Walking through walls

The reading of "Walking through Walls" by Eyal Weizman has lead me to question the existing conventional features around me. A door is a door, a window is a window, a door is no window, and the same goes for a window otherwise. These are the rules of architecture that we were taught since we were young. However, these rules are merely rules created by our perception. In reality there are no such rules. Who is to say you "cannot" exit through a window, it is just we are taught that we "should not", after all they are both just holes created in the walls. For ghosts, these conventional boundaries mean nothing. They move through walls, floors, or doors if they "want" to, because they have a different perception of space.

The soldiers that lead the attack of the city of Nablus in April 2002 used this same idea and took advantage of it. The literally "walked through walls", knocking and breaking their way through palestinian homes, "smoothing out" space to carve out their pathways. It was unexpected of anyone because it was against the existing tradition. Nobody knows on which wall or at which moment will the soldiers pop out, and anyone on the streets (conventional grounds) were shot dead. This methodology is called "inverse geometry", meaning an reorganization of the urban syntax (the way things are ordered). Likewise, there are also applicants of this method of inverse geometry, such as parkour which uses walls, stairs and railings quite differently from normal pedestrians. There's also a resemblance in the architecture field. You can replace the word in the text clients for enemies, and it can still be well-understood. The book stated, "the enemy interprets space in a traditional, classical manner, and I do not want to obey this interpretation and fall intro his traps. Not only do I not want to fall intro his traps, I want to surprise him!" Similarly architects want to exceed the clients' expectations and their interpretation of what space looks like. Therefore we seek for a wider perception. The meaning of space is contingent, individual, never the same, and always changing - the client, or anyone or anything in the world is seeing the world differently.

Actually if you observe and take a look around again you will see that a lot of things follow this concept of inverse geometry and defying the basic rules of perception. As you can see through movies, a media a representation of human perception, burglars or boyfriends entering/exiting in/out of windows is a common sight. In the series, Prison Break, about a man and his friends in jail trying to break out of prison, also use the same idea knocking through grounds and walls. Nowadays, everyone wants to be new, innovative, do things nobody has every done or seen before.

We are in an era of "no walls". Shift the convention, think outside the walls.

BILDUNG BLOG

on Contemporary Theory