The presence of the absent. Transformation strategies of the ideal space vs virtual

The doctoral thesis The presence of the absent. Transformation strategies of the ideal space vs virtual establishes an architectural debate between the elements of several pairs of opposites, as in the case at hand: presence / absence, paying special attention to the interval, the sequence between the parts and the spaces between things, the in-between, to promote the analysis and transformation in the development of the architectural project. The thesis starts with external references that determine the way of projecting the subsequent analyzes of architectural works under the influence of the perception of estrangement. These are arranged in three chapters where the selected projects are grouped under terms of horizontality, verticality, and interiority. These analyzes are expanded in the annex, individually, by buildings, in the form of files, containing basic data and bibliography, and a broad study of the work, with its own interpretations on each one, through drawings (isometric, Egyptian, sections and raised), following an extended notion of the concept of uncanny; not looking for ideal building conditions but virtual conditions that lead to the perception of the presence of the absent in contemporary architecture, allowing the architect to advance beyond the traditional modernist understanding. The first external reference is the semiosis of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839- 1914), the fundamental basis of communication, with the triad formed by the “sign”, “object” and “interpreting”, where a relationship of stimulus and reaction between two poles, the one that stimulates and the one that is stimulated. The sign is the stimulus that needs a catalyst or mediator to produce a reaction, “a third element: the interpreter” and that makes the sign “represent its object for the addressee.” Peirce’s theory is the one that allows us to delve more precisely into the study of architecture and other artistic disciplines, as it is a method that establishes a «relational system», with its triadic conception of the sign and because of the time component that incorporates the “Interpreter.” Starting in the sixties, the also triadic division of the Peircean sign: Icon, Index and Symbol and also its triadic classification of relationships: Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness, made possible multiple analyzes of reality from the arts and architecture. The second reference used is the work of the American Paul Ryan (1943-2013), the conceptual and theoretical video artist of communication. I am interested in his approach to conflict resolution via his Relational Circuit, which arises from the combination of Peirce’s comprehensive categories with Gregory Bateson’s cybernetic theories. Ryan develops the Relational Circuit in two ways: a spatial one in 3D, with relationships in continuity of self-inclusion, inside / outside, with different degrees of interiority through video shots of the process successively. And the other 2D variant, threeing, where three or more elements (people or objects) resolve conflicts through position relationships, without hierarchies. The Relational Circuit is the «helmsman» (cyber, of the ships of Classical Greece) of a complex system, because it provides a permanent method of self-adjustment through the identification of differences in the system where the survival of the system is linked to its evolution. The influence of Peirce’s triads in the hands of Paul Ryan with his Relational Circuit, allows the architect to establish various interpretations between objects and subjects as if conflicts of any kind were resolved between all of them. Thus, the architect will not metaphorically consider himself so much as a creator and conductor, but as the “cyber” of the ship that continually creates, directs, reinterprets and reacts. The concept of “the presence of the absent” is the engine that reveals different gradients that affect space and its depth, from concealment to revelation and vice versa, from inclusion and exclusion, in short, establishing strategies for the transformation of space that allow to open new opportunities of investigation of the architectural thought and practice, to undertake spatial transformations that break the established limits. What in the words of the American philosopher William James, contemporary and close to Peirce, as founders of pragmatism, is understood by “what really exists are not things but things in the making.” This thesis raises and justifies different architectural concepts but leaving many of the questions in the air; questions that await answers that it would be impossible to pretend to cover in subsequent pages. A thesis that aspires to be “a good question without a certain answer [but with answers]. Like all good questions» (as Jean Baudrillard wrote in Screened Out, 2002).