The Vibrant Time Manifesto
The Vibrant Time Manifesto is an ever changing philosophy. Anyone can take part in the reorganization of words and meanings by sending a request to trfcftrom@gmail.com
*Web of interrelated definitions
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Content:
Introduction
Real time, constructed time, vibrant time
The spectrum between realities and dreams
Material powderization
Nostalgic Matter
Future multiplicities and retroactivity
The Seed of Concepts
Processes tools and material
The web of interrelated material
Pollution in time
A Potent memory
Ambition
The transfigure of matter
Introduction
The Radical Futures Club For The Reorganization Of Matter is an organization dealing with the future layers of the material world. We experience matter as a part of what we are and what surrounds us - our lungs, a wall, a forest, a cloud. As bodies we are organizations of material relating and acting on other material. Our shapes are temporary and constantly being reorganized. With time matter travels through networks of buildings, food, plants, people, animals and machines in eternal cycles.
When we act with the material world we often plan while things happen unpredictably. In constructing a building, we first imagine its potential future. The constructed future is immaterial, and exists differently within imaginations. The present is the touchable time and what happens, as it happens, occurs in matter.
Through material reorganization we affect rhythms and processes in and around material. Our reorganized material acts through time--becoming cultural heritage sites, pollution, food for termites--sometimes retaining its shape for a long time, sometimes dissolving but always changing in a complex way unique to its time and place.
To act with matter in the present, in its complex relationships, in its environment, do we need a radical approach to planning? Is there a way of preserving multiplicity and allowing non linear incidents and relations? Instead of planning the future through the study of past events, we entangle ourselves in on-going material processes-- focusing on what material does and how it interacts, without denying the existence of its multiple constructed pasts and futures.
In the discussion of the coevel multiplicity, the radical contemporaneity and the constitutive complexity of human and non-human material, we seek interdisciplinarity in order to imagine radical futures. In spring 2020 we arranged our first annual event- The Conference. Our ambition is to keep The Radical Futures Club vibrating into continuous future figurations and discussions.
Real time, constructed time, vibrant time
Material acts and changes through its relationships. Organizing material into a building sets up a stage for materials to act on each other through time. Buildings are first “plans” for the future, built in constructed time. Our built environment is therefore made of future plans from the past, acting unpredictably on each other in real time. Constructions of the future shape the present so we identify the future as a retroactive force.
Vibrant time relates to the material world in radiant complexity, focusing on what material does and how it interacts, without denying the existence of its multiple constructed pasts and futures.
Real Time A clay brick is sitting on top of another.
Constructed Time
A drawing of a clay brick house with a pithed roof is drawn to allow snow to fall off the roof in winter time.
A drawing of a clay brick house with a pithed roof is drawn to allow snow to fall off the roof in winter time.
Vibrant Time
A clay brick is put on top of another. It is cracked. Winter comes and the crack explodes bigger as moist freezes and expands. In spring the hole becomes a nesting place for a small bird family.
Simultaniously:
A clay brick is put on top of another. A man askes if he can borrow some for a temporary project down town for a couple of days. It looks interesting and it becomes an addition to the house.
Simultaniously :
A clay brick is put on top of another. It is cracked. Winter comes and the crack explodes bigger as moist freezes and expands. In spring the hole becomes a nesting place for a small bird family.
Simultaniously:
A clay brick is put on top of another. A man askes if he can borrow some for a temporary project down town for a couple of days. It looks interesting and it becomes an addition to the house.
Simultaniously :
Motion is change and Its when time and matter move in multiple directions it is capable of transforming radically. In this way material futures can align and be examined in divergence to each other. This scale of lines are endless and there are no outer limits where materials oppose with no relation. There are no escalated extremes in which defines the borders of their possible futures.
Vibrant time is radical and not linear. In vibrant time what appears as a stream of material futures is, with a slowing down of time, flickering futures vibrating beyond linear time. Like the flickering of light when it's in slow pace- it is not a constant flow but a continuous rhythm where time is reincarnated. Our bodies of material goes to rest in rhythms too- we sleep and dream and our eyes flicker. The body is slightly moving while time transmigrate us from one site of existence to another.
Extra notes:
Deconstruction of time: a dream (the powdering, powders)
Reorganizing time (cooking/alchemy)
Reincarnation of time (plurality of futures in eternal reincarnation)
To sleep: trust and love, sleep as resistance
To Dream: escape time, reality, reincarnate
Dreams are sustainable
Play, invisible toys
The spectrum between realities and dreams
Real Time has no goal. Dreaming, imgening, fantasy, magic?
Sustainable dreams, invisable toys
Paper architects
Witchcraft
Material powderization
What we experience as forms in which materials are molded into is only a “diffuse image”. In the fundamental grammar of the things, pieces of matter are scattered and there is no distinction between past, present and future. In these timeless and spaceless processes, the multiplicity of incidents and relations is what make up the essential “building blocks” of the world.
To powderize material is to look into the Internal space of the material, considering most possible particles of its compound. As the shape dissolves, the materials can be examined on equal ground. By mobilizing immobilized material, a pulverized energy is released. By contemplating a plurality of stories embedded in the material organizations and letting microscopic actions take place we can accomodate a wider spectrum of potential futures.
Extra notes:
Nostalgic Matter
Objects as well as bodies deprive material of its particular histories and can create a limited construction of the future. Looking into the single narrative of an entity can exclude its material abilities. Is constructing for the future by using only preorganized material to exclude potential futures? What is a truly radical future of material?
Focusing on what a material is and has been, is somehow to betray its future. But the becoming is a result of a condition, and conditions are accumulated by histories. To predict futures upon the study of past events can offer change but not of a genuinely radical character. In order to affect or relate to the fundamental nature of the material, the yearning for its former configuration has to be put aside, and a dissolvement or particularization of shape needs to occur. The crushing is a force of revolution where the renewal of the material, as it is brought back to its noncommittal shape, holds the potential of radical transformation.
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Future multiplicities and retroactivity
Every microscopic location has its own time, and so every particle encompasses its specific reality. As incidents happen as they are happening they are fundamentally impossible to predict. Yet they float through every particular reality and are being shaped by them. The continuation of these infinite quantities of times entail a multiplicity of perspectives which holds a realm of possible futures. But their position is not static and in their journey towards the future they affect each other. In an interrelated web they bind, intervene, they shatter, negotiate and mingle in a constant material fluxus.
Architecture is to its core a retroactive act. In order to build we plan. Through imagination, ideas and concepts sketches become physical manifestations. Further, the sketches develop into drawn plans and models indicating future material combinations. There are intentions, goals, aims, purposes, desires, hopes and potential meanings stretching far into the future before any project is accomplished and built. The past and present is in possession of the future with its retroactive force. Once ideas and concepts are withdrawn one by one the force is deliberately extracted in a process where decisions, choices and eliminations become crucial. The extraction has embryonic power. But at the same time as it has the potential of affecting endless future generations, the same Essence can imaginably be diluted of desolate ideas*.
The dilution of ideas and concepts within an architectural process can possibly eliminate the plurality of futures. These ideas and concepts are the future material combinations we build our environment upon. They also form the groundwork of The Constructed Time as they build up an imagination of future figurations. In a world where incidents and relationships of multiple microscopic material synthesis are what forms the fundamental “building blocks”, they should be considered from the very beginning of the architectural creation. By understanding the coeval multiplicities, the radical contemporaneity and constitutive complexity of human and non-human material its internal space will open up.
*Globalisation force; excluding a plurality of ideas for one singular idea. (money as example being the singular value marker in the transformation of ideas to structures) A homogeneous material transfiguration - the product.
Extra notes:
The Seed of Concepts
When a seed of concepts is born into the world it is precious and ultra potent. In order to grow and flourish it needs to be fed and nurtured. Through a non-linear recipe the concepts will have the ability to change beyond time. Like a handwritten book of recipes, Ingredients and directions can be added and changed, but the lines of erased descriptions will still remain and be embedded in the paper while new layers are being added. The non-linear recipe is a formula open to any suggesting actant. (It is not restricted to actants who are able to write recipes. The recipe is open to any media.)
Once the seed is being fed by an actant an ultra energetic “love hormone” is activated in the nurturing actant. The chemical process holds the potential of provoking a feeling in the actant of “wanting-to-give-more” because of the great pleasure it gives. The nurturing instinct is charged with a nerve essential for responsive and sensitive caregiving. The nerve is a chemical process that can float through any internal space of human or non-human material. The nurturing is crucial for the seed of concepts as it inhibits the rejection of its offspring. But though it seems to be governed by an automatic process, the nurturing consists of active choices and a willingness to embrace the plurality of ideas through a non-linear process. Rejection, discard and denial is the ultimate antagonist to the extraction process of a seed of concepts.
*The seeds of Concepts are to be found within the internal space of every material and is a sort of unit of reproduction because of its ability to develop into new formations.
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Processes tools and material
Processes are energetic actions on material. Processes, tools, and materials are constantly changing and affecting each other in cycles. A material is processed, using energy, becomes a new material, is processed again. Gravity, the sun, human labour, electricity are all energy that can change material.
Sometimes slowly and constantly, sometimes dramatically and suddenly. Always all material is in the process of becoming. Our interventions can be understood as reorganizations of time in the speeding up or slowing down of material change.
Example: a relationship between two processes:
P r o c e s s
Organization---process---reorganization----process---reorganization----process---reorganization
|____________________|
Scale: 100 years
One imagination of a radical future of material is to create the beginning of a new process. Or a reorganization of processes. Recombination of processes like cooking/ building/ science/ activism, could that lead somewhere? Integrating construction with wind, sun, tides, movements of animals, growth of fungus?
The development of the process of production of material, like material itself, can grow more and more complex, with the invention of tools and the use of more complex “ingredients.”
Our brains are also material and use energy. Our thoughts in the design process are intertwined with the material world. Sometimes we are seeking material to realize a fantasy, sometimes fantasies are dictated or inspired by material. How we act and how we think is interwoven with the eternal cycles of the changing material world around us. Imagining a reorganization of hierarchies of value that interrelates material, action, thought, and surroundings. How do you act, how does the action affect you, how does it affect the world, in constant change.
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The web of interrelated material
Space and scale. All material is related - some are very close in space (“glued material” - solids, minerals of a stone, oils and chemicals in plastic..) others are scattered but still in close relation (the moon and the ocean, gravity and tides).
Through high speed processes an abundance of material intervene and become complex compounds of intricate compositions. This includes our layers of skins - cities, buildings, clothes and human skin.
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Pollution in time
Some materials on Earth retain their structure for a very long time. Some exist naturally, some were created with that purpose (like plastic), others like nuclear waste are unwanted or unplanned byproducts of processes created to achieve something else. The introduction of materials with long lives by humans causes a problem of pollution. In the ocean, the slow breakdown of plastics for example into microplastics is a problem of the growing complexity of a blend (mixture) that becomes harder to separate. Material waste is material reorganized by humans that has outlived its imagined use and no longer serve any practical purpose for us or other living beings. Recycling and reuse are ways to try to accommodate the problem of material waste. In the material world a lot of the materials produced for building are becoming increasingly more complex. As different materials get affected by their environments in particular ways, time works differently on each of them depending on its situation. The more different materials blend, and the more complex their composition becomes, the more complex their relationship to time is. This makes it harder for us to understand and take use of them in our daily lives. Engineered wood is both glue and wood. These two materials act with time in different ways. A wall section of a house could contain a complex deformation of time: wood, fibreglass, plastic, etc. Materials with diverging aspects of time have the potential to become pollution as parts outlive their use in different rhythms, making the whole unusable but a part refusing to decompose. What do we do with these stubborn and seemingly useless components when they outlive their previous configurations?
Extra notes:
Individual relationship to materials - understanding which components it has and how to relate to it/use it. (the relationship between how materials change - time - and how we can affect it)
A potent memory
Temporary architecture accommodates the quality of being a space for experimentation. As a dynamic marker of place and time it generates permanence and cultural meaning despite its short existence as a physical object. Molding a moment in time through the construction process, a structure meant to disappear can foster both a potent memory of something in the past through its intense presence and imagination and fantasy of potential futures.
Temporary structures have been used historically to test radical ideas. In ancient Rome structures were made to occupy public space as a form of revolution against established ideals. The constructions were made with intended life spans of only a few weeks and were used to stage plays and important community festivals. The installations were often of an unconventional and extravagant character and were therefore seen as too forward-thinking and progressive to be built as permanent structures. Through the last decades the pavilion has been one example of ephemeral architecture where architects have been largely free to experiment without concerns about functional constraints, building regulation and the burden of longevity.
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Ambition
A radical future of matter requires high ambition. To be ambitious is to look forward. You act now on how you envision a different future. Ambition therefore lets you work retroactively as it is producing actions changing the futures now. The most ambitious act is to aim at making everything infinitely better for everyone forever with nothing. If matter acts, can you be ambitious towards matter? Or is ambition only aiming at the living? (is there a difference?) Could you say that a plastic is more ambitious than a rock because of our aim for it to last forever? Ambition today in the material world is often aiming at how you can make everything stronger for everyone forever. The stronger something is and the longer something lasts, the better it is. The aim is to eliminate change.
Ambition in vibrant time works differently. The scale can be turned, as you allow for the world to act together with you, the goal and process can change and therefore also the ambition. The process in vibrant time start with the self, an interest (seed) within you. And as you allow the world to start acting with you, the project grows and can potentially exponentially increase in ambition.
Extra notes:
Is ambition energy? Or does it require energy? It requires a surplus of energy to have the power to transform and make it possible to cause change.
What does it mean to be ambitious?
Which factors influence our ambition?
When being truly radical you change the fundamental nature or root of something.
The most ambitious scale moves from the universe to the internal space of an atom.
It seems to be about a strong desire and a willingness to give a lot of effort, use a lot of energy.
Why does our ambition usually decrease in the course of a project?
Usually we start off with high ambitions and as the project develops the ambition lowers due to external forces pulling the project in different directions. “Its important to imagine a castle when starting an architectural project, then you might get a decent house when your finished”
Making things better and having fun is very related. Does enjoyment in the present conjure a picture of a radically different future?
Being ambitious together or alone - what is the difference ?
The uselessness of a single speck of powder - individualism
We can’t make a building out of a single speck of powder, you can not change the world alone.
Ambition and failure.
The transfigure of matter
Opportunistic, inhabits the past presence and future.
The figure is very much a part of the material world but can seem otherworldly to others as it likes to operate on the border of reality.
It is able to grasp all worldly material with its body. Transforming it into new material realities that opens up for new possible futures.
As its surroundings is mostly sand, it is a blend of all matter finely grinded down to specs of itself. Together they form a new mass that keeps reshaping. The mass is finely tuned to its environment, responding to its different actions - like the transfigure of matter.
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