Victoria Gouzikovski

transdisciplinary art / design /  architecture

 

Excerpts from semi- academic text about the research: (these are images from the thesis, raw text below)




(pages 59-70)
































Project Bibliography, page 107 of thesis text:

Raw Text: 
(from: Alternative Stabilities, Mater Thesis 2020)
KMD ARCHITECTURE AND THE NEOLIBERAL AESTHETIC (concepts developed) 

The Appeal to Efficiency

The most immediate concept derived from the research is the appeal to efficiency and the prioritization of technology over the individual. The idea that technology and the optimal functioning of the system (in this case, neoliberalism) is more important than respect for the individual, individual agency, interpersonal relationships. When humanistic education is (mis-)placed into a neoliberal structure — both of bureaucracy and architecture, it becomes destroyed because the core element of those studies rely on mutual trust and respect, concepts that are entirely irrelevant to the dominant system of ordering.

The concept of efficiency and pure functionality is seen as the ultimate goodness in the neoliberal ideology, so the building celebrates its sterile qualities. Because of this, it is not just that the building does not offer comfort, or even that it does not make room for comfort; but that comfort itself is not allowed; being seen as both a safety issue and an impediment to the efficient running of the building — simultaneously enforcing the idea that its inhabitants must be constantly active and productive.1

The “Smart Building” as an Outsourcing of Autonomy

The automation of the “smart building” outsources autonomy to building and the state. The designer of the building makes multiple assumptions about how people in this institutions should behave, and then creates ways that leave little room for individual uses — the doors open only through motion sensors (that don’t even work smoothly), the lights turn on for the user, and yet if anything needs adjustment one must turn to the state, which requires self-disclosure (“why are you using that room?” “do you have permission?” “what do you plan to do in there?”) For example, changing the temperature in a project room requires a request to be made to the company that owns the building, lightbulbs take a few professionals to change, and access to different rooms must be granted. Automated environments passively implement obedience. It is like the ultimate psychological manipulation where one is controlled under the guise of being assisted. “Let me make this easier for you” the building says, making assumptions and creating virtualities about your behavior.

The Theory of the Multiple Gazes

The theory of the multiple gazes was more fully developed in this project. The window structures within the building create vast fields of visibility; for instance, Øvre hall, designed to be the “creative commons” of the building, is a field that can be viewed by the authoritative gave of the state and the punitive gaze of the police (through the technological gaze of the security cameras), the disciplinary gaze of administration, the evaluative gaze of professors, the — in this context — competitive gaze of one’s peers, and the inquisitive gaze of the general public. The project rooms often have the overlap of fewer gazes: professors, other students, the wayward visitor, yet they are also vitrines for showcasing processes. The open-plan working quarters permit a bit more privacy yet are always open to spontaneous visits from students and faculty. All of these have different types of panopticism but if one takes, for example, the project rooms with large glass windows: they are a space that puts the processes of art and design on display and generates a sort of performativity to the actions. This then enhances disciplinary functioning in many senses: self-regulation in front of others, obedience to the rules, and the articulation of formalizing movements of the disciplines (for instance, a painter would be pushed to act more like a painter, wielding a brush and stepping back to look at the work occasionally, a designer more likely to mimic the actions of a designer in a studio, using sticky notes on walls, drawing large mind maps, and sitting at a laptop, a video artist would take on the actions of a cinematographer, etc.)

The Window Structures of the Building

The concept of transparency2 is articulated both through the bureaucratic attitude (it is not enough to be honest, the student must be forthcoming, anything less is lying. The student must be self-disclosing to administration and faculty, yet most of the functioning is entirely opaque) and the structures of the building: students are constantly seen, professors often have temporary refuge in (sometimes shared) offices and yet the third floor is entirely opaque and unaccessible to students. In terms of visibility, the student is always open and exposed, (personal constructions for privacy are seen as a safety hazard) flexible, and available. While at the same time, an unweildly bureaucracy finds it too difficult to adjust to newly emerging creative practices, choosing instead to make administrative decisions in academic situations.

The Hub Space

Nomadism is often seen as a way of evading the hegemonic order, but with the introduction of the hub space in neoliberal architecture, the concept of nomadism becomes integrated into neoliberal strategies. It offers small sections of “smooth” spaces for individuals to navigate, at the same time refusing to provide any symbolism that the subject could critically analyze, giving away cognitive agency to their environment. At the end of The Smooth and the Striated, Deleuze warns: “Never believe that a smooth space will suffice to save us”  (Additionally, in Nomadology and the War Machine, it is described how nomadic tactics are often used by the dominant forces as well.)

The Commons as Synthetic Equalizer

This leads to the idea that the commons created a field of synthetic equality, that can harness the energies of subjects that are not treated equality within the system — as neoliberalism runs on the dynamic of inequality — to use towards the progress of the very system that subjugates them3. That by creating architectural spaces of the neoliberal version of openness, transparency, and freedom, the energies that are generated in those spaces become productive towards neoliberalism.


1 ALSO PRESENT IN FOUCAULT, MICHEL, DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH: “THE DISCIPLINE OF THE WORK-SHOP, WHILE REMAINING A WAY OF ENFORCING RESPECT FOR THE REGULATIONS AND AUTHORITIES, OF PREVENTING THEFTS OR LOSSES, TENDS TO INCREASE APTITUDES, SPEEDS, OUTPUT AND THEREFORE PROFITS; IT STILL EXERTS A MORAL INFLUENCE OVER BEHAVIOUR, BUT MORE AND MORE IT TREATS ACTIONS IN TERMS OF THEIR RESULTS, INTRODUCES BODIES INTO A MACHINERY, FORCES INTO AN ECONOMY”P210

2 FOUCAULT, MICHEL. THE BIRTH OF BIOPOLITICS, LECTURES AT THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE 1978-79. ED. MICHEL SELLERT. TRANS. GRAHAM BURCHELL. NEW YORK. PICADOR, 2004.

3 “BENTHAM’S PROJECT AROUSED SUCH GREAT INTEREST BECAUSE IT PROVIDED THE FORMULA, APPLICABLE IN A WIDE VARIETY OF DOMAINS, FOR A FORM OF “TRANSPARENCY”, A SUBJUGATION THROUGH A PROCESS OF “ILLUMINATION” FOUCAULT, MICHEL, “THE EYE OF POWER”

4  THIS CAN CONNECT TO A CONCEPT IN MOTEN AND HARNEY’S THE UNDERCOMMONS; THE IDEA THAT BY PRESENTING ONESELF AS A SUBJECT IN SOCIAL OR POLITICAL PARTICIPATION, ONE SUBJECTIFIES ONESELF WITHIN THE SYSTEM.


KMD ARCHITECTURE AND THE NEOLIBERAL AESTHETIC (academic research)

The thesis for the academic portion of the research uses Foucault’s definition of neoliberalism: as the constitution of the neoliberal subject through market logic. The way that it manifests as a mentality in Norway: through the application of the market mentality to the public sector, rather than overt privatization. And how it is then diffused as a mentality through its manifestation as “common knowledge” (through hewing to social norms and the redefinition of terms) and through the design of architecture. This definition includes the idea that Neoliberalism is a form of governmentality - a rationality of governance that conditions the conduct of subjects in a particular way, a series of political and economic processes that direct everything towards the support of the free market, an ideology presented as matter-of-fact.

Aside from promoting a free competition among markets, neoliberalism promises a freedom for its subjects. But the type of freedom that it promotes is mostly a freedom within itself: Neoliberalism wants “free”, mobile, flexible subjects that move within its circuits. Unlike nomadic movements, neoliberalism wants free-moving subjects that can be carried by it rather by their own free will, and it ensures that they do by presenting itself as common knowledge and producing self-regulating subjects that have internalized its rationality.

In Foucault’s Birth of Biopolitics1, he describes neoliberalism as requiring inequalities to operate. So it needs to continuously create and exacerbate inequalities in order to thrive. It creates need and then offers solutions for it. (It is important to note, that at the time of these lectures, neoliberalism was not hegemonic, so his analysis was only highlighting the emergent currents of the ideology.)

In this way, neoliberalism mobilizes everything to operate within its systems: standardizing everything to make sure that it can be used as data, that it can be measured by the metrics of neoliberalism, and that a utility is derived from every resource; and within neoliberalism, everything becomes a resource: even the spiritual. These resources then rely on inequalities that fuel neoliberal processes. Everything is made to be productive towards the progress of neoliberalism, and any sort of reforms are then talked about within its confines (including “progressive” reforms like the circular economy).

Since the subject also internalizes neoliberalism, they begin to view themselves as an enterprising individual, basing their value on neoliberal metrics, and placing their self-worth on their utility and productivity within the neoliberal hegemony. Their behavior is based on capitalizing on opportunities and marketing themselves, while making themselves more observable and measurable within the system.

In education, this means that the student is viewed (and conducts oneself) as a student-entrepreneur. One that is at school to acquire marketable skills and a portfolio of competencies so that they can better position themselves in the market. This is also combined with neoliberalism’s need to turn everything into data and to measure everything. For this there are ways of measuring the students capabilities within the system, not just “translating” everything into quantifiable activity — measured on how useful it is to the system — but also imposing a framework of measurable activities onto them. In this way, students are conditioned into neoliberal subjects and to cope with this, students — and society, in general — are offered therapy and self-help advice on how to continue to be useful subjects to neoliberalism and become the best entrepreneurs to the system. It allows them to raise their self-worth by raising their productivity and desirability to the system. Everything within this system needs to be measurable, so time, energy, and activities are organized into modules that are then used as frameworks to condition the subject. Neoliberalism operates on a large scale, so bureaucracy is designed for a large scale and administration is downsized — making fewer points of interpretation — and students become treated as data in the name of fairness. Fairness in neoliberalism, in order to be efficient, is non-qualitative, and views all subjects based on a few selected metrics — metrics that are useful to the system. It then uses these metrics to asses which students would be most useful to it, which ones would be more efficient and effective to process into the market, and which ones are most reverent to its rationality. In art and design education, this means attempting to — at best, try to find a way to quantify these practices — and at worst, trying to create quantifiable modes of practices for this field. So not just translating these practices into some sort of “rational” metrics, but actually changing the academic processes to generate quantifiable activities.

This research examines how this is implemented through a combination of bureaucratic processes that implement these activities, and the framework of the building, which conditions conduct through the same rationality.

Neoliberalism operates through appeal to efficiency. In academics, bureaucracy and the flattening of subjects into data create efficiency. Anything that goes against this order, is seen as going against progress. Following Foucault’s comments on neoliberalism, bureaucracy creates problems and then offers solutions — there is a sort of disorienting atmosphere that is created by unnecessary formalities, and then more rigid formalities are placed on the subject to “solve” the chaos.

In architecture it is implemented in many ways: through the efficient running of the building — the KMD building only needs people to activate it and maintain it. Many activities are curtailed in favor of keeping up the efficiency and safety of the building.

The entire building seems to be designed around anxiety emergencies: hallways must be cleared,  there are glow-in-the-dark markers and signs with running stick figures along with escape arrows all over the building, soft furniture is not allowed in the studio spaces as a fire hazard, everything is locked with key card access.

Neoliberalism in the Norwegian context is very in line with the Foucauldian notion of neoliberalism. Here, the rationality is dispensed by the state. A critical reader on Neoliberalism2 discussed how welfare states tend to rely on social solidarity, which already means that migrants and people on the margins are excluded. This also means that the main way that this type of society shifts into neoliberalization is through the redefinition of terms. It would be difficult to change society’s traditions to other systems, but it is very effective to begin changing the meaning of certain themes by assimilating them into the market mentality that is already presented as common sense; this way, “freedom”, “security”, “fairness”, “transparency”, “equality”, “democracy”, take on entirely different meanings and catalyze subterranean cultural shifts towards neoliberalism. These shifts are often much more deeply rooted because they take place within the collective mentality and cannot be overtly identified.

This bureaucratic/academic structure connects to the structure of the building. The work examines two case studies from the book Architecture of Neoliberalism3: One that looks at Ravensbourne College, and one that examines the Pompidou Centre as neoliberal structures, and comparing them to the KMD building. It examined the idea of the hub space, a place that allows freedom and “nomadic” behavior, where people opportunistically find spaces to talk and negotiate spaces to operate in — also a place where anyone can be viewed at any time. It is the hallmark of the “progressive” corporate space: a space that says “this is a fun place to relax and work” — and here, there is no distinction between work and free time: breaks never really feel like breaks and the thought of work is constantly present during times of leisure. “A general feeling of constant productivity prevails at all times”, writes Douglas Spencer — in neoliberalism, even leisure is made productive. Google workspaces were mentioned as an inspiration for the KMD building, and so there are hub spaces that create this type of atmosphere throughout the building. Another characteristic of neoliberal architecture is visibility: both Ravensbourne College and KMD have a public and private axis, with the public axis creating a field of visibility for the public. 

These theories are then connected in the examination of the window structures within the university. The windows to the outside world are above, to make room for “museum walls” but also utilizing windows as light sources, not as something that one gazes through. The interior windows, however, become vitrines for showcasing the artistic processes. This then enforces a performative aspect to the creative processes occurring in the building: everything is for everyone, everyone is transparent, there is nothing that is not done for someone else’s gaze. There are windows in the floors and ceilings, windows into every room, and large panels of glass as walls.

This is then developed into a theory of multiple gazes: In the building, the student operates under the gaze of the state and police (who are connected to the surveillance cameras on the second floor), the evaluative gaze of professors, and — in the context of the “student-entrepreneur” — the competitive gaze of other students. And with the concept of the private axis, in theory, they are also under the public gaze; Not just in the public axis of the building, but also in terms of the requirements that they have checked off and the data that their activities generate that then goes under the scrutiny of detached entities.

What does this make of the “creative commons” of the buildings? Connecting the second floor space designed to be the “commons” at the KMD building to the previous research on Torgallmenningen, the concept that is supposed to be the progressive solution towards multiplicities and equality is examined. How can we feign “equality” within a series of unequal power structures? When people’s subject-positions require different energies to make contributions to the commons, and then others have more prominent voices and more accessibility to legitimacy, when peoples’ capabilities have different values and impact, how can we pretend that the commons are a great equalizer? And when placed under multiple gazes and processed into the neoliberal mentality, the commons become an open space that not only removes any possibility of architectural critique, but also becomes a space where the subject relinquishes any self-direction or resistance to the free space of neoliberalism. This leaves the subject to territorialize the space in a neoliberal way — for instance, some design courses in  Øvre Hall become a series of forced, quantifiable activities done in a neoliberal style under the guise of a progressive freedom and “creativity”, at times under the gaze of professors imbued with the idealism of the neoliberal rationality, uncritically producing objects that fit into the dominant social order — only different in style because that is all that can be retained within these frameworks — alternative ideologies become hollowed out through the formalities of the neoliberal framework and only what is useful to it is preserved and offered protection. Without addressing the dominant rationality, the commons become a way of sublimating any counterculture or alternative creations into more fuel for neoliberalism and more content for the people on top of the hierarchy. In this way, the commons is treated as an equalizing safe space for voices to be heard, but really only creates the illusion of a safe space that encourages people to open up and become vulnerable so that their energies can be exploited. A passive field for the blossoms of critique to bloom so that they can be harvested and distilled by neoliberalism.

What is meant to be a liminal space for developing new practices and solutions for the world, a safe space that protects individuals as they push themselves psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and even physically becomes an energy-harvesting device when the mentality of the hegemony is applied.

Instead of providing small spaces of time, physical space, and mental space where students can be vulnerable so that they can push their work for a brief second, be elevated/suspended into a theoretical realm, away from the dangers of this type of exploration in the corporeal world, the institution that asks students to be open and vulnerable without providing any protection from the violence of bureaucracy and neoliberalism then becomes a mechanism that renders the students docile and malleable for the social realm, it objectifies, subjectifies, and prepares the body, mind, and soul of the student for integration into the hegemonic order by making their energies productive for it.

Terms that are seemingly friendly become redefined: “Fairness”, for example: rather than being qualitative everything is the same, there is no discernment. This maintains hierarchical power structures while at the same time keeping people within disciplinary confines. This is not an equality that is based on respect for others, it is a redefinition that has punitive effects on anything that disobeys the framework — a positive way of keeping people in their place.

This “redefinition of terms” concept is also tied to the idea of appropriation, absorption, and co-optation of any counter-practice by neoliberalism. Apple computers made appearances in both the architecture book4 and the teaching art book5 . The architecture book talked about how Apple computers arose out of the counterculture of freedom, of the open road, and turned this freedom into a totalizing enterprise. The teaching art book discussed how standardization in education was aided by the adoption of Apple computers as the main operating system used in creative practices (especially design). The architecture book also uses the appropriation of the theories of Deleuze and Guattari and of Affect Theory by neoliberal architects to implement a neoliberal conception of freedom. These theories are used as conceptions of freedom that omit any possibility from critical thought; they are used to support the idea of open, parametric landscapes free of any type of symbolism that “unburden” the mind from any discussion or evaluation of the architecture and give themselves over to the flows of neoliberalism. In this way, hub spaces, open floorplans, repeating patterns, all create a space where the subject gives oneself entirely to the circuits of their environment.

In my analysis of the KMD building, I also examine the theme of the “smart building” as a space that gives a feeling that the little things are taken care of (things that are considered givens based on assumptions) and yet that one is completely overpowered by technology. In this case, it is as if technology is a higher power. At KMD, the doors open without your physical effort, but you need to ask permission from a motion sensor, the lights turn on for you but if they malfunction one is helpless without a technician, the temperature can be adjusted only with the help of the government organization that owns the building. The entire machine shuts down at midnight and you can only get out. Students are tracked every time they use their key card to access a room. This creates a sort of helplessness, a reliance on the higher power of neoliberal technology.

A complete domination of the technologies of the building that sociopathically makes assumptions about your needs, makes you completely dependent on it, and then makes you seem like a criminal if you color outside the lines with your routine. The public axis of the second floor have cameras that are maintained by the state.

So the subject of the building and bureaucratic structures needs to be always open, forthcoming, visible, transparent, flexible, empathetic; while the administrative quarters are opaque, the mechanisms of operation of the building are obscured and out of reach, the bureaucracy is rigid (for efficiency) and policies are unfeeling (for fairness). A severe imbalance of power is upheld through these structures that leave no room for non-quantifiable practices.

The entire building and system is constructed as a platform for appearances: like a modernist home that doesn’t allow the traces of human activity in favor of maintaining the look of the architecture.

The work is connected by what a university should be and how we can fight neoliberalism. The thesis of this research considers the institution one of the few remaining liminal spaces for reimagining (and, in this case, “reimaging” — a useful typo that was kept in the installation) the world, a space outside of the realm of hegemonic thought to look at the world in new ways and develop new processes for it. It is a speculative, philosophical realm that, in design, presents new modes of operations to the world, or at least offers alternative ways of being through the integration of structures, objects, and modes of presentation; and art, which produces new ideas and shares them materially with the world, generates philosophical ideas in non-academic ways, and offers new ways of observing and interpreting the world.

To maintain this space there needs to be a continuous criticality running through the way that these institutions operate, the development of alternative pedagogies, and the ability to protect these practices through a protective coding during periods where the academic structures are under pressure from standardizing/neoliberal influences. In an unstable, uncaring, global environment where the idea of self-organization — let alone the survival of independent creative practices — has become economically unfathomable, the academic institution must be the place that provides protection for speculative practices that provide strains of radical alternatives to the system that we have today. (“Self-Organization!”, respond the elites, starry-eyed, when you ask for formal legitimation; glowing with warm nolstalgia for the early 90s, when they used the limited free trial of neoliberal benefits to get where they are today so they can continue to talk about progressive-style concepts while telling us to play by the rules.) The system must be flexible for the students and their practices, and not the other way around, the bureaucracy must provide legitimacy to the practices of the students rather than subjugating the development of new knowledges in favor of some bureaucratic or technological “higher power”, the building needs to work for its users instead of becoming a re-enactment of architectural proposal visualizations with students merely decorating the building, and the individual must be respected above all by these systems.

1 FOUCAULT, MICHEL. THE BIRTH OF BIOPOLITICS, LECTURES AT THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE 1978-79. ED. MICHEL SELLERT. TRANS. GRAHAM BURCHELL. NEW YORK. PICADOR, 2004.

2 JOHNSTON, DEBORAH AND SAAD-FILHO, ALFREDO. NEOLIBERALISM, A CRITICAL READER. LONDON. PLUTO PRESS, 2005.

3 SPENCER, DOUGLAS. THE ARCHITECTURE OF NEOLIBERALISM: HOW CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE BECAME AN INSTRUMENT OF CONTROL AND COMPLIANCE. LONDON. BLOOMSBURY, 2016.

4 IBID.

5 DE BRUYUNE, PAUL AND GIELEN, PASCAL. TEACHING ART IN THE NEOLIBERAL REALM: REALISM VERSUS CYNICISM. ANTENNAE. VALIZ, AMSTERDAM 1977.