a complex network of rhizomes
Image courtesy: Boney K
Book: A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Author: Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
Chapter: I- Rhizome
Rhizome: A horizontal, underground plant stem capable of producing the shoot and root systems of a new plant. (source: www.britannica.com) Read More
Image: The Matrix Wallaper
Extract from: http://www.dan-dare.org
From the text of Manuel de Landa
Deleuze and The Genesis of Form
The essay we studied is an interpretation of Manuel de Landa (writer and artist) on the writings of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze about the genesis of form.
According to De Landa, a constant in the history of Western philosophy, conceives matter as an inert element forms that come from the outside and not from the inside leaving aside the capabilities of the same shape and reducing the variability and the richness expression of matter at a gross concept of mass, in which only simple systems are studied in the same.
However, the author emphasizes the contrasting Gilles Deleuze’s work about Spinoza, in which a new possibility is discovered; resources or components involved in the genesis of the form (all elements) are forcefull for the generation of matter itself, defining the states in which matter is created from the inside out (not from outside) as imminent, ruling the collective behavior of the components and resulting in a geometric shape with divergent capabilities.
Likewise, Deleuze coined the term “divergent actualization” of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, distinguishing between “possible” and “real”, translating this to a network of forms or elements that together acquire a physical reality, I mean, an actualization that may differ from your starting point and ending point, depending on the differentiation of the same, creating a variation of different physical samples and always generating a genuine shape.
De Landa simplifies the complex Deleuzian’s thought coming from the Bergson’s theory, as follows: for Deleuze the “Noumena” (An existing world itself free of any human activity) is a part of the autonomous existence of real forms, which exists in synchrony with the virtual forms, making it is clear that the difference is not only diversity but also the difference is that by which the given is given, I mean, everything that happens (virtual and real) and all that appears is correlated with orders of differences: differences of level, temperature, intensity etc.
Therefore, Deleuze emphasizes the role of virtual singularities can only be captured during the genesis of form, before the final form one is updated and before the difference appears.
To clarify the above, the author points out the latest work of Deleuze, in which mention two very important types of structures “strata” and “self-consistent aggregates”, him refers to the strata as emergent elements through joining homogenous elements, while self-consistent aggregates emerging from the joint of heterogeneous elements. In both processes it is shown divergent actualizations of both the real and virtual form.
To end and completely clarify this text, I would like to define in a more austere way the above concepts. There are virtual diagrams that are possible through realities in the genesis of form. I mean, real processes such as the formation of a rock through layers or strata tends to settle through a “virtual” process to reach its final form, as well a society with different social “layers-strata” or actual roles, virtually settles in a variety of ranges or classification through a theological and legal codification. These virtual schemes or actualizations of shape merge the heterogeneous elements through an interposer agent forming new homogeneous networks and new possibilities.
Therefore, we can say that behind everything and every form is a virtuality or a process of strata and sedimentation forming a final shape through actualization and differentiation. As a personal topic, I would like to delve a little more to the last question posed by De Landa in his essay, “What is a novel or a painting or a piece of music” in this world?, As seen from the point of view of author, I understand the magnitude of the questions and new doubts as arise; Should be art a divergent actualization for society? Is the art and science two heterogeneous elements that should settle into a homogeneous one? Should be the art a real virtuality instead of a virtual reality? How could we reconceptualize the history through art and science?
The text from the book EMERGE from STEVEN JOHNSON makes me thinking about one simple question: what is an organism and what are its parts, and whether they can be viewed and studied in the same way as the organism itself?
In biology an organism is any contiguous living system (such as animal, fungus, micro-organism, or plant). In at least some form, all types of organisms are capable of responding to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may be either unicellular (a single cell) or, as in the case of humans, comprise many trillions of cells grouped into specialized tissues and organs. The term multicellular (many cells) describes any organism made up of more than one cell. But the principles that its using when functioning and performing tasks remain the same. So if we change the scale and observe a bacterial growth or an ant colony or a bird flocking, or on the end even a city in the same way, what will be our conclusion? Because the main idea of the Steven Johnson text was that the ant colony was always studied at the wrong scale.
Observing behavior of ants in an ant colony leads us to a conclusion that they are using swarm logics or a swarm intelligence, as the invisible force that makes it work perfectly without them even knowing about it. Swarm intelligence is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. systems consist typically of a population of simple agents interacting locally with one another and with their environment. The agents follow very simple rules, and although there is no centralized control structure dictating how individual agents should behave, local, and to a certain degree random, interactions between such agents lead to the emergence of “intelligent” global behavior, unknown to the individual agents. The definition of swarm intelligence is still not quite clear but in principle, it should be a multi-agent system that has self-organized behavior that shows some intelligent behavior.
On the other hand if we observe the city in the same way but just on a different scale- the city can be defined as an multicellular organism as well. The scale changes but the processes are staying very similar, just more complex, or not? Cities generally have complex systems for sanitation, utilities, land usage, housing, and transportation. The concentration of development greatly facilitates interaction between people and businesses, benefiting both parties in the process. A big city or metropolis usually has associated suburbs and exurbs. We live our lives occupied with our everyday problems, we always rush somewhere. But are we aware of the fact that there are so many things that we don’t know about the world surrounding us? Are we aware that a whole set of interactive systems are making greater decisions for us? Decisions that affect our lives? Seams that the difference is only in scale?
On the other side, the cell cannot continue to exist without other surrounding cells in a human body as a city can’t survive without singular groups of human beings performing different tasks. Then we are coming to a conclusion that we have individual cell that as one cell doesn’t make a difference but – when in group with other cells makes organs that further on form an organism (human body), and then we have an single human- when in group with other people (and their specific type of behavior) we have a new, larger scale organism- a city. Processes that are taking place in this network make us forget about the scale and the only thing that becomes important are the numerous interactive processes that are making the entire system working in a specific way which is not specified anywhere.
Studding and viewing all this relationships and interactions on different scales, we as architects are coming to a final question, is our job only to learn how to listen and recognize that even the smallest inputs could be very significant when making decisions on bigger scale? Should they shape even the decisions that we are making on a bigger scale -when designing bigger systems? My answer- DEFINITELY!
Title: “The Rhizome / A Thousand Plateaus”
Author: Gilles Deleuze / Felix Guattari, 1980.
Photo from Faire Rhizome
Deleuze and Guattari introduce the concept of the rhizome as a metaphor for understanding politics, social life, literature, history, and sexuality. A rhizome is “a rootlike subterranean stem, commonly horizontal in position, that usually produces roots below and sends up shoots progressively from the upper surface” (from Dictionary.com, accessed March 16, 2011, based on the Random House Dictionary, Random House 2011). The rhizome “connects any point to any other point” and has “neither beginning nor end, but always a middle from which it grows and which it overspills”. The rhizome morphs, changing in “dimension” and “necessarily… in nature as well.
This is contrasted an “arborial” or tree metaphor which is much more like a hierarchy (roots to trunk to branches to leaves). It is hard to get away from thinking in this more tree-like way, but the rhizome concept forces you to start from the middle, rather than from the bottom or top, and to think in terms of “plateaus” rather than beginnings or endings. The rhizome is made of lines or “lineaments”, but these are not the orderly reporting lines in a “structure” (or hierarchy). As a “plateau is always in the middle, not at the beginning or the end,” a rhizome consists of plateaus. This is a confusing shift of metaphor—to understand this best, do not picture an actual plateau of land but rather the concept of something short of a summit or climax but still other than a beginning or base. The main metaphor is still the rhizome, but the plateau concept essentially means that one is always in the middle, neither at the start nor at some end-stage or goal.
In writing a book as a rhizome, the authors claim that it was written in a non-linear manner; “each plateau can be read starting from anywhere and can be related to any other plateau”. In true interpretive form, the barrier between observer and observed is blurred: “There is no longer a tripartite division between a field of reality (the world) and a field of representation (the book) and a field of subjectivity (the author).” Instead, “an assemblage establishes connections between certain multiplicities drawn from each of these orders”.
Finally, the rhizome is suggested as a model of history, in contrast with a state-centered, hierarchical approach. The state structure reflects “the sedentary point of view”; “What is lacking is a Nomadology, the opposite of history”.
Personal Question:
In this excerpt the authors do not indicate how this rhizome metaphor might be deployed, how an alternative history or “Nomadology” might be written, or what implications the metaphor has more generally. However, it bears a striking similarity to the concept of the network (inspired by the Internet), which has been suggested as an alternative to the hierarchy for organizations. It may be due only to the ingrained metaphor of the pyramid (or the tree, these authors would say) that we find it difficult to imagine other ramifications of the rhizome or network metaphor. What other implications or applications of this metaphor might we identify?
By Steven Johnson. Chapter 2.
Summary.
This reading describes the behavior of ants, living cells, and people, and how their individual (inter)actions follow and provoke a global system behavior. Global behavior, local interaction.
There was a study which revealed a completely new way of understanding ant colonies and their behavior. The normal approach was to study several ant colonies, but instead they focused on one single colony over time. They discovered that colonies display a sort of an aging behavior, as a whole organism, through steps such as infancy, adolescence and matureness. Taking in count that colonies can live for 15 years and ants for 1 year, the question is how such simple organisms as ants can achieve a global result that far exceeds their live time and awareness.
It is assumed that ants wouldn´t be able to have an understanding of the colony as a whole or plan its development. So how is it that they know how to act individually, so that the colony survives? Local feedback, decentralized planning. This might be explained by noticing that ants have sort of tasks assigned. They just know they have to bring nutrients to the colony and defend their territory. Then their behavior depends on the interaction between the ants, sharing information about where is food, what nutrients they need, threatening and menaces, etc. The global behavior comes from this interaction between more simple activities of the basic units.
Code: nutrients=information
Similar behavior can be seen in the cell interaction of living organisms. The global actions begin with the interaction between the cells, and the transfer of nutrients (information) from one cell to the other through their membranes. In the embryo development, we can notice how cells define whether they will be heart cells, bone cells, blood cells, etc., based on the interaction and the information of the surrounding neighbor cells. DNA acts as a manual that indicates the cell how to become bone, heart, blood, etc., depending on the needs of their environment. As well as the ants, the global coordination depends on the exchange of information and a pre-established frame code of behavior for the basic units.
City simulation
Sims City is a good example of how a set of rules and units of interaction can evolved into apparently more complex systems. The video game depends on the exchange of information between the units of the city that, when enough, display complex global reactions depending on each unit´s feedback to/from the whole system. This is achieved by a logarithm and mathematics that act like an invisible operator that make thing happen.
Street view
Nature itself appears to have a code for doing things and solving problems, that also governs human behavior. We see behaviors in a galactic scale reflected in the atomic scale. Cities become with time into a huge organism of interactions. Humans of course we are more complex units than ants, cells, or computer bits. But the concept is the same. In this way city sidewalks are the spaces on which more of these interactions can take place. You have images, smells, sounds and exchange of information that keeps our brains active, and healthy. Nobody likes traffic jams, the interaction between people from one car to the other is poor compared to our capacity of information processing and interaction. Basically: it is boring and we don´t enjoy it.
Each space configuration that evolved in the cities like restaurants, plazas, parks, stadiums, offer a different code of interaction that we follow and under which things happen between people. This also happens with the recent virtual spaces which will be more and more important in the future. Complex systems offer the opportunity to fulfill our needs and even create new ones. When the interactions are encouraged, intelligence emerges from the exchange of information, so we can fulfill necessities more efficiently, enjoying the complexity.
The understanding of unit interaction is getting more complex through technology, so we can expect more complex and interactive technology in the future. It is just natural.
Personal Research Interest.
Information is the basis for interaction. Interaction defines intelligence. Emergent intelligence comes from the ability to read information and related it in different ways to obtain different results and more information.
Swarm intelligence is repeated throughout nature. We see can it in neurons, ants, shoals and bird flocks. Swarm intelligent systems show similar properties:
-Group of individuals.
-Relatively homogeneous individuals.
-Simple behavior of individuals, which act in response to local information from environment and other individuals.
-Overall behavior by the convention of the individuals.
The information is the element that promotes the action and interaction of the swarms. Information can be transmitted in different ways and channels like chemicals, physical interaction, movement…
Light for example, give us information in the way of color. But our intelligence is not limited to tell as that an apple is red. It tell us that it is ready to be eaten, and that it is going to be sweet. We get an idea of its flavor even before biting it. We already know its smell. The ability to record experiences takes intelligence one step further. New research is being done on how color and sound can relate to transfer information.
Can sound, music and color, be used as medium for information transfer, and what kind of intelligence can emerge from that?
By: Sebastian Alvarado Grugiel. Arquitecto.
