DELEUZE AND THE GENESIS OF FORM

By Manuel DeLanda
Digital Logics

This reading is about “Form Finding”. Is the final geometrical form of a product dictated by inner or outer condition? One constant in the history of western philosophy seems to be a certain conception of matter as an inert receptacle for forms that come from the outside. Yet, as Gilles Deleuze has shown in his work on Spinoza, The principal cause of material transformation is the matter itself, not the surrounding condition. For that, he gave the example of soap and salt. In the first case study, creation of spherical bubbles emerge, in contradiction to the second case study where cubical crystal start to take form. However, both of them come from the same condition state: Gases. As a result, it is not about the circle being the ultimate form. The same topological form, can guide the processes that generates many other geometrical forms. One and the same topological form can guide the morphogenesis of a variety of geometrical forms threw different energetic possibilities. The idea of topological form goes under three categories: Socio technological structure, Biological one and physical one.

According to the French philosopher, the first obstacle is a linear and mechanical view of causality and it radical interpretation. “If all the future is given in the past, then true innovation is impossible. We should model the future as truly open ended, and the past and the present as pregnant, not only with possibilities which become real, but with virtualities which become actual.” Deleuze goes on and discuss the process of actualization more complex than bubbles or crystals. For example, Embryogenesis is the development of a fully differentiated organism starting from a single cell. One should differenssiate between the “be” and the “becoming”. The “be” will behave differently in different physical and spatial condition.

In “Difference and repetition”, Deleuzian though comes from the philosophy of Mathematics. Kant distinguish between the worlds as it appears (Phenomena), and the world as it exist by itself (Nuoumena). According to him, a phenomena still exist even if there is nobody watching it. Something by itself is unique. But it can be interpreted differently by others. Difference is not diversity. Diversity is given, but difference is that by which the given is given. Difference is the nuomenous closest to phenomena. It is only in this zone of intensity that difference, driven morphogenesis comes into its own, and that matter becomes an active material agent, one which does not need form to come and impose itself from the outside. Strada emerge from the articulation of Homogenous Elements. “self-consistent Aggregates” emerge from the articulation of Heterogeneous element as such. Both process display the same “divergent Actualization”. In both processes we have a virtual form underlying the Isomorphism of the resultant actual forms.As a conclusion, there is a virtual reality process of everything that exist. Actualization is something that get to be something else threw a process. Your identity is what you begin with, and you should think of the past and present as a library for opportunity. We should differentiate between the worlds as it is and the world as it exist by its own. The world is beyond our understanding.

This is a summary of  a project of Iaac, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia developed at  Master in Advanced Architecture Program,  in 2015/16 by:

Students: Nour Mezher

Faculty: Maite Bravo