Material Orbit – Complicity

When model making became performative to me

The definition of a model and an object is increasingly disappearing in contemporary practice – models are not more defined of “something else, instead the models become that ‘something else’ themselves”.[1] Having said this, it confirms my observation of “making” models is not only about understanding the material, but more importantly about the shared experiences and responsibilities of actors involved. I try to map my ‘personal advisory board’ as well as other relations such as emotions and “passion” that helped me throughout the making process of the ship model.[2]However, I am afraid, I cannot include all voices simply because some influences remain implicit. I would not call the following the ‘most important’ influencers, but I would say that they largely inspired me within the creative design process: Dag Erik Elgin, artist – philosophical/artistic perspective; Ellie Sampson, model maker – material knowledge and model skills; a close friend, landscape architect – story telling/defining narrative; and my dad, architect – construction and emotional support. Each of them had different function in respect of the issues raised. According to Wenger who wrote the book Communities of Practice. Learning, Meaning and Identity there is a correlational between the concept of identity (presence of oneself) and community (urban environment).[3] If we put the initially introduced performative nature of modelling and the “social theory of learning” next to each other, the relationship between “action” and “belonging” becomes present. In 2013, the cultural theorist Gesa Ziemer introduced the term “complicity” (German: Komplizenschaft) in relation to collectives not in crime but in art, science and economy.[4] It is something that is conspiratorial and emotional; it allows changes of functionalities within a team and is based on commitment, passion, trust and last but not least on a shared responsibility. Out of a discussion with Dag Erik, I realized that the moment of existence and the ‘tipping moment’ of not being safely located are reflected in the proportion of the model. The fragile length of the ship is not supported by a structure. We discussed, that it reflects the uncertain moment not only in the transportation of KBW, but also the political circumstances around it. In 1943, Hannah Arendt described the state of migration as follows: "Our identity is changed so frequently that nobody can find out who we actually are”.[5] It is the idea of change and the fact of constant departure that I want to experience through the material. Model making is not about representing the truth, but about creating a vehicle for the library, which was transported from the port city Hamburg to the British capital: “Adequation cannot proceed without abstraction, since, in this model of truth, knowledge is attained by abstracting from the materiality of the world the intellectual generalities that make sense of it, or the spiritual or meta-physical forms that animate it”.[6]

[1] Ciorra, Pippo. 2014. “Architectural Catwalks”, in Mari Lending and Mari Hvattum (Ed.), Modelling Time. The Permanent Collection 1925-2014, Torpedo Press: P.162-163.

[2] Johns, Adrian. 1998. The Nature of the Book. Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago University Press.

[3] Wenger, Etienne. 1998. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge University Press.

[4] Ziemer, Gesa. 2013. Komplizenschaft. Neue Perspektiven auf Kollektivität Bielefeld. Transcript Verlag.

[5] Arendt, Hannah. 1943. “We Refugees”

[6] Maurer, Bill. 2005. “Does Money Matter? Abstraction and Substitution” in Daniel Miller (Ed.) Materiality Duke University Press: P.140-164.

How could I use a model to understand realities in the archival material, and how does a model become performative? This question bothers me during the whole process of making a model of the Warburg ship. When actors play, the costume (material) supports them to get into their role; or when you see an artefact in a museum, you would probably feel different, if you were able to actually touch/wear/etc it i.e., use the artefact for what it is made for. According to Card “[r]eenactors use their bodies in this way. They perform the past by relating their bodies to past activities and engaging with material culture–buildings, weapons, furniture, clothing, books on etiquette, recipes, descriptions of practices, and lists of purchases”.[1] The performative skills, i.e., the employment of a model in layered ways, the scale of materiality, form scale etc. participate in a performative act. The complexity of performative capacities has the potential not only to construct realities, but also to shed light on what kind of history is being produced and presented through the re-enactment of archives.[2] Do I look up or down on a model? Or do I even enter it? The intertextual relationship between seeing and speaking places the model in a discursive context that provokes model taxonomies: “While sculptors’ models were increasingly being seen as valuable traces of artistic invention, scientific and mechanical models were regarded not as significant representations in their own right but instead as evidence of those scientific and mechanical innovation for which they served merely as surrogates. It is this distinction that has perhaps led to our seeing these various categories of 3D models so differently”.[3]

The performative nature transforms architecture and provokes a narrative about how architecture not only presents itself, but also reveals the embodied knowledge that is captured in the making process. According to Hunter, “modelling has been viewed as a site of mediating action”.[4] In his chapter Modeling. A Secret History of Followingthat is part of the book Design Technics he argues different design techniques enable to write new architectural history. Furthermore, he claims there is a crucial relation between modelling and literary fiction. This creation of myth seems valuable to further investigate. Archaeologist Herdick wrote in his article Natural-Born Cyborgs?: “Myths tell how technical creativity was brought from the divine sphere to humans”.[5] When I (un)fold the boxes, it seems like I build a haptic relationship with the boxes and the history fig.17. This goes back to archaeology that “decipher artefacts of unknown function” and “figures out techniques and sequences of work and rituals in history”. In the experimental archaeology the focus is in particular on the practical know-how and craft skills. According to Herdick, “[m]odern research has confirmed and strongly emphasized the importance of the technical creativity of human evolution, which is especially evident in the use of tools and the construction of industrial sites. However, our knowledge of the non-codified technical experience of prehistory is rudimentary at best”.[6] This hands-on approach applied in making the miniature containers, contributes to the thesis of ‘thinking through hand’ advocated, for example, by architect Pallassma (2009) and curator Adamson (2013), and is equated with layering: it is not only a chronology captured in embodied knowledge but also a “self-referential product of network behavior”.[7] Pallassma points out that artworks are located “between the self and the world”.[8] This boundary, however, is increasingly fragile but necessary, he argues. It is the in-between space of the creator and his/her environment that forms the basis for artistic education. However, according to Schrijver, there is a need “to recalibrate our own ideas in response to the changes in the world around us”.[9]

[1] Card, Amanda. 2019. “Body and Embodiment” in Agnew, Vanessa, Jonathan Lamb and Julianne Tomann. The Routledge Handbook of Reenactment Studies: Key Terms in the Field. London: Taylor and Francis: Pp. 30-33.

[2] Haines, Elizabeth. 2019. “Archive” in Agnew, Vanessa, Jonathan Lamb and Julianne Tomann. The Routledge Handbook of Reenactment Studies: Key Terms in the Field. London: Taylor and Francis: Pp. 11-15.

[3] Baker, Malcosm “Representing Invention, Viewing Models”, in Soraya de Chadarevian, Nick Hopwood (Ed.). Models. The Third Dimension of Science. Stanford University Press: P.19-42.

[4] Hunter, Matthew C. 2020. “Modeling: A Secret History of Following” in Zeynep Celik Alexander and John May (Ed.), Design Technics. Archaeologies of architectural practice, University of Minnesota Press: P.45-70

[5] Herdick, Michael. 2014. “‘Natural-Born Cyborgs’? Die Experimentelle Archäologie und das Bild des Menschen.” In Archäologentage Otzenhausen, Band 1, Archäologie in Der Großregion, 303–14.

[6] Herdick, Michael. 2014. “‘Natural-Born Cyborgs’? Die Experimentelle Archäologie und das Bild des Menschen.” In Archäologentage Otzenhausen, Band 1, Archäologie in Der Großregion, 303–14.

[7] Halpern, Orit. 2020. “Repeating: Cybernetic Intelligence” in Zeynep Celik Alexander and John May (Ed.), Design Technics. Archaeologies of architectural practice, University of Minnesota Press: P.45-70

[8] Pallasmaa, Juhani. 2009. The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Arthitecture. Chichester, England: Whiley.

[9] Schrijver, Lara. 2011. “Architecture: Projective, Critical or Craft?” Architecture in the Age of Empire, 11th International Bauhaus Colloquium Weimar: Pp. 353-367.

Complicity

Norm cultures

Making of