CUESTIONARIO: 1 ¿Qué es la extracción?

To approach the nature of the central void, the thesis calls upon Plato’s notion of khôra described as the receptacle of becoming in Timaeus (c.360 BC). This receptacle complements Plato’s two orders of existence with their notion of the model – the intelligible and unchangingly real – and the copy – the changing and visible (Plato 2001: 177).161 _{The receptacle, which Plato eventually does name space,} outlines a medium required to make the copy appear by way of the model. While this space is a permanent presence, that which it holds fluctuates in its coming and going. As John D. Caputo writes, “Khôra is the immense and indeterminate spatial receptacle … providing a home for all things” (Derrida & Caputo 1997: 84). Through this holding of something else, the receptacle, however, remains an intangible, if intelligible, container of otherwise sensible things. Caputo continues, “[The] impossibility of finding a proper name for khôra … is not some failing on Plato's part … but a structural feature of Plato's thought” (95). As such, the name khôra is designated the receptacle in the absence of a possible

proper name for this indeterminate phenomenon. Khôra becomes the name for that which makes

something else appear, and to speak of khôra is therefore to speak of something else. Derrida writes:

Khôra receives, so as to give place to them, all the determinations, but she/it does not posses any of

them as her/its own. She possesses them, she has them, since she receives them, but she does not possess them as properties, she does not possess anything as her own. She is nothing other than the sum or the process of what has just been inscribed on her, on the subject of her, on her subject, right up against her subject, but she is not the subject or the present support of all these interpretations, even though, nevertheless, she is not reducible to them. (1995: 99/100)

The central void, expressed and approached in the chosen works as this gap that holds ascribed meanings, might be comprehended through the notion of khôra. Matta-Clark’s cleaving and re- centring of the dwelling house, Schwitters’ spatial wall with its un-merzed central floor space and Schneider’s double rooms with their original-copy relation all approach this spacing that holds. The split

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wall diagram proposed by the thesis illustrates the spatial implications of the artists’ spacings in a model

that, if not outline Plato’s intelligible original on the basis of which all sensible phenomena are drawn or moulded, then unfold the making of a living space by repeating something already known when retracing the lines of its familiarity. With this stroke, trait and the drawing it produces, a space emerges the centrality of which positions a living space available for inscription by its inhabitant. Derrida writes about the unnameable space of the trait that gives us the truth in painting:

It is situated. It situates between the visible edging and the phantom in the centre … Between the outside and the inside, between the external and the internal edge-line, the framer and the framed, the figure and the ground, form and content, signifier and signified, and so on for any two-faced opposition. The trait thus divides in this place where it takes place. The emblem for this topos seems undiscoverable; I shall borrow it from the nomenclature of framing: the passe-partout. (1987: 12)

For Derrida, this line that holds a work together by outlining it is like the passe-partout, a double frame with a double edge. This trait of the work divides space like the wall splits in the diagram to produce a liminal zone – a space that opens up, a spacing, a receptacle that holds something within and without, on either side. Derrida continues:

[T]he passe-partout remains a structure with a movable base; but although it lets something appear, it does not form a frame in the strict sense, rather a frame within a frame. Without ceasing (that goes without saying) to space itself out, it plays its card or its cardboard between the frame, in what is properly speaking its internal edge, and the external edge of what it gives us to see, lets or makes appear in its empty enclosure: the picture, the painting, the figure, the form, the system of strokes [traits] and of colours. (12)

Derrida reverses the notion of the internal and external edges, so that the edge framing the central void of the passe-partout is named the external edge because it is external to that which appears within its frame. Within this line that draws an “empty enclosure” is the central void of the split wall diagram – a space that “lets something appear.” This something that appears is both interior and exterior, it both belongs and does not, it withdraws into itself and opens up to something else. The other space that opens up from this “movable base” that never settles is the possibility for a contemporary dwelling, a living space unfinished as a matter of principle.

Conclusion to “Spaces for contemporary living – The implications of the loft, Merz and rewalling”

The chapter began by summarising the three case studies as individual spatial responses to the artists’ respective contemporary contexts. It did so by framing three main catalysts, one for each study, seen to make the works and their critiques of dwelling and the house possible. These catalysts were identified as Gordon Matta-Clark’s loft experience, Kurt Schwitters’ Merz-revaluation and Gregor Schneider’s strategy of rewalling. By framing these catalysts on the basis of the wider historical settings that brought them about, the first section [5.1] unfolded the chosen works as direct responses to problems of dwelling experienced by the artists in their time. These were problems that the respective

gestures responded to, consciously or less so, while at the same time proposing novel ways of

overcoming the challenge. In this process, a contemporary dwelling was made possible for and by the individual artist through his work and practice.

In the second section [5.2], the thesis unfolded a further set of propositions for dwelling beyond the works in question, yet based on the identified catalysts. These themes took outset in the loft as a new type of living space to emerge in the second half of the twentieth century. The loft was explored as a specific response to the need for a contemporary live/work environment resolved by its particular spatiality and functionality. The loft was seen to accommodate art and home in one, with the space of the artist’s studio, as the mediating setting for living and working, opening this possibility for dwelling. The thesis responded by asking what it takes to make an artist’s studio, and it found that the spatial transformation relied on the artistic gesture – the artist’s stroke that cuts the space of the studio open. The work of art initiated by this stroke defined a space no longer simply a room for living or working, but a double room accommodating both at the same time – a double gesture then, addressing both the familiar and the alien nature of contemporary dwelling. The possibility of this gesture for the problem of dwelling was seen to rely on the ability to express the duality – both the same and the different, known and unknown. From a loft perspective, the artist’s repeated tracing over of his/her stroke became the trait of the work and the living space that it opened up.

The leaving of traces as signs of inhabitation led the thesis to elaborate on the notion of the contemporary household as a construction suspended between objects in the form of personal belongings, in one hand, and the objectified house as a spatial container, in the other. With a reference to the ancient Greek concept of the household, oikos, a revaluation of object belongings was proposed with significant consequences for the status of the dwelling house. The inhabitation of space through the placing of one’s belongings would make this house redundant as a framework for dwelling. If the artist’s stroke cut the living space open, the dweller’s placing of his/her belongings would soon inhabit that space. The revaluation of objects and spaces according to personal criteria and preferences in the wake of this practice was seen as an opportunity to take charge of one’s own living domain. Rather than acknowledge the values and conventions in the interest of others, such a revaluation would act as a kind of protest against potentially oppressive forces taking control of the dwelling domain.

The architectural section as a tool to obtain, contain or hold knowledge was proposed as a means to examine already existing conditions while at the same time project possible extensions/adaptations/ reconfigurations. While the architect’s section would work as an anatomical dissection, it would be analogous to the artist’s stroke as a cut through the surface by means of which a space becomes accessible. This section, possibly cutting through convoluted spaces of repressions and recollections,

would open a field of vision for the architect to see and to project, to know and to forget. The latter because it would not otherwise be possible to negotiate the contemporary dwelling called for.

The extremity of Schneider’s rewalling reminds us of the risk of forgetting and simply leaving behind, yet also emphasises the need to forget in order to move on. Not least concerning questions of dwelling. The notion of the central void, in the form of a gap always already existing in the fabric of the living space, comes forward as a space that lets something appear, a receptacle with no properties beyond the ones ascribed by the inhabitant. The thesis frames this space as a possibility for the contemporary dweller, if not architect whose task is left uncertain, and thereby arrives at the conclusive elaboration on this task that remains.

Conclusion to the thesis Splitting and Doubling: Spaces for Contemporary Living in Works by Gordon Matta-Clark, Kurt Schwitters and Gregor Schneider

– A house of repeated difference

In this final conclusive remark, the thesis returns to the questions of dwelling from where it initially set out – what does it mean to dwell in the twenty-first century? What kind of space accommodates contemporary life? What is the nature of dwelling in the first place? The conclusion summarises how through the study of the three chosen works, the texts by Adorno and Heidegger and the other literary references, a space has been opened from where to address this problem of dwelling today. It

considers the framework for a dwelling beyond the notion of a house, as illustrated in the split wall

diagram discussed across the chapters, and it elaborates on the task that remains for the architect. A

task that is not straightforward when the living space foremost relies on a settlement between the individual being and his/her contextual setting.

Through the constellation of the case studies and their catalysts, strategies for this contemporary living space have emerged. While specific to the works and their respective time, these strategies resonate with the challenges facing the inhabitant of the twenty-first century. As such, the contemporary living space – proposed by the case studies beyond predefined concepts and traditions – points forwards when outlining a dwelling at the same time context-specific, generic and applicable beyond the historical moment of its formation. This suggestion that something of a general order is at work in the contemporary dwelling assumes that a kind of concept designates it prior to manifestation after all. The thesis considers the nature of this generality that applies across time and space and, eventually, ties all dwellings together, so that the term itself survives.

Considering that the contemporary signifies the here and now, contemporary dwelling implies spatial engagement with the fabric of the present moment. Through this involvement, the dweller defines his/her living domain. To formalise or otherwise prescribe the architecture of this space would not be possible, and the absence of a spatial conceptualisation is therefore a shared aspect across all

contemporary dwellings. The negative denominator lies in the context-specific – two contemporary dwellings cannot be identical – the modern utopia haunting Western culture throughout recent centuries and discussed in chapter 1 [1.3.1] is a fantasy. It is represented by the image of the whole house, and because the promise of this house remains as unattainable today as it ever, its façade stands back as an empty sign – like the front of Gregor Schneider’s house in Rheydt.

The negativity central to this claim is echoed by the strategies for dwelling proposed by the case studies. The relevance of these for the present age lies not least in the response to a problem essentially unchanged. This problem of dwelling identified in the twentieth century and discussed in

the first chapter of the thesis – the difficulty of inhabiting a lifeworld experienced as alien and uninhabitable – remains. Even more so, perhaps, considering the speed and intensity with which the present age moves on and takes form, endlessly reconfiguring and postponing itself with no

destination in sight. The dweller is forced to follow suit, in effect, forced to dwell on the move. This rootless dwelling in flux reflects the condition approached by Lévinas, presuming a dwelling possible

because of the wandering of humans rather than impossible because of the absence of their permanent

settlement [1.3.1]. The notion of the settlement is central with its connotation of a dwelling settled in a chosen place and rooted over generations. While dwelling conventionally signifies this form of

permanent and stable settlement, an overcoming of a conflict is nevertheless implicit in the term. Dwelling as an always already unsettled state of affairs that must be negotiated, dwelling as negotiation, is a proposition in line with the conditions for dwelling in the contemporary of the twenty-first

century. The challenge is to accept that this settlement cannot be permanent at any point but constantly opens up for renegotiation.

Negotiation of the dwelling is inevitably the task of the dweller who through the placing of his/her belongings locates him/herself in belonging to a place. As demonstrated by the case studies, a complex weaving between the individual and the setting takes place, a complexity possibly increasing when a larger household in terms of members is involved. The particularity of any such negotiation at the same time means that had the thesis made use of other case studies, the identified catalysts and proposed strategies would have turned out differently. The set of propositions made available by the studied works is therefore not in any sense exhaustive. When the contemporary living space cannot be

given by architects or others, but must be taken by the inhabitant, the question of what this dwelling

leaves for the architect to do returns. The notion of building then not simply means the architect’s building once and for all but continuously building in a never-ending process of committing oneself to the situation. Dwelling as this infinite building, and contemporary dwelling as an, in principle,

incomplete process echoes Schwitters’ Merz-building practiced in every new place where the artist would stay for shorter or longer time. Places where he would utilise any available material while recharging the values of these found objects according to his own sensibilities.162 _{So, as this}

engagement with the available, the contemporary dwelling signifies an immediate relation before any particular architectural planning or property. Other aspects than the spatial qualities of a given

location, its aesthetic features, stylistic orientation or functional disposition govern the suitability that a prospective dweller experiences.

The notion of contemporary dwelling as a practice that largely leaves the architect redundant might be opposed by a call for the discipline to nevertheless conceive of a structure surpassing the house. The

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Besides from the continued Merz-building in Hannover, Hjertøya, Lysaker and Elterwater, it appears that Schwitters initiated Merz-columns in various places that he visited. During the 1930s, he seemingly worked in Basle, Paris, Holland and Molde, among other locations, as well as the Isle of Man where he was interned upon arrival in the UK, 1940 (Webster 2007: 81).

requirement for a framework that does not pretend to hold what cannot be held remains acute, and the dweller cannot provide it him/herself. Such is a call for a practice under pressure to reassert itself when, as demonstrated by the case studies, the house has been cut open for scrutiny, spaced apart for inhabitation and turned inside out to reveal the void within. Through these operations, dwelling has become an open enquiry and the house itself exposed as an essentially broken structure. The notion of the whole house on solid ground has been unsettled, and for the discipline of architecture – required to repeatedly reaffirm the standing structure in service of other disciplines relying on the metaphor – the call to propose something else now sounds. It sounds from this thesis as an opportunity for a contemporary architect, freed from the obligation of recreating the illusory dwelling house, to come into being.

The other house, that architecture is called upon to conceive, will not be grounded in the soil on which it pretends to stand, because it will not be a standing structure. The architectural metaphor, that it provides, will not serve reason by safely spanning across an abyss gaping below its thinking, when it is not itself articulated on this absent ground. It does not offer an enclosed shelter to protect from untimely intrusions, because it cannot pretend to separate again that which has already split or

doubled. The other structure, which the architect will conceive, is suspended in the unknown, it has no clear orientation, it does itself not yet know what it is, and it might not need to either. Its metaphor is the fleetingness of the moment in which the structure comes to make a difference to someone. To circle this space, the architect sets out from the margins of dwelling, yet s/he soon moves beyond the simple retracing of an outline by aligning him/herself with the artistic gesture intrinsic to his/her practice. The thesis argues that this central aspect of the architect’s skill provides a particular

opportunity for the conception of a framework for dwelling when the architect/artist/dweller strikes. This stroke is the placing of an obstacle within the fabric of a familiar domain, in the form of an alterity representing the other to be accommodated for dwelling to take place. While it is possible that this presence remains imperceptible and, as such, unknown, the manifestation of it will take form and architecture will provide this form. The discipline will give expression to the alien presence, and the