DESIGN AS A COUNTER-SUBJECTIVITY [RE-SUBJECTIVITY] PRACTICE

Yıl 2018, Cilt: 32 Sayı: 44, 163 - 193, 30.06.2018

Duygu Ovacık Çoruh , Belkıs Uluoğlu

Öz

Design is understood as a productive activity related
to space and objects as the subjects of architecture and as the process of
engaging in this activity. Therefore, design practice is discussed as
problematizations of objects. However, the spatial construction of cities as
the milieu of modern people is
created not as an external intervention, but by the individual or social
practices of subjects. Therefore, questions about the object cause questions
about the subject, so it is necessary to evaluate the relationship between the
subject and the city. The problematic of this article, which is an attempt to
determine the possibility/impossibility of the production of a “new” experience
is related to the subject in modern urban conditions. How can individuals who
can have very different attitudes depending on value systems reproduce a
spatial set of tendencies repeatedly? In this context, the aim of the article
is to approach creative design as a critical practice by focusing on subject
and object/urban relationality in opposition to practices acting as norm[al].
The article is based on Michel Foucault's theory of modern subjectification
related to the question “how?” Design, approached as an experience within the
context of subjectification, is associated with the production of a special
kind of existence along with “critical attitude” defined as a practice for
historical boundaries by Foucault. In this framework, design is considered as
the practice in which this critique becomes reality. This critical practice is
conceptualized as “counter-subjectivity”.

In this article, “counter-subjectivity” meets a
critical practice related to historical normative boundaries. In order to
demonstrate the possibility of feasibility of this practice, it is initially
necessary to develop ideas about the production of historical normative
boundaries. In this framework, modernity is considered a paradox^[1] in which
it is at the center of the subject that the article has progressed gradually
through two axes of “subjectification” theory: subjectification (the production
of boundaries) and subjectivity (the criticism of boundaries).

First, the determination of subjective experience
historically includes the production of normative boundaries and their
penetration into human life and value systems, which is related to Foucault's
analysis of “governmentality” and “power relations.” In the article, the
concept of power is a totality of relationships, including the correlative
relationship between people and object/space. In this context, the urban milieu
is revealed as the space of manipulation for subjectification, and the
relation between the modern subject and the city is evaluated to approach the
answer to the question “how?” In his theory of subjectification, Foucault
reveals the relationship between “self-practices,” namely, between our forms of
being and behaving, and historical determination systems of power and
knowledge, but at the same time, he analyzes the fact that individuals create
themselves as the subject of experience in the practices of recognition and
rejection. In other words, historical establishment of the experience reveals
that objectivization and subjectification occur in some practices in urban milieu. On the other hand, it also
reveals that historical normative boundaries are not ultimate. In the article,
the possibility of the production of a “new” experience arises in this context.
At the point where it eliminates the categorical distinction between the
subject and the urban and reveals that historical fact is contingent, this
analysis is not an end, but is evaluated as the possibility of other forms of
relations we have established with ourselves.

In the second stage, “subjectivity” is approached in
relation to “the practices of self.” In the framework of Foucault’s historical
criticism conceptualized as “critical attitude”, this article focuses on his
late texts about the production of different subjectivity such as “the care of
the self” (epimeleia heautou), “the aesthetics of existence,” “the art
of living” (tekhnê
tou biou),
 “counter-conduct” (contre-conduite).
Using the framework of these texts, in this article, subjectivity is used to
emphasize special characteristics of the acting person. Therefore, the subject
is related to its position and only reveals itself in the production of a
practice. Design is dealt with as a concrete practice in which subjectivity can
be seen with the naked eye. This context requires an effective subject that
produces design practice as a responsibility to subjects.

This article attempts to evaluate the spatial practices
of the construction of cities in the context of the production of the subject
has shaped the basic approach and studies the design process in order to
establish both the object, the city, and the intervening subject simultaneously
and relationally. Along with this approach, the analysis of the question “how
(?)” is related to types of doing that are considered normal and is transformed
into the possibility of existence of other practices. At the same time, this is
the possibility of the production of design practice, which is evaluated within
the field of architecture. In this manner, architecture, as a modern field of
knowledge and practice, is a force in the process of historically determining
the normative boundaries of subjectification and subjective experience, but at
the same time, architecture is evaluated as the field of creation that enables
“critical attitude” and “counter-subjectification.” In this context, Michael
Hays's “late avant-garde” discourse, the end of the twentieth century is
discussed as a special historical moment when the criticism of boundaries
emerges in the discipline of architecture. Subjective architectural approaches,
evaluated as the results of this historical moment, and the conception and
practice of design by Herzog & de Meuron and Tadao Ando specific to the
article are treated as the concrete consequences of the attempt to shape and
structure their lives and practices by making this the responsibility and
effort of the object, which is presented as a “counter-subjectification”
practice.

As a reverse reading of the text, particular design
practices are a way of transforming our behaviors first and later on, the city
and the boundaries of experience, once the relationality of subject and the
city is considered. In the context of this establishing relationship, it is
necessary to rethink the approach to and tools of the subject’s urban space. The
possibilities and tools of the probability of design as historical critical
practice are the tension and interaction between subjectivity and conditions of
milieu. In this approach, a kind of
becoming introverted or making the self a target means the simultaneous
production of a constant subject position, and therefore, excluding conditions
and probabilities. Yet, when urban conditions are considered not only spatial,
but also temporal, autism or being mobile means withdrawal and becoming distant
from both the milieu and
subjectivity.

It is possible to practice
“counter-subjectification,” which is separated from the normative structure
imposed indirectly by “governmental” mechanisms, not by creating a new set of
norms, but by a critical attitude. It can be argued that contemporary
architecture is composed of the effects of performance and practices. Every
quest that does not claim to be ideal architectural practice through the
"how" question is a turning point in this sense. From this
perspective, architecture is considered ontologically beyond the production of
objects for need.

---

^[1] This paradox is understood in relation with Foucault's reading of the
Enlightenment (Foucault, 2011a), Althusser's thesis of “relative autonomy” (Young,
2000, 109), Matei Calinescu's thought on modernity (Calinescu, 2010, 55) and S.
Kwinter (Kwinter, 2002, 34), who aims to “see as modernity as a philosophical problem.”

Anahtar Kelimeler

subjectification, subjectivity, criticism, milieu, design

Bir Karşı-Özneleşme [Yeniden-Özneleşme] Pratiği Olarak Tasarım

Öz

Modern
kentsel koşullarda “yeni” bir deneyim üretiminin imkân[sızlığ]ını ortaya
koymaya yönelik motivasyon, tasarım pratiğinin eyleyeni olarak özneye ilişkin
temel bir soruya neden olmuştur: Nasıl oluyor da insan, mekâna ilişkin bir
takım pratikleri yeniden ve yeniden üretebiliyor; “insan kimi deneyimlerin
öznesi pozisyonuna nasıl geçiyor (?)” sorusu bu makalenin etrafında geliştiği
sorunsaldır. Bu sorunsal bağlamında makalenin amacı tasarımı, özne ve
nesne/kent ilişkiselliğine odaklanarak tarihsel eleştirel bir pratik biçiminde
ele almaktır. Bu doğrultuda makalede Foucault’nun modern özneleştirme teorisi
temel alınır: Özneleş[tir]me olarak ele alınan perspektif aracılığıyla bir
taraftan özne ve nesne konumlarını belirlemeye yönelen tarihsel normatif
sınırların üretimi, ama aynı zamanda bu sınırlara yönelik eleştirel bir pratiğin
olabilirliğinin imkânı ortaya konulur. Foucault’nun “sınır-tutum” olarak
kavramsallaştırdığı bu eleştirel tutum aracılığıyla tasarım pratiği, bir
öznelliğin üretimiyle ilişkilendirilir ve “karşı-özneleşme” biçiminde
karakterize edilir. Bu bağlamda bir tür deneyim olarak ele alınan tasarım
öznelere düşen bir sorumluluk olarak ortaya çıkar. Makalede özel tasarım
stratejileri bu sorumluluğa yönelik çabayı etik bir meseleye dönüştüren öznel
varoluş biçimlerinin sonuçları olarak ele alınır. “Nasıl” sorusu aracılığıyla
mimarlık pratikleri üzerine ideal olma amacı taşımayan her arayış, bu anlamda
bir dönüş noktasıdır. Bu perspektifte mimarlık, gereksinime yönelik nesne
üretiminin ötesinde, ontolojik olarak değerlendirilir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Özneleştirme, öznellik, eleştiri, ortam (milieu), tasarım

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