Peter Sloterdijk “Air/Condition”

revolution | explicate

rev·o·lu·tion   [rev-uh-loo-shuhn] 

–noun

1. an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.

2. Sociology . a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure, esp. one made suddenly and often accompanied by violence. Compare social evolution.

3. a sudden, complete or marked change in something: the present revolution in church architecture.

4. a procedure or course, as if in a circuit, back to a starting point; a round or cycle of events in time or a recurring period of time; a single turn of this kind.

5. Mechanics .  a. a turning round or rotating, as on an axis.  b. a moving in a circular or curving course, as about a central point.  c. a single cycle in such a course.

6. Astronomy .  a. (not in technical use) rotation ( def. 2 ) .  b. the orbiting of one heavenly body around another.  c. a single course of such movement.

ex·pli·cate   [ek-spli-keyt] 

–verb (used with object), -cat·ed, -cat·ing.

1. to make plain or clear; explain; interpret.

2. to develop (a principle, theory, etc.).

MODERNITY’S MOVEMENT OF EXPLICATION: Modernism is marked by an interest in explicating the present, and allowing a conscious existence in the era, as laid out by the article, which explains how this is manifest in various fields and movements. This aim towards explication is nothing new, we see a similar movement in the age of enlightenment which preceded modernity. The main change that came about with what we call modernity was the shift of focus onto social conditions rather than philosophies. Following are the manifestations of this movement towards explications listed in the article with a venture into such possibilities in architecture.

POLITICS

Revolution can be seen as the fetish of the age, in a literal and metaphoric sense. It consisted of a redistribution of the symbolic hegemonies on the time, resulting in an uncovering of the processes. It was the political answer to modernity’s movement of explication.

SURREALISM

Surrealism was a part of the movement through its obsession with resolving the background in the cultural field. They had many methods, such as symbolic aggression, that would allow an unfolding of the latent givens.

PSYCHOLOGY

Freudianism gained popularity as a strategy for reading signs and manipulating background givens and unfolding latencies in the unconscious.

SCIENCES

The topic of concern for sciences in the 21^st century becomes making the air conditions explicit, as modern meteorology gains ground. Beyond temperature information, they brought a macroclimatological understanding of the consequences of greenhouse gases to the public, pushing them into a position of control over the weather.

TECHNOLOGY

People were motivated to gain control over their immediate environments, creating heating and ventilation systems in private homes and large-scale buildings. Aroma-technical modification of atmospheres allowed active air-design so that total atmospheres can be manipulated for a controlled condition of existence.

CULTURE

Broch’s narrative of atmospheric multiplicities in which the subject is an extended entity of individual and breathing space so the social world is broken up into spaces of moral independence analogous to the micro-climatic “fragmenting of the atmosphere.” Also his fiction of a society sealed together in a communication bell jar of a stale atmosphere of propaganda and mass communication creating a toxic environment of war. This was based on his diagnosis that modern societies had, under the atmospheric viewpoint, come under the domination of mass-psychological mechanisms.

ARCHITECTURE

Modernist architecture is marked by a simplification of form by removing superfluous ornamentation and allowing structure and function to shape the forms and spaces. This aim for a purity of space could be a reflection of the desire to explicate architectural conditions and motives to the user rather than propagating latent givens through accepted forms of ornamentation.

With modernist architecture’s failure to connect with the users, instead isolating the building through a lack of communicating content, postmodernists such as Venturi responded with a style that uses signs and recognizable indications of purpose and connections to the context. They recognize the need for architecture to communicate information to users to achieve an explication of cultural conditions.

Conceding that larger cultural tendencies have a way of shaping all fields similarly brings forth questions when it comes to analyzing architectural theory. Considering the dilemma of the subconscious nature of these movements, is it possible to analyze current cultural conditions? Should architecture attempt to do this and respond to cultural issues with conscious decisions? While modernity focused mostly on social conditions, possible shifts are towards concentration on connectivity and globalization or an obsession with manipulating future outcomes. Both would make sense considering architecture practice today that focuses on diagramming interconnectivity and using it towards a new, preferably predetermined, outcome.