Debate on the papers of Session 1 89
dealing with ideas and with theoretical tools. But I think that there is no kind of inno-
cent practice that steps outside of some kind of theoretical framework. In other words,
I think the possibility lies in using Deleuze in terms of questioning the thinking behind
the making, and that is the level on which I am saying that. There are always comparisons
that can be made. One thing I find interesting is that when you talk to an engineer like
Cecil Baulman, he uses terms like connectivity and non-linearity that sound straight out
of Deleuze. I once asked Cecil Balmond if he had read Deleuze, and he said, “Actually
someone gave me a copy of the Thousand Plateaus, and I read the first five pages and
then put it down because I wanted to think it out for myself”. But I think, ultimately,
that the point De Landa makes is that engineers like Cecil Balmond are a kind of material
philosophers; and I think that is the interesting step that has been made, opening up
to the possibility of understanding materials in a different way, theorising them in an
important way, and realising that one cannot just conflate the world of Deleuze with the
world of Baulman or indeed the world of digital processes, but that one has somehow to
engage with this new domain with a new theoretical framework; and that is what Deleuze
opens to us: the possibility of a kind of critical enquiry, of looking at technology and
materiality in a different way. Ten years ago, nobody theorised this world. People spoke
of history and theory, and they were looking back at the past. Now, the possibility of
looking at technology and materialism and theorising it is, I think, an important step
forward. And I think that is the kind of opening Deleuze makes for architecture through
other people; and that, in my opinion, is a very healthy development.
Sean Hanna, London, United Kingdom
Does anyone else from the Graz team want to answer the question?
Urs Hirschberg, Graz, Austria
No, we agree.
Darren Dean, Kingston, United Kingdom
I think Bachelard called it the material imagination, to throw another piece of philoso-
phy in as well. It is kind of how when you are working implicitly, when you are doing
things, there can still be a rigour but it may not necessarily be explicit; and then when
you do read the philosophy and a bit of critique you reflect on what you are doing – but
these are not necessarily the same things, so, yes, I agree as well.
Sean Hanna, London, United Kingdom
One possible extension to where we are going. We have talked a lot about process and I
think mainly a lot of the discussion has been in terms of experience and in terms of input
from a technological point of view, certainly with regard to motion capture and things
like that. I am wondering if there is a bit of polarity on the table, from slowness and mass
at one end, with Darren Dean and Eleanor Suess, to quick virtuality at the other end,
with the Graz team. And I just wonder if a difference that one might follow is the next
step, the output, the actual making of things, which is also of course a process that is
very specific in making physical objects, in making architecture, if there is a difference
in opinion of how the various strategies would be extended into that.