He realizes that he could not have cre- ing, moving and fluctuating in his or ated such a diagram had he done it con- her sensory field and draws, without sciously and while looking at what he was looking at the drawing and without drawing. Consciousness is a trap when it privileging any particular event/sen- comes to such creative tasks. sation. An event is any fluctuation in the perceptual field that stimulates He knows that his architecture does not the senses: auditory, olfactory, hap- have to ‘look like’ his diagrams. Rather, tic, and taste. Visual stimulation is his diagrams are like the DNA of his ar- relevant only insofar as movements chitecture, propelling his mind. The in- are perceived and not the outlines of herent complexity of a rhizogram makes it objects. Thus, an element of seren- difficult to render it into a unilinear ex- dipity and playfulness is introduced pressionistic response. into the process and the clutches of conscious choice are relaxed. Gregory Bateson was one of the first people to recognize the conflict between con- scious choice and creative production (Bateson, 1972). He wrote: The artist may have a con- scious purpose to sell his picture, even perhaps a conscious purpose to make it.