Week 1: Fields, Diagrams, Mapping

Key readings:

James Corner - The agency of mapping

Deleuze and Guattari - Introduction: Rhizome

Ben van Berkel, Caroline Bos - Diagrams - Interactive instruments in operation

The ideas of each of the authors help focus the design studio work, where we are trying to map aspects of Marseille. The Deleuze and Guattari introduction on rhizomatic thinking in particular has been inspirational, whilst the Corner reminded us that mapping is actually an incredibly creative act. In addition, the examples of contemporary mapping strategies, whilst familiar, were explained in a clear way, which made them useful precedents. I found the van Berkel and Bos essay frustrating in its reductive style, making leaps between ideas which were not well explained (perhaps I need to look into the examples of Foucault, Bacon, and Proust more myself in order to get more out of it). The fairly literal transfer of diagram to building also feels a little contrived.

The challenge has been taking these ideas into design. I suspect that however much we try, our maps still stay to some extent tracings of what we found on the ground.

Back in week 1 (this is a retrospective upload...), I was working with Thom on mapping the aural architecture of Marseille (above). This could be a narrow field of interest, but attempting to think rhizomatically opens the potential to connect threads of ideas about sound to other fields of interest, social, political and infrastructural amongst others. Now a couple of weeks later, with hindsight we are looking at the one of the same geographic areas from that time, but looking at the 'casing' and 'voids' within the city (below, in progress). For me, the casing is a direct follow-on from the piano metaphor I used last semester, the term is useful on several levels, including on a sonic level. As a method of mapping, this already seems more productive. It is a much more critical creation of a field, onto which extracts, as existing and new interventions are being plotted (Corner's terms). As a result of this careful selection of voids and casing, we are coming to understand the meaning these terms have in Marseille (a point that is very relevant to week 3's readings on semiotics).

If, as Corner suggests, by the creation of this map we transfer agency from ourselves to it, then it will help direct our own design projects. This would combine an understanding of the field in which we are working (Marseille) and our own interests (the piano, fill in other blanks as I work out what they are...). At the moment, I don't envisage our study site being one for my final thesis project, but being able taking 'lines of flight' to other areas of the city might be a clue as to how to develop the project further.

"Music has always sent out lines of flight... musical form... is comparable to a weed, a rhizome." Deleuze & Guattari, p. 11-12

Later, in the 11th chapter of A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze & Guattari refer directly to the music of Pierre Boulez as an example of the rhizome in music. Another example would be the pure milieu of Ligeti's Clocks and Clouds, where the music oscillates between points and flows of sound, thus setting up a field condition in which no discernible cadences can be found, no beginning, or end.