Jeff Ginger | Art Studio 444 | 02.27.2007
I forgot to do this reading until today, and as such am just now quickly reading it and attempting to make sense of it.
In the first section Jameson proposes that we are in the midst of a 'mutation in built space itself' and that we humans who 'happen into this new space, have not kept pace with that evolution.' So does he then propose postmodern (how about you define that Mr. academic, everyone loves that phrase) architecture, buildings as objects, are changing, and their subjects, presumably people, are not. This strikes me as awfully backwards in regards to linear thinking - do people not induce change in archictecture? It's rather counter intuitive to propose that inannimate objects are mutating while living subjects are not.
How are our current day perceptions and worse equiped to view macroscopic change in architecture? I feel that perceptions given through google-maps and conceptual visualizations of the internet bring powerful tools of understanding to the table.
Jameson's explanation of the building doesn't seem to include any sort of illustration of mutation or historical comparative aspects - I fail to see how it is any more dynamic or cutting edge than its visitors, who are changing in every moment, every circumstance and every experience.
I do like many of the concepts the article visits, like attempts to see 'physical trajectories through buildings as virtual narratives or stories' - stories visitors can fill, complete, and weave with their bodies, movements, and energies. The integration of things like elevators, escalators, and guard rails/barriers add a sense of restriction and define movement, and yet I really don't see these as all that different from windows, doors, and walls. If anything else they could add just as many dimensions - the dialectic of freedom of movement as a story vs. dominated existence and access is interesting, but really just circumstantially constructed!
Technologies and archectural features all alter the spatial experience, but I fail to see how they mutate it faster or more so than humans do - the spaces we create go far beyond the physical world in their attributes and elements. A building does not have an agency enabled temporal nature unto itself - but the relationship a person has with it facilitates for this, does it not?
If there's to be any perpetually transformative space that's managed to outpace the development of the individual subject I'd point to the internet. The amalgam us mass represents manifestations of millions of beings, experiences, and conciousnesses. This space also transcends physical barriers and requires abstraction to comprehend, map, and even just begin to explore.
While Mr. Jameson seems to be on to something rather insightful, I feel he's trying to make an epic tale out of a mundane story.
