nism & the Political Body Leah Kyllo - Chris Sparrow - David - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Leah Kyllo - Chris Sparrow - David Correa / October 29, 2010

nism & the Political Body

The Cave

An adaptation of Plato’s Allegory in Clay

Woman

The allegory of the cave illustrates how according to Plato, what we see is only a refmection of the archetypical. The signi- fjer is then placed into a dichotomy with the signifjed.

It is by looking at the logocentric re- lationship that has been established between the concept of Man vs Wom- an that is easy to understand the clear hierarchical bias that is presented to- wards women. The dual relationship in which is pre- sented formulates the primacy of one

• ver the other and establishes the nec-

essary condition of women as “other” . One of the main issue with establish- ing arguments on the basis of dichoto- mies is that it also further negates the existence of “all others” Hierarchy of power:

• rdinate

subordinate signifjed signifjer positive negative good evil presence absence real fjction internal accommodation/ form (function/ form) man woman

Western Ideology

logocentrism

Heidegger insists that Western phi- losophy has consistently privileged that which is, or that which appears, and has forgotten to pay any attention to the condition for that appearance. In other words, presence itself is privi- leged, rather than that which allows presence to be possible at all Certain aspects of culture, politics and economics, particularly capital- ism have marketed their products and services by defjning markets based on dichotomies. Democrats Republicans Natural Artifjcial Liberals Conservative Human Cyborg Straight Gay The Whore The Virgin

Framing ideologies and markets in this manner negates the existence of all others

“The connection between the sig- nifjer and the signifjed is arbitrary.”

• -Ferdinand de Saussure

The other

Ideologies

“The enterprise of returning ‘strategically’ , ‘ideally’ , to an origin or to a priority thought to be simple, intact, normal, pure, standard, self-identical, in order then to think in terms of derivation, complication, deteriora- tion, accident, etc. All metaphysicians, from Plato to Rousseau, Descartes to Husserl, have proceeded in this way, conceiving good to be before evil, the positive before the negative, the pure before the impure, the simple before the complex, the essential before the ac- cidental, the imitated before the imitation, etc. And this is not just one metaphysical gesture among others, it is the metaphysical exigency, that which has been the most constant, most profound and most potent” Jaques Derrida

What is the impact of this repressed “others” ? Western Ideology: None If we accept the notion that what we know of Architecture (the writing or signifjer) exists independently of the concept (Archetype, signifjed), the fact that we have projected a male body is

• nly one of many misrepresentation

and as such it can not afgect what ar- chitecture is (signifjer) and can be?

Modern Ideology: If the logocentric and anthropomor- phic discourse has been shaping ar- chitecture for so long therefore it has afgected what our preconceptions of what architecture is (the signifjed). In this case all the repressed, the “oth- ers” must start to inform the dis- course of architecture. Will children inform architectural dis- course? will their relationship to body (which difgers from an adult) be ac- counted for?

Post-Modern: The idea of a dichotomy between male and female bodies no longer fjt the discourse, architecture and the city are no longer anthropo-

• morphized. The “others” appear as

multiple sexual, gender, social and economical identities that are em- braced as part the idea of plurality in architecture.

Post-Modernism however is not a co- hesive ideology, other questions on body arise in relation to the emer- gence of the repressed, “other” per- ceptions of relationships to the world need to be analyzed from the perspec- tive of the asexual, the cyborg, the virtual and the socially excluded. All of this discourses need to be heard and understood as their body and ex- istence is fjnally acknowledged.

Feminism

in Architecture

So the question arises as to what this “others” are. The third way of Femi- nism addresses this “other” negated existences as it is not as concerned with just women as it is with the equality among all genders, sexes, sexual orientations and race

the repressed

the other the cyborg

endpoints

“dislocating the hierarchy of interior and exterior (space) that pre-empts vision”

• -Peter Eisenman

Visions Unfolding

Eisenman “shattering vision”

superfjcial mitigation of domi- nance through apertures in the previously hard boundaries be- tween identities

sufgrage

male dominance apertures in boundaries

“Young women, I would say, and please listen, for the peroration is beginning, you are, inmy opinion, disgracefully ignorant. You have never made a discovery of any sort

• f importance.”
• -Virginia Woolf

A Room of One’s Own

Virginia Woolf

“the cage door had been opened but the canary had refused to fmy

• ut. The conclusion was that the

cage door ought never to have been opened, because canaries are made for captivity; the suggestion

• f an alternative had only confused

and saddened them”

• -Germaine Greer

The Female Eunuch

Germaine Greer

second wave

radical

inversion of dominance through strong identifjcation within gender and strong opposition without

male dominance female dominance

“Women have very little idea of how much men hate them”

• -Germaine Greer

The Female Eunuch

The Female Eunich, cover

sexuality is essential identity convergence, defjnition universal system (naturalism)

essentialism

identity contrast identity natural system

transition

queer theory

the natural, universal system of es- sentialism creates multiple “others“ undescribed by this system. Collec- tively, the pressures of these others are the forces of collapse of second wave feminism

collapse of identity natural system through the other

existentialism

“God is dead”

• -Jean-Paul Sartre

Situations I

humanist, local system; each entity choses meaning

structuralism

language is a third order which relys

• n binary opposition to structure
• society. there is an essence to sexu-

ality, however it is not natural but created, and as such is not universal and not concrete

the structure of society is creted by society and thus unfjxed

queer theory

Homosexuality

• -Michel Foucault

The History of Sexuality “Lesbians are not women”

• -Monique Wittig

The Myth of Woman

heterosexual construct homosexual construct

third wave

post-structuralism

when binary oppositions can be identifjed as dominant or hierarchi- cal, they can begin to dissolve

male domiance agender

“Man is dead”

• -Michel Foucault

The Order of Things

cyborg

feminism, the cyborg, and architecture

cyborg

“When Man

b

TM is on the Menu”

preconceptions

cyborgs in media

“Like OncomouseTM , both of the rabbits in the Logic General as are cyborgs - compounds of the

• rganic, tecnical, mythical, textual,

and politcal -”

• Donna Haraway
• When Man

TM is on the Menu

?

feminism?

Donna Haraway

“At the center of my ironic faith, my blasphemy, is the image of the cyborg.”

• Donna Haraway
• Cyborg Manifesto

A Cyborg Manifesto:

Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late 20th Century

cyborg

cyborg construct male female techno-science cyborg

blurred boundaries

“The cyborg is a creature in a post- gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality,pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labor,

• r
• ther

seductions to organicwholeness”

• Donna Haraway
• Cyborg Manifesto

“blurred boundaries”

fractured feminism

afnity

wexner center

Peter Eisenman: Wexner Center - Columbus Ohio

wexner center

Peter Eisenman: Wexner Center - Columbus Ohio

Representation Organism Physiology Reproduction Organic sex role specialization Public / private Nature / Nurture Sex Labour Mind Simulation biotic component communication engineering Replication Optimal genetic strategies Citizenship Fields of Difgerence Genetic Engineering Robotics Artifjcial Intelligence

cyborg semiotics

network

code

“Communications sciences and modern biologies are constructed by a common move—the translation of the world into a problem ofcoding, a search for a common language in which all resistance to instrumental control disappears and all heterogeneity can be submitted to disassembly, reassembly, investment, and exchange.

• Donna Haraway
• Cyborg Manifesto

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swarm theory

Swarm - Joring Voigt

swarm theory

Swarm - Peter Macapia

questions

1. Although they may be considered to be ‘genderless’ in comparison to the human body, they do retain the ability to reproduce or replicate. Can we consider all cyborgs to be females? 2. At what point does the symbiotic relationship between the human body and the machine become a cyborg? I ask this because extension of the human body via a stick or a cane, an airplane, and the internet could be thought of as cyborg. 3. Is the cyborg construct successful in disconnecting its self from western thought, or is it simply an icon of post- modernism, subject to the domination of man?

Women

in Architecture

No Woman to date has been awarded

• ne of North America’s highest archi-

tectural honors: the AIA Gold Medal (1907-2010). The Pritzker Prize (1979- 2010) has only been awarded to a woman once (Zaha Hadid 2004). This year it was awarded to a to a joint partnership Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. In Canada the RAIC Gold Medal (1976- 2010) lists among it’s recipients (web site) only one woman (1981 - Jane Ja- cobs) and the Order of Canada award for architecture (1967-2010) also only lists one woman, Patricia Patkau (2004)

Works Cited Bell, Stephanie, Brendan Purcell, Lisa Seabrook, and Sarah Whyte. “The Cyborg Metaphor.” Faculty of Arts Undergrad Web - Univ of Waterloo. 03 Mar. 2007. Web. 29 Oct. 2010.<http://artsweb.uwaterloo.ca/~s6bell/explainedframeset. html>. Haraway, Donna Jeanne. “Chapter 4: “A Cyborg Manifesto” Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: the Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. 118-58. Print. Haraway, Donna. “When Man Is On the Menu.” Incorporations. New York, NY: Zone, 1992. 38-43. Print. Senft, Theresa M. “Notes for Cyborg Manifesto.” The Days and Nights (well, Some Nights) of Terri Senft. 21 Oct. 2001.

• Web. 29 Oct. 2010. <http://www.terrisenft.net/studentsreadings/manifesto.html>.

LABDORA -Design Ofce for Research of Architecture-. 03 Mar. 2007. Web. 29 Oct. 2010. <http://labdora.com/>. Agrest, Diana. “The Sex of Architecture” . New York, Harry N. Adams, 1996. Foucault, M. (1992). The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume 1. Spark notes. Retrieved from http://www. sparknotes.com/philosophy/histofsex/section1.html Greer, G. ( 1970). The Female Eunuch. London, GB: Granada Publishing Limited Peter Eisenman (2002) Wired New York. Retrieved from: http://nymag.com/images/news/02/09/wtc/wtc_7architects/ eisenman1_347.jpg Queer Theory (2010). Wikipedia. Retireved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_theory The Order of Things (2010). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_of_Things Wolfg, K. (n.d) Postmodern Feminism from the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Retrieved from http://www.black- wellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405124331_yr2010_chunk_g978140512433122_ss1-75 Woolf, V. (1929). ``A Room of One`s Own`` in Knoebel, E. The Classics of Western Thought, 1988, 635-649

Leah Kyllo - Chris Sparrow - David Correa / October 29, 2010

Feminism & the Political Body