WHEN

THINGS
ARE
WHATEVER
CAN BE
THE CASE

Ludger
Hovestadt,
Vera
Bühlmann

APPLIED
VIRTUALITY
BOOK SERIES
AUTHORS :

PROF. DR. LUDGER HOVESTADT: Chair for Computer Aided Architectural

Design (CAAD), Institute for Technology in Architecture ITA, Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology ETH, Zurich, Switzerland.

DR. PHIL. VERA BÜHLMANN: Laboratory for Applied Virtuality at the Chair
for Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD), Institute for Technol-
ogy in Architecture ITA, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH, Zurich,
Switzerland.

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and regulations and are therefore free for general use.

© 2013 AMBRA | V
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much 10, exuberance 12, curiosity 15, reference 20, inver-
sion 27, sophistication 33, insertion 40, eternal 44, narra-
tion 48, symbolization 54, imagine 60, fear 70, sourcing 72,
calculating 77, grounding 80, balancing 84, correctness 88,
symbolic reality 92, symbolically-declared identity 101, exis-
tence 108, empowerment 118, insistence 122, generaliza-
tion 128, truth 133, devotion 138, difference 148, enclosure
152, sun 156, good morning 157, turbulences 165, capsules
170, sediments 180, plateaus 184, breath 190, engendering
191, delight 198, decadence 202, ability 205, concentration
208, eagerness 212, urban architectonics 217, partition and
paradoxes 219, existence 222, the symbolic nature of quan-
tity 225, the evocative reality of numerosity 228, engender-
ing. data opens up quantum actuality. thinking within the
amphibolic polynominality of series. 231, like tales at the
foot of the pyramids 235, posology of symbolic data 237,
doping 240, learning to consider the motoricities proper to
live forms as viewed from within a zoology of genera 243,
fertility 245, magic 246, shadow 250, writings 253, ani-
mation 260, ratio 268, subject 276, absolute 287, politics
295, population 302, symbolization 310, identification 320,
logistics 325, supply 334, stimulation 342, incentive 347,
embodiment 352, abstraction 356, ability 361, entropy
374, logical analysis 375, complexity 380, probability 384,
control 390, aesthetics 397, surrender 400, negligence
406, amazing 407, confidence 410, self-confidence 415,
delicacy 420, intelligence 424, fantastic 428, eagerness
438, delight 442, relaxation 449, affair 460, doping 468,
any 470, narrative 478, inversion 487, activity 496, sym-
bolic habitat 503, species 508, application 517, dating 524

TABLE OF CONTENTS 5
The systematic form of phi- Inception. What is the core a novel, an album,
losophy was elaborated
to answer the ontological of global politics ? Fanned a travelogue, an essay,
question posed by the out by worldwide logistics, a constitution, an atlas,
advent of axiomatics when the familiar axiomatic sys- a report, a fiction,
it jolted the unified world
of myth, moulded as it tems are losing their stabil- a definition, a manifesto,
was, by natural language. ity. Many have been describ- an appeal, a compo-
ing this process as a process sition, a compilation,
— Jules Vuillemin, What Are
Philosophical Systems of erosion and decay, they a buildup, a research,
warn and summon irreduc- an analysis, an entry,
ible “elements” instead. In this book we a declaration, a state-
would like to present an ode to our world ment, an excursion,
in the moment when it looses its analyt- a meditation, a reflection,
ical sterility. And we find fertilities and a projection, a design,
engenderings everywhere. We no longer an illustration,
expect the constitution of things in logical a concept, an abstract,
forms ; we begin to find them in the sym- an outline, a choice,
bolics of algebra, in its theory of abstract a list
symmetries, with its structural concepts of
groups, fields, rings, domains, and categories.

Index. This book does not describe anything. It does not judge. It
inspires. You will find no continuous texts. But you will find a wide
range of topics. This book is a sheaf of indexes. An index again is a
sheaf of indexes. So how to read this book? Take the notions seri-
ously. Search the Internet and they loose their generalness. They
will begin to speak to you vividly. They will become richer and richer.
Bundle these riches with the riches of other notions and they will
activate each other. Give them a mark, a
label, an index of your own. Treat them as PS. Remember the first daguer-
strange identities and learn to get famil- reotypes? They are beautiful
and they are not perfect. We
iar with them. Also, take the pictures seri- suggest to regard the poor
ously. Photograph or scan them. Use them technical quality of some of
as an index, just like the notions, while the images as a phenomenon
of 2012. What could we do
searching the Internet. Again, you will about it ? If we were to seek
find rich stories. Bundle those riches, con- out only high-quality images,
centrate them into new identities that work would get expensive
and slow. If we want to be fast
are interesting to you. The more accu- and sense the pulse of devel-
rate you can address them, in terms of opments, this must happen
your interest, the richer and livelier they at the expense of technical
quality. We hold that today,
get. Let yourself be inspired by the intel- technology is simply no lon-
lectual wealth of our world. This is the ger the primary issue. Within
way in which this book has been created. some five years or so, such a
book will be able to appear in
And you can continue it. It is an exciting much better technical quality
adventure. Demanding and optimistic. without any additional effort.

INCEPTION / INDEX 7
 Existentialism is the chilly cultural cli- Sheaves. A bundle of indexes to that which we
mate where people become aware
that their capacities have gotten out hold in great esteem. The celebration of sym-
of rational or natural proportion. The bolic fertilities. Very simple, and yet so difficult.
existentialist feels like Gulliver the For within the symbolic, the general is no lon-
Giant in the Land of Fragility : the real-
ity of existence is marked by an incred- ger without sex and gender. It starts to familiar-
ible asymmetry and incommensurabil- ize itself with its own kind. The empty
ity between the idea of forms, the abstract schemata, classes,
Being as primitive and Economy means gain, thrift,
existing as the product less burden, daring ; it is and types reveal themselves according
of the complex ways in defined as the rule for the to their different generations. Because
which we reason about good administration of a each of these generations allows for
Being — insofar as Being house, derived from the
is meant as being part of Greek “oikos,” which means different operable conceptualizations.
meaningful civilizations. house, and “nomos” (going Hence we start to learn about the
back to “nemein”), which capacity that is proper to the general-
means to deliver, to distribute.
as-a-kind, namely that of engender-
ing through abstraction. This capac-
ity starts to figure in different modalities : finitely and infinitary methods of
abstraction. While we are rather familiar, meanwhile, with the finite modal-
ities of the general’s capacity for demonstrative definition and delimitation,
we only begin to learn about its powers in the modality of infinitary meth-
ods. The infinitary methods we know today follow the genetic methods of
root extraction and factorization, and those of generic transformations. As
a kind, the general now seeks to populate and maintain itself qua formulaic
identities that can be named, which takes place in a grammar where nouns
extend into the symbolic formality of polynomials. By applying those meth-
ods we are flirting with the spiritual on the grounds of explicit communi-
cability, and we experience something like the coming out of the general.
Their quickening, their vivacity, within a queer culture of conceptual math-
ematization. Is this book to be read as an encyclopedia then, in continuation
of Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert and Denis Diderot ? Or as a collection
of eccentricities, as a budget of paradoxes à la Augustus De Morgan ? Their
problem had been how to possibly orientate thought between two opposed
orders : the analytic order that proceeds from the complex to the simple, try-
ing to sort confusion into distinction, and that of the synthetic, which reverses
the directions. The problem as we understand it today concerns the articu-
late-ability of both order’s teamwork. Welcome to the symbolic ! Welcome
to the reality of conceptual mathematics, which seeks no longer to be uni-
formly and universally applicable, but which instead grants its categories
to comprehend entire universes. Conceptions for which qualities can be
extracted and grasped by an open interplay between formulation and reso-
lution. Mathematics for which quantities are organized within the abstract
into fields and domains, providing the support to reason rigorously yet fan-
tastically about the conceivable qualities. Certainly there is something awful
about this situation, in the literal yet doubled sense of that word — meaning,
on the one hand, something which respects awe and inspires reverence, but,
on the other, something that feels dreadful and unbearable. We don’t think

8 SHEAVES
there is any absolute necessity to face this situation. Precisely because we
don’t think so we would like to suggest viewing it as a secular party, a reign,
or festivity we would be happy to attend. With this book we wish to mark
a domain of artifactuality for learning to formulate questions related to this
situation. We think it is adequate to do so as a declaration of love for the life,
the reasoning, and the learning possible on planet earth. This domain of arti-
factuality conceives of things neither as objects or essences, nor as singular-
ities, but in all grammatical openness and expressivity as that which can be
the case. This domain of artifactuality extends on a level which we call pre-
specific. Each artifact encapsulates certain dramatizations of voice, time, place,
relation. This pre-specificity manifests itself in the stories and narratives, in
the oeuvres, the products, and the articles that populate our everyday lives
as much as the space of intellectuality as a whole. All the images in this book
are gathered from the diverse worldwide media networks to which more
and more people have access. Instead of controlling our search by choos-
ing keywords, we have searched the data networks by using our own pho-
tographs, texts, and drawings as indexes. We have sent these indexes to the
data networks with a quest for returning images, texts, and drawings similar
to those we use as indexes. Thus there is an individual as well as a generic
story behind every image contained in this book. And the reader will cer-
tainly have her or his own story to tell about it. There is nothing extraordi-
nary about the images we have selected. We were not interested in staging
drastic phenomena in an exemplary manner. Rather, we wanted to encoun-
ter all the clichés, those apparently empty forms, at casual occasions. What
would they be telling us, if we met them — with casual interest and curi-
osity, yet without binding obligations — at a Friday night cocktail party ?

SHEAVES 9
 The many words. Chirping, whistling, singing,
gloomy, crying, telling, relaxing, soothing,
reciting, chattering, daffing, bleating, guiding,
instructive, summarizing, descriptive, whis-
pering, caressing, puzzling, careful, questioning,
searching, inquisitive, interrogatory, skeptical,
discussing, joyful, excited, determined, com-
manding, passionate, distancing, defensive,
threatening, devastating. The speeches, epics,
poems, aphorisms, collections, manuals,
constitutions, encyclopedia, narratives, plays,
and stories. The little words, the big notions,
MUCH

the powerful concepts. The elements, the

characters, the logical forms of inference, the
numbers, the counting, the accounting, cal-
culating, exponentiation, integration, differen-
tiation, factorization, root extraction, exponen-
tiating, integrating, differentiating. The artful
riding on the zero. The taming of the infinite.
The craft, the tools, the calculating, the writing,
the machines. Our bodies, the houses, the
cities, the books, the machinery, the infrastruc-
ture, the networks, the media. The water,
the earth, the plants, the fruits, the fields, the
fruits of the sea, arranging, nurturing, harves-
ting. The hunger, housekeeping, partying,
eating, drinking, sleeping. The movements, the
ideas, the dreams, the plans, the construction,
the doing, the understanding, the agreements,
the regulations, the puzzles, the meetings,

10
the relaxation, saving, protecting. We are capa-
ble of so much. We can do so much. We have
so much. We have experienced so much. There
are so many of us.

11
 Masks. Venice carnival.
E XUB E RAN CE

12 MUCH
EXUBERANCE 13
 Folding the masks. Becoming individual. Jan van Huysum,
Still Life with Flowers and Fruit, ca. 1721.

14 MUCH
 CURIOSITY 15
The remaining. What can only be shown. The mystical.
The myrical. The scary. The obscure. Curiosity Cham-
ber at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

C URI O SI TY
16 MUCH
What can be said. The concepts. The attributes. The con-
templation. Without an end. About the language. About the
elements. Abbey library of Saint Gall, St. Gallen.

CURIOSITY 17
18 MUCH
 CURIOSITY 19
Ubiquity. Energy. Electricity. Abstraction. What can be
done. The phantastic. London.
 20
MUCH

RE F E RE NCE
Green. Wet. Full. Rich. The Amazon River presented by
Greenpeace.

REFERENCE 21
22 MUCH
 REFERENCE 23
Immersing. Searching. Encapsulating. Iceland.
24 MUCH
Hot. Dry. Out there. California.

REFERENCE 25
26 MUCH
I N VE RSI O N
INVERSION
27
28 MUCH

Collecting. Encapsuling. Dramatizing. All you’ve got. Palm

Garden, Franfurt am Main.
Achieving. Alluring. Ecuador.

INVERSION 29
30 MUCH
INVERSION 31
32 MUCH

“The selection of pastries included a variety of bread rolls: Sicile, croissant noise-citron (sweet, country, and whole-
viennois, campagne, et complet, as well as traditional pas- wheat), (filled with almond cream and covered in lemon
tries including brioche au chocolat, pain aux chocolat frosting), and a croissant plaza réalisé au beurre noisette
et éclats de noisettes, pain aux chocolat et amandes de et vrai miel d’acacia.” Alain Ducasse, A Life Worth Eating.
 SOP HI STI CAT I O N

SOPHISTICATION
33
 Silk. China.

34 MUCH
SOPHISTICATION 35
36 MUCH

Cargo loaders and other equipment. Antonov 124 in the

distance.
Modeling. Handling. Acquainting. Sounding. Acquiring.
Car manufacturing, the production of doors, Germany.

SOPHISTICATION 37
38 MUCH
 SOPHISTICATION 39
Architectural school, Chicago.
 40
MUCH

INSE RTI O N
Electronics. Cairo.

INSERTION 41
42 MUCH
 INSERTION 43
Coney Island, New York.
 44
MUCH

E TE RNAL
Depending. Relying. Joining. Negotiating. Balancing.
Old Town in Delhi, 2011.

ETERNAL 45
46 MUCH
 ETERNAL 47
The animistic order. A “One” machine. Isphahan, 2011.
 48
MUCH

NARRAT I VE
The algebraic order. An “Any” machine. 88W8686-Chip of
the 90 nm WLAN-Single Chip Solution by Marvell, 2007.

NARRATIVE 49