The writer and the architect - Marcello Vitali-Rosati - Paris October 2015

The writer and the architect

web, editorialization and metaontology

Marcello Vitali-Rosati

Paul Valéry, Eupalinos ou l’architecte (1921)
Paul Valéry, Eupalinos ou l’architecte (1921)

Superiority of architecture over philosophy:

  • Architecture is an art which surrounds us: we can act inside it

  • Architecture is an art of movement (geometric shapes and mathematical functions)
Paul Valéry, Eupalinos ou l’architecte (1921)

By contrast

  • Philosophers build castles in the sky, that's why they can pay no attention to the details of their constructions: "they never see the universes they imagine collapsing, because finally these do not exist. "

  • Philosophers work with words which are dead and static
Paul Valéry, Eupalinos ou l’architecte (1921)


A radical critic of writing in general

Written words are frozen frames
Representational paradigm
Questions
What about digital writing ?

What about code ?
Digital space and writing
  • Digital space is made of writing

  • Everything is writing in a digital space (a profile, all the data, even the pictures or the videos)
From a representational paradigm to a performative paradigm?
  • Performance and performativity

  • Theater studies (Schechner), Performativity and speech acts (Austin) - theory of performativity (Deridda, Searle, Bourdieu, Butler...)
Questions

  • What is the digital?


  • What is the digital space?


  • What is the relationship between the digital space and the web?
The digital?

  • A cultural meaning (Milad Doueihi, Digital cultures, 2008)


  • Symptom of an institutional problem


  • Synonym of "present"?


  • Influenced by the web
The digital as an architectural space

A broad definition of space

  • A set of relationships between objects
  • in/out
  • visible/invisible
  • close/far
  • central/peripherical


Thus the digital is a space, not a self contained, but our main space
Example

Buying a book on Amazon

  • Amazon database and algorithms structure the space (in/out, visible/invisible, close/far, central/periferical)
  • Clicks are writing
  • Clicks influence the Amazon space - like in a bookstore
  • Books and their URIs are the same thing - web is hybridized with the rest of the space

Digital space

A definition of digital space

  • It is a set of relationships - architectural
  • It is our actual space
  • It is hybrid (not only the web) - infosphere, Luciano Floridi
  • A space we inhabit and in which we act
  • A space in movement (because actions change it, and because code is dynamic)
Questions

How is the digital space organized?
What are its specific characteristics?
The concept of editorialization

The editorialization is the set of dynamics which produce and structure our digital space. These dynamics are the interactions of individual and collective actions with a particular digital environment
  • interaction of algorithms, platform, databases, users' actions, practices... in movement
Three aspects of the editorialization

  1. Technological
  2. Practical
  3. Cultural
What about Valéry's critics?
  • Valéry criticized writing because it produces dead words
BUT...
  • Digital space is made of writing
  • Digital space is our actual space - we inhabit it
  • We act in this space
  • Digital space is in movement
  • Writing is an architectural act, because it means building our actual space
  • The writer is the architect of our digital space
Thus:
  • From the representational paradigm to the performative paradigm (not technological, but cultural shift - performance studies)
Writing a review on Tripadvisor
Does it "represent" a restaurant? Or actually it is the restaurant?
  • Producing the space
  • Producing the reality
  • Collective
  • Multiple layers
  • Moving
Characteristics


  1. Performative - it produces the reality
  2. Multiple
  3. In movement
So...
  • Writing and performative paradigm

  • The editorialization is a way of producing reality, and not a way of representing it

  • Editorializing means building - the writer is an architect

Questions
  • How should we analyze this space?

  • Non representational philosophy?

Which one is "my" identity?

Is there a correspondence with "me" (representational paradigm)?
Or we must accept the multiplicity?

This is me

This is me

This is me

Metaontology

Ontology: Being is one -> there is only one essence - no movement (Theseus' ship paradox)
Metaontology: Being is multiple (être-multiples) -> there are many essences - in movement
  1. Anti-essentialist ontology
  2. Multiple ontology (multiple layers)
  3. Performative
  4. In movement
Conclusion
  • Metaontology and writing

  • Metaontology and philosophy

  • Philosophical writing and architecture?