1:15 Tectonics After Virtuality: Re-turning to the Body JULIO BERMUDEZ & ROBERT HERMANSON University of Utah NOTE: Lecture given at Texas A&M School of Architecture on February 2000. An old version of this paper was published in: Proceedings of ACSA International Conference: Constructions of Tectonics for the Postindustrial World . Copenhagen, Denmark: Royal Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture: ACSA Press 1996; pp.66-71 Introduction "The electronic paradigm directs a powerful challenge to architecture because it defines reality in terms of media and simulation; it values appearance over existence, what can be seen over what is." 1 Since its origin, architecture has been the art of organizing physical reality, the act of establishing the material order of a cultural order. Until recently this has meant to work in and with tectonics. However, as our civilization moves deeper into the information age, cultural expressions (sources, processes and products) become increasingly dematerialized, virtualized. In a culture of the simulacrum, 2 the corporeal looses ground to the informational, the concrete to the representational, the real to the simulational. The new civilization presents us with a great challenge to the corporeal aspects of our humanity and transitively to architecture. Our jobs, entertainments, and relationships increasingly demand less and less from our bodies. Neither muscle nor even presence are truly important in more and more tasks. From ATM machines to television to telecommuting to the internet, contemporary life depends on the absence of the body or, better said, in substituting its presence by means of information (i.e., non-material) technology. Late 20th Century consumer society, that supposedly celebrates materialism and fully satisfies the body, actually devalues materiality and the corporeal as even its most desirable goods become evanescent items whose values begin to disappear immediately after purchase (as they are used up, worn out, or fall out of fashion). Consumer society only values the source, the act and/or the reason for acquiring (or enticing to acquire). Today's consumerism denies that which it depends on. Not surprising, consumerism has necessarily evolved into a media culture whose purpose is the continuous (re)creation of needs that are obtained via information and satisfied through further consumption. The resulting information age only accelerates the displacement of the material, the real, and the body. Contemporary civilization gives little room for interpretation in this matter. In today's world, manufacturing has lost its importance to service and information. Construction cannot compete against the speculative stock market and the ephemeral MTV. Craft, assembly, stability, attachment, presence, and detail continue to recede as image, juxtaposition, fluidity, detachment, surface/interface, and impression take over. All this indicates that the architectural act is moving from materialization to visualization. The language of texture is being taken over by the language of images. And yet, as we detach ourselves more and more from the materiality of life during our waking time, the more we are attracted to it. For instance, the glorification of the body, the huge