RE: [-empyre-] forward from Johannes

["James Way" <jarway@hotmail.com>]

Regarding Johannes' questioning of 'intervention', I consider a work that is 
built in a specific context that comments on its site or reveals something 
about that site an intervention. It creates an interference that interrupts 
a direct relation to the site/condition/context and preferably heightens an 
awareness of the space.

The performativity of our work is its reaction to the environment and 
passersby. This is partially a laboratory for interactive and responsive 
architectures, as the NOX and Toyo Ito have done with their pavilions. And 
the performances aid in revealing the conceptual, contextual, and/or 
narrative, preferably all three.

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I think the current interest in Deleuze, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty is because 
of their relation to new media, interactive art and architecture: 
perception, time, memory, cinema, movement, and the body. They provide a 
conceptual foundation for the material and techniques of media and 
interaction, for creation and criticism, independent of an overtly political 
use of media.

Architecturally, most political activism can be found in a few larger 
organizations - Architecture for Humanity, Habitat for Humanity - local 
organizations like New York's Common Ground. But I think most the most 
pervasive form of architectural activism is the 'green' movement and the 
strive for sustainability and environmental responsibility. Rocky Mountain 
Institute, Cradle-to-Cradle, U.S. Green Building Council, TransMaterial, 
Green Builder provide some resources. I read quite some time ago in an 
article in Metropolis Magazine (an article I can't find so my numbers may be 
off) that the building industry causes, at least, 30 percent of global 
pollution (again, my facts may be a bit skewed, regardless it's an issue of 
great importance and huge consequence).

The most consistent voice in architectural activism when dealing with 
economic, geo-political and international politics comes from 
critic-architect Michael Sorkin who often takes architects to task for not 
only what they are building but also for whom and how.

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