Tag: 2015

uncovered flows

provoking, responding

 

responding to:

Anita Berrizbeitia and Karen M’Closkey, “Criticality in Landscape Architecture: Origins in 19th Century American Practices,” 2015.

Diane Harris, “The Postmodernization of Landscape: A Critical Historiography,” in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58, no. 3 (1999): 434-443.

Rosalind Krauss, “Introduction” and “Sculpture in the Expanded Field” in The Originality of The Avant-garde and Other Modernist Myths by Rosalind Krauss (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986): 1-6, 276-290.

Elizabeth Meyer, “The Expanded Field of Landscape Architecture,” in Ecological Design and Planning, eds. George F. Thompson and Frederick R. Steiner (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1997): 45-79.

In “The Expanded Field of Landscape Architecture,” Elizabeth Meyer, a landscape architect, theorist, and historian, articulates a set of methods and strategies for the creation of landscape architectural theories, which she presently describes as lacking or misread due to its non-binary nature beyond the scope of historical modern art and architectural discourses.

Based in the context of the landscape architectural profession of 1997 in the United States, she claims that landscape architecture “is not a practice that can be adequately described as either this or that” and argues that

Landscape architecture must be allowed to speak a language that, first, avoids binaries and operates in the spaces between the boundaries of culture and nature, man and woman, architecture and landscape; and, second, allows us to questions the very premises upon which our knowledge of landscape architecture is based (51)

Meyer’s text assumes that the reader has an understanding of modern landscape architecture in the Western world, familiarity with Rosalind Krauss’s use of the Klein group diagram, and ideas of poststructuralism and postmodernism as a base to understanding the constraints of modern discourse, and new responses to or further development of postmodern theory. She sets a narrative and reflective tone to distribute her more direct, didactic ideas by posing rhetorical questions throughout, exposing the limits of binary thinking, and proposing new categories of thought through an unpacking of a Klein group diagram, which ironically appears to be a very geometric, confined, and one could say “modern,” diagram representing “the expanded field of landscape architecture” (52). Anita Berrizbeitia and Karen M’Closkey might say Meyer’s is both a projective and critical approach (“Criticality in Landscape Architecture,” 2015) to framing the field of landscape architecture in that it works within a set of established systems, “landscape-field” and “architecture-figure,” to develop new areas, “minimal garden,” and “figured ground,” for example (Meyer, 1997, 52).

Rosalind Krauss, in reference to critical writing, states that criticism is best understood “through the forms of its argument, through the way that its method, in the process of constituting the object of criticism, exposes to view those choices that precede and predetermine any act of judgement (Introduction to The Originality of the Avante-garde and Other Modernist Myths, 1986, 1). If we understand modern to be the historical, predominant theoretical framework which embodies strict, “logical” ideologies of binaries; postmodern to be “the broad range of theoretical developments that… stress the contextualization of texts; feminist and postcolonial theories that focus on recovering the voices of the oppressed,”; and understandings of landscape that have been repressed through modernist discourse; and poststructuralism as a philosophy which “works to unmask the pretended neutrality of physical space” then we can begin to comprehend and critique Meyer’s method of describing new categories of landscape architecture through the use of the Klein diagram and categorical descriptions (Diane Harris, “The Postmodernization of Landscape,” 1999, 434).

Looking specifically at the graphic representation of the Klein diagram and following categories of the “expanded field,” it appears that the professional field of landscape architecture takes on a constrained, ordered, territorial property, and while Meyer clearly mentions the possibility other categories and that she is focusing on breaking the binary relationship between architecture and landscape, I feel that through her re-categorization and re-presentation, she effectively ties landscape architecture down to another binary-like condition—one that is confined to the geometric territory of the Klein diagram. To be clear, I am not necessarily critiquing her ideas, as I tend to agree with the dismantling of binaries and restrictions imposed by modern discourse, but rather her method of representing the shift from binary to categorical and her use of the phrase “expanded field,” as I believe they limit the deconstruction of modern interpretations of landscape architecture theory.

I think it would be more useful to graphically describe the “nature of difference” in landscape architecture through a representation of flows or rhizomes that are not “expanded,” but uncovered gradually over time as people begin to better understand the natural, cultural landscape that is always changing and has always existed (Krauss, 5). Rather than thinking territorially through the “expansion” of a “field,” perhaps we should think adaptably and openly through the uncovering of flows—looking not to multiple distinct categories across a surface, but to the interconnected roots underneath, which ground our ways of thinking.

“definitely not white”

reflecting, wisdom

Asian Americans have still not achieved full equality in American life… they occupy unique and constantly shifting positions between black and white, foreign and American, privilege and poverty.

– Erika Lee, The Making of Asian America, 2015, 8

Erika Lee cites historian Ellen Wu as she explains how Asians have been, and to this day are, treated as “definitely not white” (7). Even the so called “good Asians” or “model minority” are not exempt from this discrimination. Below are some ways Erika Lee has revealed as part of today’s masked racism (6):

colorblind racism: assumes that race no longer exists and in doing so ignores the pervasive racial discrimination that still infects us today
cultural racism: supplants race with culture and judges people based on oversimplified perceptions of beliefs or behaviors, which are claimed to determine the group’s overall superiority or inferiority.
micro-aggressions: everyday insulting actions towards people of color

I learned the other day, from Joy Buolamwini, a panelist on MIT’s live webcast of Cornel West’s lecture, “Speaking Truth to Power,” that racism even takes place in the coding of our software, specifically in the making of AI recognition technologies. Just how deep do these malicious energies flow? I am grateful knowing that we have people like Joy critiquing and revolutionizing new technologies. I hope, that through my work, I can de-create harmful values and find respectful ways to revolutionize design that are –  accessible, equitable, multiple, and – “definitely not white.”

critically critical

provoking, responding

 

responding to:

Anita Berrizbeitia and Karen M’Closkey, “Criticality in Landscape Architecture: Origins in 19th Century American Practices,” 2015.

Writing within the context of the recent decade of “attacks” against critical practices in landscape architecture, Anita Berrizbeitia and Karen M’Closkey suggest, through a questioning of the “critical” and analyses of critical practices in the 19th century, that the profession’s proposed alternatives, projective or post-critical practices, may include aspects of criticality, and that all critical practices are in fact, to some degree, projective.

The authors’ main assumptions include those of the origins of “critical practice” and “landscape architecture.” Looking to the emergence of American landscape architecture in the mid-19th century and tradition of 1930s “critical theory” in the Frankfurt School of thinkers from primarily Germany and Austria, they necessarily trace the practices and understandings of the “critical” and “post-critical” from white male dominated Eurocentric ideologies (Berrizbeitia and M’Closkey, “Criticality in Landscape Architecture: Origins in 19th century American Practices,” 2015, 2). While these assumptions necessarily exclude non-western ideas of criticality and landscape architecture practices, they are made loud and clear in the title and thesis, and serve not to maliciously discriminate, but rather to focus the discussion as a means to express and delve deeper (or “critically”) into their personal western-based ideas of criticality—ideas, I think, that could be built upon and altered by future contribution of non-western thought.

M’Closkey and Berrizbeitia directly address the practice of landscape architecture in the United States, as well as the broader European discourse in their examples. They call for “questioning its methods, its boundaries, its field of influence” as a way to encourage more critical practices in the globalizing world. The way the authors present their ideas is extremely clear in content, yet deceiving in structure. It is a well-told persuasive narrative which leads readers to slowly uncover and realize at the very end what the authors’ main takeaways are: that the critical is actually projective and that we should continue to be critical in our drive towards criticality.

I believe all practices, including critical ones, are projective to certain degree, in the sense that they all start with pre-existing tools, whether or not they are found within the profession or in other disciplines, and are grounded in the memory and preconceptions of the designer. Criticality can be either a layering/constructive/complicit or delaminating/deconstructive/resistive process. A complicit criticality is more projective; it involves working with existing tools and techniques (e.g. CAD, ArcGIS, orthographic projections, mapping) in new ways, but one that accepts current value systems and works “within its frameworks” to reform existing practices (18). A deconstructive or resistive criticality is one that is premised on decolonial and anti-oppressive values, which questions the very tools and techniques themselves. It seeks not to reform, but to abolish or revolutionize existing practices, and involves the imagination and positioning of new frameworks.

While “the critical is activated in specific ways to provoke, define, and structure change found in the bounds imposed by the material and institutional,” I would like to participate in critical practice “by questioning its methods, its boundaries, its field of influence,” and propose that designers must deconstruct the “historically determined” context which Berrizbeitia and M’Closkey claim defines “criticality” (19). I believe that designers must seek to be “critically critical,” and engage criticality as a mission of decolonialization and anti-oppression, as does non-western critical social theory, which is a way to say, “that which was critically critical (that which sought to decolonize and defy oppression) in the past is still critical today and will always be.”

yank and shove, push and pull

provoking, wisdom

The idea of Asia remained central to the invention of America, and European colonization on both sides of the Pacific Ocean led to the first migrations of Asians to the Americas.

– Erika Lee, The Making of Asian America, 4

The Spanish and British Empires, and later the United States Empire occupied and extracted people and resources from India, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, East and West Malaysia, Laos, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Timor, Brunei, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the Cocos Islands, and China (5). One could say Asians were subject to the colonial forces of “yank and shove,” to then be exploited and eliminated.

Further movement of Asians to America was “pushed” by violence and social, political, and economic instability in their home countries, and “pulled” by dreams of education, freedom, and peace (4-5). Though I imagine it could be argued that the “yank and shove” still happens today.

 

many stories

reflecting

Obscured by the broad definition of “Asian” and “Asian American” is a staggering diversity of peoples that represent twenty-four distinct groups… Both the diversity and the shared experiences of Asian Americans reveal the complex story of the making and remaking of Asian America. There is not one single story, but many.

– Erika Lee, The Making of Asian America, 3

Many stories, but few are told. In my history and social studies education, the only mentions of Asian Americans were of the gold rush and Japanese internment. Of course, my family’s and my own experience have added to that mix – and what vivid stories they are!

impressions of optimization

provoking

If you read the professional literature, you quickly get the impression that the well-being of the forest is only of interest insofar as it is necessary for optimizing the lumber industry.

– Peter Wohllenben, Introduction in The Hidden Life of Trees, xiii

If you read the professional literature of any kind, if you observe the scenes around us, you not only get the impression of interest in optimization, but also the pervasiveness of global neoliberal market economies in our daily lives and common practices…

slow down

reflecting

Slow down, breathe deep, and look around. What can you hear? What do you see? How do you feel?

…forests matter at a more fundamental level than most of us realize.

– Peter Wohlleben, Introduction to the English Edition in The Hidden Life of Trees, xi

Forests and mountains never cease to amaze me. When I think about the mountains I’ve clambered across and the trees that have sheltered me, I think, “if only I could stay here – if only this was home.”

What I like about these questions is that they could take place at any instance, anywhere. Whether we’re hammering away in dingy cubical at work, blazing a trail through a snowy forest, or wiggling through crowds of people, we should “slow down,” wonder why we aren’t at peace like the trees in the forest, and act in ways so we can be.