> = < (convergent – parallel – divergent): 110203

Multiplicities are rhizomatic…A multiplicity has neither subject nor object, only determinations, magnitudes, and dimensions that cannot increase in number without the multiplicity changing in nature (the laws of combination therefore increase in number as a multiplicity grows).

- Gilles Deleuze
Rhizome Versus Tree

A multiplicity is an organization belonging to the many. A multiplicity is a flexible body that alters its configuration as it repeats (see images below). A multiplicity is defined from its outside through relationships with other multiplicities. Units and strands becoming landscapes are multiplicities. Repetitive alterations to their configurations define transformative logics. Relationships with other units or strands define combinatorial logics.

Four dimensional projections –

E. Jouffret, 1903

Recursively patterned landscape –

Tom Beddard, 2011 (www.subblue.com)

MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT

Transformative and combinatorial logics derived from the geometries of molding profiles, units and strands yield a type of material. Careful maintenance of these logics – even as they are adjusted in response to the braiding diagram – will produce order and pattern in the material as it is worked. Do not allow other externally defined constraints – size, structural integrity and opacity of the landscape – to override internally defined rules for incremental change (transformative logics) and attachment (combinatorial logics).

MATERIAL ANALYSIS

In Rhino, model the molding profiles, units and strands used to build the landscape. From these models, develop a series of diagrams that unpack the derivation and assembly of this material. Indicate the following:

How analyzing curvatures of molding profiles informs cutting and reattaching parts to form units.
How units attach, rotate, etc. to form strands.
How strands braid with each other to form the landscape.

Develop notations using line-weight, line-type, tone, nodes, vectors, cutting planes, angle indicators, etc. to communicate this information. Develop these diagrams in groups.

studio description......................

Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, The Garden of Forking Paths proposes a model for the world composed of multiple splitting strands. In the story, temporal strands form “a growing, dizzying web of divergent, convergent, and parallel times.” This notion of convergent, parallel, and divergent strands served as a model for spatial explorations in the studio. Work began along two parallel tracks: a modeling exercise based on cutting extruded wood molding profiles and re-assembling them into strands with variable curvature, and a mapping exercise studying the organization of a braided river. Together, these exercises led toward building a braided field of strands.

Once braided, strands produced a landscape of nascent surfaces and quasi-interiorities. When viewed in terms of site / intervention or landscape / inhabitant, these surfaces and interiorities were seen to have effective and affective potentials. As described by John Rajchman, effective potentials are grounding; constructed qualities of surface, enclosure, and atmosphere suggest a level of stability in the earth. Affective potentials are ungrounding; they suggest open-ended trajectories of bodies in space. As such, landscape and intervention operated in concert to produce effect and affect in strands of space and time. Final spatial propositions were not attempts to insert movements or narratives into a preformed framework, but sought to release figures from this type of prescription and allow them to navigate alternative paths.

> = < (convergent – parallel – divergent)

110203 - multiplicities

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