Practice As Research
Practice As Research
Architecture of slowness: reflecting on the actions of historical repetitions and loops
The presentation focuses on two of Butcher’s recent design projects: the Silt House and Monument to Superstudio. The central aim of this focus is to present how the methodologies used in the design of these works offer alternative architectural design processes to certain contemporary architectural discourses and practices that have emerged from specific philosophical legacies of Modernity. These discourses and practices continue to promote a need for technological progress and efficiency in the design and construction of architectures. This exists in the way the profession of architecture should place greater emphasis on certain design processes focused on computation and cybernetic discourse. These processes not only reduce the space and time for critical reflection but also seek tight allegiance with determinist logics of the market, to drive efficiency in the production of architecture.
As a means of questioning this, the presentation aims to explore how one might propose an architecture of slowness, a concept that, emerged from a reading of Bruno Latour in his essay An Attempt at a ‘Compositionist Manifesto’ where the philosopher invites us to acknowledge that the ‘time of time […] has passed ’(Latour, 472) and that with this acknowledgement we must embrace a slowness so we can look around, feel and see the world in order to be more aware as we move forward. To help manifest this notion of slowness the chapter will focus on different methodologies of design that seek direct reciprocity with, and reflection on, historical architectures. These processes include performative modes of drawing that seek to mime and re-enact historical works of architecture and art.
Bruno Latour, ‘An Attempt at a "Compositionist Manifesto",’ 471-490.
Matthew Butcher is an academic and designer. His work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2009 and 2011), The Architecture Foundation Gallery, London (2011); The Architectural Association, London (2011); Prague Quadrennial, Prague (2011); V&A Museum, London (2012); Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York (2012) and Betts Project, London (2020). In 2020 His work was included in the Architecture Foundation’s publication New Architects 4 which showcased the work of the best architectural designers and practices currently working in the UK. Butcher has contributed articles and papers for journals including Conditions, Architecture Research Quarterly (ARQ), the RIBA Journal and Architecture Today. He was Guest Editor, along with Luke Pearson, of the special issue of Architectural Design (AD) titled Re-Imagining the Avant-Garde: revisiting the architecture of the 1960s and 1970s (2019) and editor of the book Expanding Fields of Architectural Discourse and Practice: Curated Works from the P.E.A.R Journal published by UCL Press (2020).
hello, and welcome this afternoon to this month's practices research network and it's the last one for this academic year, which has been a really, really. great experience and we've had some some fast fantastic talks and presentations and today is going to be no different so what we've got today is. Matthew butcher with us thank you Matthew for being here and and Matthew is going to be talking about the architecture. Of slowness reflecting on the actions of. Historical repetitions and loops and I have asked Matthew to come along and present because, as part of the practices research seminar series we're trying to. highlight the different forms that practice as research may it may take, and in this particular case, and obviously this is outside of my area of expertise all together. But i'm still hoping to be able to learn of what it actually means to do practice us research show, with no further ado i'd like to hand over to Matthew and yes please you know just just. present your your talk and then we'll have a conversation around the different kinds of things that come up.
Matthew Butcher:I thank you very much nicolette for inviting me to speak. it's it's very interesting what you're trying to do, and hopefully my talk will tap into some of the themes or relate some of the themes that you're trying to set up with this network and. So i'm going to try and share my screen yep there we go and can you see that okay.
Nicole Brown:Yes, thank you.
Matthew Butcher:Okay, so. Actually i've got to change this and that's not right. Sorry. Okay, so. Today i'm just going to present a serious my design projects and start to try to link them into certain kind of theoretical ideas i've been kind of working with alongside that the design of the of the architectural projects. and specifically to areas of my of interest in my work and to explore the kind of origins of where and why that has been the focus of of what i've been trying to do, and over the last 10 years. And so i'm just going to start with a reading a brief description of of kind of overview of what the what the works been doing. So the ambition for my work of the last 10 years has been driven by a deep concern that we are becoming increasingly disembodied from and disenchanted by our experience and understanding of the material and physical world. This is being driven by ongoing philosophical legacies of maternity, that we are still forced to operate within politically, socially and culturally. These legs sees have proliferated a desire for dominance over nature, a celebration of technological progress, a technocratic means of operation a desire to tonight, history and to a certain extent context. They are positions that have led directly to the damage that has been currently done to our environment. With the fifth Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the IPCC stating that with high confidence this damage will have irreversible and dramatic consequences on our ways of life. These effects of climate identify for the IPCC include worldwide disruption of existing ecosystems, an increase in dramatic weather conditions, such as coastal flooding threat of drought extreme participation rising sea levels and extensive coastal erosion. For geographer leak lover in his book postmodern climate change, the link between modernity and climate change is undeniable. He states that to identify climate change the outcome of modality is at the one level a statement of the obvious. It is a contemporary issue Board of an industrial society. Going further and his analysis is argument focuses in the idea is not just about industrialization but also about the process of governance emphasis on scientific solutions and technology that are fundamentally contributing to the problem and not allowing for a solution. For glover one of the problems of this emphasis on technology that is being driven not by any specific course social, political or cultural necessity. but rather as part of modalities fixation on a narrative of progress. outlining this issue he states central to modality, is the doctrine of progress modernization is premiered on the belief that, through. Identity society improves upon its predecessors going on to present the idea that Western society has taken the doctrine of program progress as a social norm and form of Meta narrative the concept of progress is embedded in the cultural rubric of modern society. as a means of opposing and fighting an alternative to these conditions and modality, and specifically the rubric of progress associated with it, my work is focused on two key explorations. Firstly, is focused on the making of an architecture that can reframe our understanding of, and our relationship to the environments, we inhabit and the effects of climate change. and One of the key ambitions, then of my work is to question. propositions such as as what's being presented here, which is a new, more advanced blood barrier that would sit in Tilbury in the temple mastery and words essentially stop and prevent flooding of London and of the Thames gateway so valuable land for development in the. city, you know, in the case of rising sea levels, which we know will happen. My issue with with these kind of technological solutions, if you like, to the effects of climate change is that they. Firstly, require vast amounts of resources to design and build but also then they require vast amounts of energy to run and, secondly, they also. Give us the impression that we are somehow immune to the effects of nature and that we can technologically design ourselves out of the crisis through our progress and innovation. So this kind of hubris, if you like, can also be witnessed in. What is a very you know could be seen as a very positive thing and as a positive thing, which is the ongoing desire for. regulatory bodies and government's involved in in the planning and design the best environment to regulate for the control of our buildings and and and and cities and the internal environments around our cities. Yes, obviously has positive health potentials but it tends to reduce everything to a kind of statistical norm. Where humans become no longer active in the choice of whether they are hot or cold the buildings in a way. dictate that the nature of how they sense and feel within the environments, that they are inhabiting. And also, you have a big move within particularly European bodies to move to automated control systems and control by computers, often by computers that are in different cities to the building's themselves, which makes humans. You know just inactive entities within these environments or so, a lot of the building materials and products that are being used to help seal these environments or create. You know more efficient environmental control systems are a manufacturer to petrochemical materials, which you know, is also perpetuating an existing problem through extract you know notions of extraction and the use of oil as a kind of integral component of our. economy and social life on social being. So as an alternative to these conditions, I started a series of projects that looked at the idea of habits in a. proposed floodplain that would exist in the mouth of the River Thames in the history. Both on the North side and the South side of the River on the South side of the River these products existing in a proposal where I would suggest the removal of the currency war on the South bank. and allow the River display into the historic saltmarsh is it clear, creating an intertidal zone so within this own at well, you would essentially have a situation that would. exist, like this, this is about whole farm and Essex where they've. they've tested situation of breaching the sea water and land the land, the land to flood. And what this is allowed, is essentially a run off an hour of runoff water that the sea can travel into which actually protects areas of land further upstream, so it has a kind of positive. facet to its infrastructure so within my own design, looking at the positioning of the river, within this context, and then the design of both large and small scale architectures that would inhabit this environment, such as. Buildings or shelters made of reeds and also settlement that can be inhabited also their construction of. sediment based infrastructures that would be formed through the installation of sediment nets that would slow the war, the reverse water and allow beaches to form the lines travel across this landscape. And then kind of more absurdist or speculative ideas such as houses that might be blown across the water when it freezes on the ice, particularly, an idea that would be possible if it temperatures become more extreme and also if the. The shallow nature of a lot of the marshland that would occur in that region, and so again, all of these designs would be possible, and would also become habitable or it. would become activated through shifts in the climate, making you more more aware of these processes and actually in 2006 got to construct. One of these ideas, which was the flood house, which was a project I developed with curator just for any and focal point going South end for floating houses speculative idea for a House but also weather station. This structure was moved around the coast of Essex during the summer of 2016 and highlighting the very particular nature of the landscape around the history and the Essex coast. And, in particular, it followed the path of the sea walls that exist they're showing how they essentially divided up the lab. So that's a photo of it. At South ampere. So there's the second critical facet to my work alongside this desire to kind of highlight. The effects of climate change or change the environment is to also challenge the existing rubric, if you like, of of the notion philosophical notion of progress that that's inherent within modality and the modality that that exists in our current society. and, specifically, rather than then all this, this is part of it design architectures that exist in in landscape, though our threat of climate change is also to look at the way that the. architectures are designed and to challenge the notion of of progress within these methodologies and specifically within this i'm i'm trying to critique an increased. body of practitioners and theoreticians within the discipline that are trying to emphasize the use of technology in the design and construction of buildings. This exists within theories around parametric system, which was championed a lot by studied architects and. And utilizes the idea that you can program in the parameters of any building and the include cost materials climate in habitation function and essentially the computer will give you the most optimized form for that particular use. and part of the narrative of this is increasingly that this is the most more efficient way of of of designing architecture and that without this efficiency that architectural remain archaic. and outside of of the kind of neoliberal market economics, that that we exist within, so this is very much about trying to. battle rise architecture within within this the market and the other I suppose type of of discourse around computation and computers that i'm trying to critique is the. The increased relationship or or relationship to to digital manufacturing, the desire to to create a more direct relationship between. The design of buildings and the construction and the idea that you would use robots or drones to construct buildings again buildings that tend to be based upon algorithmic or artificial intelligence or parametric design methods. So against these architectures. i'm trying to propose a an architecture of slowness. And the origin of this idea of slowness has important emerged from the reading of philosopher Brunello tours essay which is titled attempt a composition as manifesto. And then the essay the tour seeks to criticize the actions of the moderns and they fix the fixation on the pursuit of than you. He points at how the climate crisis we are now experiencing was driven by a desperate desire for individuals to progress as specifically for the tour to escape history. The toy, it was modalities intrinsic emphasis on progress and whether the need to move quickly away from current and past conditions. Whether social, political or cultural that increased industrialization that desire for technological advancement. as a way of providing an alternative this condition the tour calls to us to acknowledge the time of time has passed and, instead, he asked us to look around feel and see the world in order to be more aware as we move forward. As part of this inquiry within this presentation, I would like to present my architectures existed slowness and actors forms a critique against society's ongoing reliance on fossil fuels and are increased levels of consumption on them. So just to paraphrase that in the next body of work, I seeking to present the way that the design methodology is that I used within certain of my design projects could be seen. Within themselves as a critique of modern society on one society's reliance on notions of progress. So the next project i'd like to present is the Celt house the House belongs to the same family, if you like, as the other ones are present in the sense that it was a an architecture that was designed for a landscape that would be affected by seasonal flooding or parentheses not flooding. Like the other projects it's it's situated on the mud flats but it's it's concrete and it's it's a seal structure that would be a house for one or two families, principally. As part of its operation in its location, the structure is also designed to enable the collection and disposition of sediment onto its structure. That increases the thermal mass of the building and increases the installation properties of the structure during the winter months, so the settlement forms like a second skin when it is disposed deposited onto the structure. Just some drawings of a model showing what this would what this would look like. So one of my key influences for this particular piece of work was. The work of God architect and poet Raymond Abraham and particularly has 10 houses projects which were which were designed and drawn they exist promoters drawings models and bits of buildings, but apparently drawn and they were they were designed and created between 1970 1973. And what was kind of really important for me within this work or has been very important to me in this work over the last 10 years or so, is the way that. Abraham has tried to find an architecture which allows the natural environment changes form, or is the natural environment comes kind of synthesize within it within the framework or the form of the architecture. was also really critical for the for his work and actually as you'll see later on in the presentation others this period was their critique within the design of this architecture of what they saw as the manipulation and control of. Architecture at that time. With practices that will focus also on an emphasis on technology and technology net technocracy and, specifically, particularly ideas of form follows function, where. The function took precedence over any static or philosophical debate and, in many instances, the function was was a calculable square footage or kind of. engineered socially engineered idea of how we should live. So in the images is one of abraham's 10 houses project, which was the House with curtains which is you know this kind of grid form and that where the facades of the buildings are made of these. blown curtains that would be shifted and moved as the as the wind past, you have the earth cloud house. Where the roof and main structure the building as a mirrored surface that reflects constant constantly reflects the sky and the clouds but then also it's basement is it takes the form of. A cloud in itself. And then house to Hobbs which. is essentially a kind of buried structure in a in a burial mound which is kind of reference back to kind of primeval prime prime a pre history historical type architecture. So, parallel to my interest in Abraham and also asking questions of how it might influence my own work, I was also drawn to the work of Peter eisenman. Who was situated in New York at the same time as Raymond Abraham and was also a colleague of his teaching at the Cooper Union. And both of them were were drawn to this idea of of a critique against this ongoing emphasis on technology and technocracy the dominating architectural discourse at the expense of a philosophical exploration. And, unlike Abraham Isaac and particular. Resistance, if you like, to the dominant forms of architecture as he saw was not necessarily to look at the relationship between architectural nature, but to explore a historical. Historical precedents, particularly architecture from the 1930s that he believed were driven ultimately bias that to come philosophical ambition. So one of the people that he was most influenced by was Giuseppe turnkey, this is a building appears in Lake como who eyes and argues was fundamentally driven by. Decisions around composition around experience. Around the play of light and form. and driven by a kind of philosophical discourses in the that were happening in the early part of the 20th century that iseman felt had been lost. So. As part of his. desire decided to adopt these these these architectures and bring them into a contemporary context, he iseman conducted a PhD in in Cambridge University in 1963 when he moved to England, he then traveled back. from England to us after completing the PhD but during this time, he conducted these kind of forensic analysis of the buildings that he thought were. You know, manifested his his current his desire for architects should be. So, within these drawings that their analysis is of composition of the facades of the different geometries highlighting the different geometries in different ways and basically removing. The physicality of the building into a set of codes or grammar, if you like that, then, would he would then use to develop his buildings over the next 10 to 20 years. So these the drawings of terrain is building in common. So kind of influenced by this notion, I was fascinated by the idea of what what, in what way, could I in the development of the sealed House and my relationship with Abraham and what we could I start to. develop my own grammar from Abraham that then would applying to the design of the silt house and the way that I did this is quite simply follow a similar methodology to item which is kind of construct quite a forensic analysis of his drawings kind of dissecting them into. Specific form or tropes that, in a way we're abstracting the original architecture, but actually we're a process for me to try to understand the components and through. The act of drawing and that the the analysis that was conducting in terms of what to draw why to draw how to separate it from the drawing I was in a way, forming a mental understanding of what these components are and how. In that process of thinking about the set house. Just to say, these were done, you know, during the actions of the draw of the first set of drawings for the for the second house project they're allowing me to think about what I was drawing on why I was doing it. And how it might relate to Abraham so in this these just these for drawings Here we see analysis of of the cloud cloud house and the House of curtains specifically the formal nature of the. cloud house. The nature captivating wind and the curtains and the idea of a kind of burial or structure that semi buried buried in that process. So kind of looking at how these then manifest themselves in my own design work or how this process then took ideas from Abraham into my own project. So you can see, the reference to the kind of formal relationship with the cloud in the earth cloud house kind of manifest itself into the kind of floor plates of the silt house which were reminiscent of the mud flats. of which the building sat on, and also the idea of transfer seeing these undulating floor plates would be the idea is, it would be akin to kind of walking on that the resistance that you were face when walking on the map flat of the history. That kind of buried the notion of the burial mound was was manifested in the idea of the building being covered in sediment. And then the clatter be moving curtains of the House would curtains became the way that the structures position in the history and the way it would control sediment just to say the plan on the right is a simulation I did. Where I put a model of the building into a simulated kind of estero environments with with particulates and seeing what what happens is particulates disturbed by the. By the structure of the. Of the House and how this could be a kind of a barometer, if you like, of flooding and the increased amount of sediment the increased amount of movement would would potentially be indicative of a flood. In the case of the water moving faster and there was more sediment in the water in the same way, the curtains capture wind and the harder they below the more they below the more that is an indication of the movements of the wind. and So it's like opposition to the kind of quite forensic analysis that I made in the cell house in terms of reciprocity between. A past and the present and the kind of slowness that exists in this within this reciprocity my work has always take my work has also taken on board certain practices associated with performance art and particularly notions of reenactment and just to read a couple of. notions of what reenactment means and one of the key theorists on this practice is called Rebecca Schneider and then have book performance remain she states that reenact that the practice of replaying or redoing a president event artwork or an act. As well as being a mechanism that troubles linear temporality by offering at least that suggestion of reoccurrence or return even this practice is peppered with an ongoing completion. And for performance theorist Andre becky as set out in his article, the body as archive will to reenact and the afterlife of dances the process of reenactment stimulates the capacity to identify and a past work non exhaustive creative fields of impossible possibilities. And then probably really most critical to the presentation of my work in this. Talk is the idea again by Schneider that the process of a temple return manifests reenactment should manifest a political purpose for a critical approach to futurity unhinged from capitalist development narratives of time and secular investments in progress, a strictly linear. So. One of the key artists for me. Alongside Abraham and Isaac and and actually working in a contemporary context rather back in the 1960s is is the artist public bronstein and. What interests me them in Pablo or bronstein work for particularly is this idea that. We are now reenactment can exist, it in a drawing or through a process of drawing it's not only a kind of performance, if you like, or have a body moving through space. And what's critical with. Within this work is is the notion is published notion that through the process of drawing you can role play. or reenact historical styles or styles of architects, or even people in power that then allow him to create kind of fantastical visions that our jobs were juxtapositions when you look at them and then the contemporary context, because there are historic what seemingly historical. structures or styles, but they are there to kind of I suppose question our relationship to the places that we all inhabit all of the time, which are in a way, our cities are all constructed or a lot of them are constructed out of out of the times that we, we are living in at the moment. So this is a drawing apollo's for an 18th century palace, I think, based on the mall he did this drawing is, where he was role playing the 1980s architect. Michael graves and then placing it into a 18th century context, and here the designs for. A lighthouse in the style of. forgotten. work at century style. So the way that i've taken forward pueblos ideas is not strictly to look at a consensual post modern architecture, we contextualize but to think about process as a way for me to draw out. A particular idea that was intrinsic in in projects like the steel house that may not necessarily be seen as explicit or be able to be read as explicit without me writing about it. So the process of reenactment becomes the kind of parallel discourse on the work and I reevaluation of the work that has happened after the main design that allows me to draw out ideas that were part of that process, but not necessarily easily read. In the final drawings and models of the project so within silk house this existed as redrawing the project as though we're part of as an historical work by the architect Bernard Schumi called the Manhattan transcripts which was conducted during the early 70s and and. was primarily a exhibited and then produce the book at the architecture for the architectural association at the time, and one of the core ideas of Manhattan transcripts is the idea that. Through event and. She me. allows us to engage with this through the construction fictional events that he. He foresaw see imagined for New York and then he drew these events as kind of choreographed incidences with with bodies moving through space. He then also drew these choreographed instances, and these bodies moving through space as kind of architectural elements such as walls and he quotes. A performance by listening to Charles, who was a key choreographer and dancer in the 1960s and 70s in New York and high performance in a production of Einstein on the beach by Philip glass and. Robert Wilson. where she runs backwards and forwards for 10 minutes and in running backwards and forwards for 10 minutes he saw in this performance that she was not only a body moving through space, which also a piece of architecture and that this is what led him to the Manhattan transcripts so in. My. something's happened other so in my drawings of cell towers I one of the. key ideas I wanted to draw out was this idea that actually the bodies moving through the building. And the movement of sediment in the landscape, where we're kind of choreographed performance that the building was was forcing both particulates and people to engage with. So, by drawing as part of Manhattan transcripts you start to see people moving across these undulating surfaces of the building and then also in these these segments, the idea of the sediments slowly building up as a kind of solid entity or an architectural entity in and of themselves. Okay, just to finish off i'm going to talk about. Another project of mine, which is. Looking at. A the architectural practice, the radical architecture practice super studio. who were working in Florence in the 1960s 1970s and they were speculative architectural practice very similar to Abraham, if you like, but their ambitions were much wider, if you like, in the sense that they will were. Proposing a massive one of the famous products they were doing which the continuous monument they're proposing enormous infrastructure that we didn't circle, the globe. And that they were that everything was emerged from this kind of gritted structure, whether it's furniture or other forms. of structures and they were they were really like I mean similar to Abraham and Isaac and they were seeking to critique or satori allies, the ongoing obsession within modality of technology and technocracy. By taking it to the furthest extreme possible so there's obviously a kind of resonance within what they were doing in their work and what i'm. The interest that I have in a contemporary context so i'm interested in referring back to this period to try to draw something from that into this contemporary context. So the way that I did this in in slight opposition to the to the other forms of of synthesis with history that that I presented was to actually start to adapt or or inhabit and use. One of their drawings, which is a drawing of the Missouri furniture series that they conducted in the late 60s, which is a proposal for a body of work body of furniture really that was that was representative of their larger ambitions within the continuous monument. So the action I did is, I took the drawing and I dragged it across the surface of a photocopier and distorted it. became kind of you know unrelated forms and the grid gets completely distorted. So these two versions of this drawing and then this is probably the one that was the most successful where I slipped the droid back you know kind of wave motion across the surface of the scanner. And from this I then started to cut out or isolate certain elements that I could potentially see functioning as architectural components and. The other thing that this process enabled me to think about the action as a kind of sampling, you know that you might get within music, where you you you take a moment and a song was a moment in a beat which retains the essence of the original and and, in many ways the kind of. intent or interest or aesthetic importance, but it becomes reconfigured into a different context, but retaining the initial. The initial beauty, if you like, within that that moment of music and the same was same feeling for me was in this process of of taking out these. stretching or changing the original drawing and taking names out. And so from that press I started to put it into certain architectural viewpoints in terms of an excellent metrical isometric to start to see it potentially as an architectural surface and then from there, I was interested in that becoming almost directly or literally a structure and. The architecture, I proposed was for this platform to exist as a monument to soup studio and that would exist beneath the city of Lawrence. Another process and to end up with this drawing and ends distortion was to photocopy at 56 times. And to in in the process of photocopying to slowly erase the drawing or to remove its complexity, to you know take it back to an essence, there is a resonance this link, also within eyes women's. ambitions to to to pull to Randy back to a kind of essence, you know that he was doing within his drawing plans close doing it and kind of mechanical way, if you like, or photographic way. So, particularly with the later ones, I think that the the drawing on on on my right there that's on your left the most faded one identical portion of that and starts to project up lines. or points to kind of start to inform some sort of architectural intervention. And what that did those points was actually informed the roof structure of the monument to Soups to do slightly different design a later design that shown earlier with this is around vessel that it contains in any way these points became these dots that you can see, which were. proposed as holes in the flagstones and concrete of the Florence above the city above the allow water to collect and drip through and as it drip through draw the salts and the. Different calcium within the concrete and the stone to form what's called calc termites which are kind of essentially. fast growing concrete base static whites and when you're in the monuments, has to do with look up and see in this weird dotted grid or not great, the remnants of the distorted drawing you see these points. referencing that and then also you would have a series of drawn on the bottom part of this drawing you would have series of evidence that would poke at the bottom. Of the structure of the surface, that would blow kind of gentle as as he walked over the surface of the. monument to suit studio you would get these this sense landscape, where you will inhabit these points that were then taken from the this sort of drawing and that's probably Clara in there, so these are the events and those are the. The the points to collect the color mites. So just in conclusion. Building on Bruno latour us call for us to stop fixating on notions of progress and the end the time of time. I suggest that self house and monuments and super super studio presenters with models of architectures of slowness. Within this presentation I have shown this with reference to the methodologies of design I employed in these projects that have sought to mine and reenact to start architectural works into the later works. Within this specific slowness and the use of history, but cell towers and monument is to stay here at the provocation and resistance certain architectural practices and discourses that seek to promote. A continuing emphasis on the use of computation and then utilization of forms of digital manufacturer in the design and construction of architecture. These processes, see to continue to enhance efficiency in the service of capital and the expensive unnatural environment. Instead salthouse a monument to super studio ask us to reflect and to move slowly questioning the didactic separation between what is considered, past and present, and the idea that time must always follow a linear path forward, thank you.
Nicole Brown:Thank you very much Matthew this was great this is really you know, the thing is is really, really exciting to hear somebody talk. About you know things that we've obviously not been part of, and because it's not our discipline but actually. There are so many connecting points with you know philosophically and method or logically and theoretically that it kind of is weird to think that you know we are coming from different disciplines, because actually. Those that we do that you've described. them there's a common in the chat box which i'm reading out of their system that is fascinating and the philosophy is very, very, very relevant to me thanks, so much so it's exactly that kind of thing that that the connecting points, if you don't mind i'd like to ask you a couple of questions. So when we when you're talking about the silt house project and the super studio project. And they are obviously methodological you're approaching them slightly differently in this reenactment process of redrawing and i'm using the photocopier to redraw and reenact in that way. What what, how do you account for what you bring to it, I mean this is so, for this academic year and when we're talking about practices research within our network. We were like kind of trying to find out how we do reflexivity and what kind of position ality we are taking so i'm interested in how do you account for the different approaches. In these two contexts, you know what, why is it that one us you you're very closely remaining really close to to to the original by redrawing it. Whereas the second one is almost creating your own piece of art and so, how do you account for that difference, and the answer is not going to be easy, but it's that kind of thing that we're trying to sort of pull out extrapolate this academic year.
Matthew Butcher:yeah I think it's I think it's very interesting question is probably I wasn't able I when I started to write this presentation, a couple of days ago I was, I was do I. Do I bring that shift the reason for that shifting to the fore and there wasn't really the time and I felt that it was a distraction, to the argument, but I mean it. it's a very important question, I think the stilt house was created. I mean it was you know, nearly six years ago and a monument studio was two years ago, three years ago, so there's quite big time difference between the two. And within that time frame, I actually edited an issue of architectural design called reimagining the avant garde which was looking at the process of. have less of how you adapt historical precedents into a contemporary context and actually trying to get to understand the trend that I was seeing you know in. 2016 2017 and certainly when I you know after I had worked on the sale house and actually what was quite interesting as I was in engaging in quite a lot of conversations about the idea of. How do you repeat without repeating. Yes, no and. And particular concerns for on a theorist and journalists called memory saiga writer who, who was just very genuinely concerned that, if we continue to repeat forms or shapes or ideas. without intervening in a more direct way, but they become you know the becoming us in a way, how much we protest in that and. I mean she's very kind about my own work, in the sense, she doesn't she you know she has talked about it and and she feels that there is a criticality in my process. But I still wanted to do a piece that was responding to that in a way, and monument to studio was a kind of wasn't attempt to do that the idea of how you intervene into a history, how you still create a reflective process on history. without necessarily. having to repeat tropes if you know what I mean and and and that was really where that kind of work emerged from and I have written a bit about that direct. relationship and also, I was quite interested in, I mean again I didn't talk about this, but I was quite interested in the kind of iconoclasm of monumental steps to do that, in the same way that you are. engaging with that work you're also destroying it, and what that means to destroy something you love and. You know there's something quite person about that, but see that also as a creative process, you know and actually seeing the positivity of trying, you know the the didactic nature of redoing something but also destroying it at the same time, and that was quite important.
Nicole Brown:I think it's quite interesting really that if you if you listen very carefully to what you're saying there are you know a number of technicians. Here, like you say you know, in the creation, you destroying but actually the destruction is not something negative, but at the same time, you were saying that on the one hand, you know. we're looking at well there is this critique here about progress. And yet on the other hand, we're saying we can't keep repeating the same thing, so there is this again this tension between well progress is problematic, but we do need it to some extent so it's that it's that kind of element there that that's really interesting in your book.
Matthew Butcher:yeah I mean it was it that was. This a helicopter. or plane. yeah I mean I am interested in contradictions in in work, you know, in a way it's that they're about asking questions as much as providing solutions, so I wasn't. yeah I mean it also you, you have time to reflect, when you're doing something sometimes things that you act on something. You know, initially or respond to a particular comment or particular concern, and then the word the meaning of the word changes as you think about it more or it's all you talk about it more and certainly when monuments to you I think my thoughts about it, have changed. Its meaning and. it's interesting progress with that work, first of all it's a monument to something so it's it's it's ultimately it's it's resisting is trying to you know state that we have to memorialize the past, while also destroying at the same time. So it's it's it's a it's a weird one that one I quite like it's kind of stuck in itself. but can you say to the problem of of returning to.
Nicole Brown:Right yes.
Matthew Butcher:Writing historical loops so.
Nicole Brown:When you saying that um you quite like contradictions, is that you know that practice as research is that a contradiction to you as well that you know the. In terms of like the doing and the drawing, for example, to to actually be your research process and a reflective process always that is that something that that's natural for you.
Matthew Butcher:and i've always sort of historic relationship with history when I probably been designing so before I was an academic before I was involved in teaching and I was always trying to evaluate my work at even as a student within certain precedence as a way of validation and criticality. And that's what I want that's what I see at the essence of a kind of design research process. That it's that it's a it provides a space to. To evaluate into question what you're doing with in relationship to existing contacts contacts and through that process to allow the work together, meaning. The kind of concrete ization of that is harder because written language, I would argue, is it's hard to. allow there to be ambiguity and contradiction in the same way that that you can in a visual medium, I mean maybe i'm wrong, maybe i'm not as skilled writer son. But I find it very difficult for them not to be the construction of an argument and an illogical argument. In a way, gives less room, although this is a very important part of the process again less room than something like a drawing which. which can provoke feelings or anxieties or intrigue things that are less tangible and and and don't require necessary that the logics of language when they have their own logics that they need to. respond to they they need to work in a way that's very difficult to quantify what that means, and that tends to be you know around us a drawing me to respond to certain criteria and objects. You know that allows it to be legitimized and maybe that's The next thing to it.
Nicole Brown:Thank you, I mean, to be honest in in many ways, what you're saying just now is actually aligning with what money because, as I tell you said in in her talk in the seminar from two months ago from me. And she is using drawing as part of her sociological. Research so she uses drawing to understand how it's drawing off fashion pieces and clothes, in order to understand people's identity work. And and she's saying exactly the same thing that actually yeah the engagement with with those processes through the the colors making and the drawing. It allows for several layers to happen, whereas if you're writing about it there's only one layer and that's that's that layering that's then missing is the part that makes it so difficult to to express what we are actually doing when when we're doing practice as research. Well, thank you very much Matthew I really, really appreciate you having been here it's been great to have you.
Matthew Butcher:Thank you very much.
Nicole Brown:it's it's it's really exciting to to yeah to hear your work and i'm going to share my screen very, very quick quickly just to highlight. The practices research network and YouTube Channel and the bus bro Channel and the podcast and the website and also. Obviously, there is an opportunity to sign up to the newsletters and to contact me via my work email there on the on the slide as well, and we are taking a break for the summer holidays, but we'll be back in the autumn with. A new academic year and, on that new academic year we're going to be focusing on a practice as research and anything that has to do with ethical considerations. In all of the disciplinary context of practices research so again Matthew, thank you very, very much for having been here and and we hope to see you, and everyone again when when it comes to the autumn term.
Matthew Butcher:Thank you very much thank you, Nicole.