Zac Porter

Technology presents a problem for the individual. When placed inside a system, they become just another cog in the system. Their interpretation of the environment does not matter when systematic analysis drives design. The individual becomes the righteous hero, fighting for their individual liberties. With the imagery this rage against the machine brings, garnering support for this heroic view is not hard.

At the core, Zac seems to encourage above all else, the subjectivity of analysis. The point gets muddled somewhere between the landscape, and anti-technology arguments, but it is not an unreasonable position to take. Of course everyone experiences architecture and landscape differently. He takes the position, however, from such a distant point, that architectural interventions become impossible. Taking his view, the architect has no right, or no way, to interpret the environment successfully, as only the individual can truly see [the subjective] meaning.

To respond, I don’t think we should ignore the individual experience in space. The position Zac takes is not wholly unreasonable. But that should not stop us from taking a systematic (technologic) approach to design. He may be trying to “swing the discourse back” towards individualism, but that seem preemptive when digital architecture is still in a relatively infantile stage. The individual may be de-emphasized, but they system does not have to do away with their interpretation.

The greatest paradox of Zac’s argument arose with his analysis of imagined landscapes. He used them as a basis for individual interpretation and non-systematic logic, but never acknowledged that the entire system was of his design. He made the landscape, he drew the grid, he drew the analysis graph, and he provided he labels for each significant point. From an artistic standpoint, this all fine, but the process is so insulated from any exterior forces, that it becomes impossible to say that the analysis proves anything. The only difference between a technologic system, and his imagined landscapes, is that the technologic system must choose to, or admit to, ignoring context. In his imagined landscapes they only conflicts that he had do deal with were imagined.

Individual-centric design is not bad, but from a development standpoint, it is not a productive position to take. We can not make any progress if we keep holding back.