Vertiginous Symmetries: Representations of the Labyrinthine in the Works of Arakawa/Gins, Jorge Luis Borges, and Alain Robbe-Grillet

Marcelyn Gow



Letizia Alvarez de Toledo has observed that this vast Library is useless: rigorously speaking, a single volume would be sufficient, a volume of ordinary format, printed in nine or ten point type, containing an infinite number of infinitely thin leaves. (In the early seventeenth century, Cavalieri said that all solid bodies are the superimposition of an infinite number of planes). The handling of this silky vade mecum would not be convenient: each apparent page would unfold into other analogous ones; the inconceivable middle page would have no reverse. 1

In approaching the presence of labyrinths in textual and architectural works, a distinction should be made between the iconographic representation of a labyrinth manifest as a built entity or structure, and the labyrinthine model which effects perceptual destabilization. The former is tangible, whereas the latter is a condition which, although relying on no physical manifestation, is nonetheless a psychological construct. The coincidence of the model and its representation within a project necessitates a modal shift, one in which the iconography of the object dissolves or is subsumed by the model. The manifestation of a modelled condition through a translation into matter implies that the built work must in some way subvert the iconography of that which it attempts to embody. Undoubtedly the labyrinthine model functions more effectively as a dislocating device when one is unaware of its existence. Deviations experienced within the envelope of normative space are more profound in their implications than deviations measured against a field of disjuncture. I would argue that an architecture which embraces the direct manifestation of labyrinthine iconography can only partially succeed as a dislocating device.

The project to construct a labyrinthine model via the representation of the labyrinth compromises itself by making reference to the model. The moment at which one brings the labyrinth into existence as a fixed and stable entity this object no longer enables the possibility of referring beyond itself, but rather becomes an image of that which it would attempt to embody. The insidiousness of the labyrinthine model lies in its unobtrusiveness, the unsettling fact that it encloses without one being fully aware of its presence. One can never really grasp the labyrinth as a coherent entity. The labyrinth posited as an object merely serves to illustrate the spatial and perceptual dilemma which it seeks to engender. I will suggest, by examining several instances of the labyrinthine that the labyrinthine model distinguishes itself from a representation of the labyrinth by the fact that it engages its inhabitant in the guise of its not being present.

The architectural work of Arakawa and Madeline Gins, in particular, the Site of Reversible Destiny -Yoro in Gifu, Japan overtly employs representations of the labyrinth. In the projects of Arakawa and Gins the labyrinth is formulated as a series of constructed layers, each layer consisting of a unique set of instructions for the body in motion. These layers conflict, not only with each other, but also with the domestic space in which they are inserted. Perception of the labyrinth is disseminated amongst these layers, each one momentarily rupturing the whole, producing a tactile blindness which is interrupted only in the moment of contact with a particular element.3 Hence these collisions of the domestic and labyrinthine produce structures of a temporal nature. A synchronous reality which is sequential, as a result of the potentially infinite sequence with which the "architectural body" 4 engages the space, can be broken down into a series of paths produced by the interaction of layers. Potentially, these ways of negotiating the space could become habitual through repetitive movement-- the very thing which such a construct would seek to eradicate. These labyrinthine structures force the body to move in a different way relative to situations which are in some way familiar, such as the domestic scape. The labyrinthine structure remains nonetheless a series of fixed elements to which one would inevitably adapt over time. The image of the labyrinth in this work is so strong that the possibility for an unfamiliar perceptual state to emerge is supplanted by the probability of its presence.

In the Site of Reversible Destiny, domestic space is constituted by a series of generic objects. In the history of interaction between the body and a prior instance, each of these objects (the chair, the table, or the cup) establishes associations of scale and orientation which are inscribed into domestic situations. The "architectural body" engages in a relationship specific to each encounter with an element comprising a part of the labyrinth layer. This encounter is intended to destabilize the more familiar relationship between the body and domestic space by interfering with the way in which one interacts with the familiar objects. The field of domestic objects is one in which specificity is drastically reduced (in the studies as well as the constructed project); practically eliminated to the point at which these elements emerge as signifiers of domesticity. Paradoxically the avoidance of specific characteristics (stains, cracks, or textures) yields an object which is more 'specific' or precise in its stance as an icon. This iconographic quality is further reinforced by the fact that the objects become in most instances partially, if not wholly, dysfunctional. The space of the domestic is rendered irreconcilable to its former state, the condition within which the habitual has located it.

The insertion of the unfamiliar propels the encounter between body and object into a state of crisis. This confusion is accomplished in several ways: the labyrinth which cuts through the domestic space (acting as a 'dis'organizing device), the terrain which in most instances deviates from the horizontal and has the effect of throwing the body off balance, and the use of symmetrical constructs in which portions of the domestic environment with its attendant labyrinthine elements are reflected about the horizontal axis to mirror the body's surroundings as the surroundings of an absent body. In the Critical Resemblances House this matrix of disruption literally intersects with the matrix of the domestic, the latter both proscribing social interaction and deriving its organization from social interaction. The operation here is not one of hybridization as in certain surrealist works, nor is there a blurring of properties as in Foucualt's notion of the convenient: 5

Those things are convenient which come sufficiently close to one another to be in juxtaposition; if their edges touch, their fringes intermingle, the extremity of the one also denotes the beginning of the other. In this way movement, influences, passions, and properties too are communicated. So that in this hinge between two things a resemblance appears. A resemblance that becomes double as soon as one attempts to unravel it: a resemblance of the place, the site upon which nature has placed the two things, and thus a similitude of properties; for in this natural container, the world, adjacency is not an exterior relation between things, but the sign of a relationship, obscure though it may be. And then, from this contact, by exchange, there arise new resemblances; a common regime becomes necessary; upon the similitude that was the hidden reason for their propinquity is superimposed a resemblance that is the visible effect of that proximity. 6

I would argue that the labyrinth always remains as an 'other' in the work of Arakawa /Gins. The iconography of the labyrinth takes over to such an extent that a reformulation of familiarity becomes nearly impossible. The labyrinth, as an image of otherness, is juxtaposed with the familiarity of the domestic environment. This act of literal juxtaposition stages the problematic relationship between the representational and the procedural as coexistant within a project. The representation of labyrinthine elements undermines the operative qualities of a labyrinthine model in terms of destabilizing and resituating. The conflation between the 'body proper' and the 'architectural surround' is taken to a more radical level in the project Ubiquitous Site House in which a softening of the labyrinth transforms it into an utterly mutable mass, which derives its form from the continuous undulations of the body. 7 In this case, the labyrinth, akin to an exteriorized alimentary canal, is at the same time affected by bodily movement and prohibits or redirects the motion of the body. A modal shift occurs in the Ubiquitous Site House where the iconography of the labyrinth is dissolved allowing for the operative nature of the labyrinthine model to emerge.

The work of Alain Robbe-Grillet, in particular the novel Jealousy, deals with labyrinthine structures of a perceptual nature. In this text a series of objects are laid out in a space constructed through language. The location of objects and events occurring around them is re-iterated at distinct moments in time suggesting a literal repetition, leading the reader to believe that the scenes are in fact identical. Through this matrix of repetition there exists a site of deformation. In each re-iteration of the event; the scale or location of a single detail is altered. In some instances this difference is barely perceptible, one may continue to move through the text without registering the alteration. This re-iterative technique effects the conflation of identities; one centipede appears a multiplicity of times, having been slightly altered. A stain on the wall transforms into a stain on a sheet of paper. A consistent narrative structure, relying on the assumption that events are repeating themselves, is undermined by the presence of an inconsistent factor. The notion of chronology is destroyed. One enters the labyrinth via the realm of familiarity (both technically through the familiar narrative structure which is subsequently broken down; and in terms of what is described-- a domestic space which mutates to the extent that one is no longer able to locate oneself relative to a single event).

Robbe-Grillet's descriptive technique obsessively locates objects in space to the extent that the act of location itself takes on a level of precision which exceeds one's expectations of the narrative structure. Paradoxically this descriptive technique is also the means by which the position of the reader is made imprecise. The guise of precision suggests the notion of a singular coherent reality which is in turn transformed into a multitude of competing realities. The alteration of time and space employed by Robbe-Grillet addresses memory and uncertainty. The reader, upon recognizing that something has changed, confronts the unsettling possibility that memory is deceptive. One is prompted to ask the question of how a multitude of nearly identical situations can coexist when they are not truly identical. The margin of difference between the mnemonic realities is reduced to the point at which distinction becomes nearly imperceptible, while simultaneously maintaining the specificity of each reality.

The Borgesian labyrinth is one in which a continuum between contained and container produces a cyclical labyrinth where one is always both inside and outside. The notion of one reality collapses in on itself revealing itself to be part of another more extensive reality, which it nonetheless also contains. This collapse is possibly at its most insistent in the "Library of Babel" where the very book which contains the story of the library is at once a compendium of the universe and simultaneously merely one book in the vast library. In this instance, the labyrinth, a perceptual labyrinth, resides beyond the series of hexagonal galleries which give the library its form. The labyrinth resides in the reader who; in reading Borges' book which lays out the infinite library (the universe), realizes that this book itself, its history and attendant reality are as well contained within that infinite library. The book contains all books, including itself. This book which describes the library, must certainly also be contained within it.

Another avatar of the book "The Library of Babel" is "the great circular book, whose spine is continuous and which follows the complete circle of the walls."8 The book whose very form reflects the form of the architecture within which it is contained, also contains the very possibility of an architecture. Borges' obsession with structures which are both continuous and infinite is apparent in his discussion of solipsism:

The possibility of this dreamer dreaming everything, places one again in the labyrinth of Borgesian thought. The dreamer and the book are vehicles of continuous displacement. One no longer attempts to locate the labyrinth as one is inextricably entwined within it. I would suggest that the formal labyrinth described by Borges is used as a representation of the far more elusive labyrinthine condition within which his work inscribes the notion of reality.

The intention of locating these labyrinthine instances is to speculate on how the distinction between representation and embodiment manifests itself and to what degree these two modes coexist as a generative technique. The works cited above engage various ways of dealing with the problem of representation and the model. The texts of Borges and Robbe-Grillet, in which the labyrinth can be traced as an underlying generative diagram, differ radically from the project of Arakawa and Gins which relies on the form of the labyrinth to realize itself as procedural architecture. Architecture's insistence on form raises the unavoidable dilemma of translation. This act of translation implies a necessary distance between the perceptual model and its representation in order to enable the form of that representation to establish its own identity. The question arises then, as to whether the possibility exists for the architectural representation of the labyrinthine to extend beyond its own iconography and act as a device which enables the complex labyrinth of perception to emerge.



Notes

1. Borges, Jorge Luis, 'The Library of Babel', Labyrinths, (New York: Modern Library Edition, 1983). p.58.

2. Hollier, Denis, Against Architecture: the Writings of Georges Bataille, (London: MIT Press, 1989). p. 61.

3. The term 'tactile blindness' refers here to the interruption posed in respect to the body's navigational apparatus on several levels simultaneously.

4. The term 'architectural body' is used by Arakawa - Gins to denote the body and its site. See: Arakawa, Shusaku and Madeline Gins, Architecture: Sites of Reversible Destiny, London, Academy Editions, 1994.

5. I refer here in particular to the encounter between the umbrella and the sewing machine in Lautreamont's Chansons de Maldoror.

6. Foucault, Michel, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, R:D: Laing ed., (London: Routledge, 1991). p. 18.

7. The terms 'body proper' and 'architectural surround' are used by Arakawa/Gins in the project for studying the nature and extent of the body. See: Arakawa, Shusaku and Madeline Gins, Reversible Destiny, New York, Guggenheim Museum Publications, 1997.

8. Borges, 'The Library of Babel,' p. 52.

9. Borges, 'Nightmares', Seven Nights, (New York: New Directions Books, 1984). p.30



Marcelyn Gow holds a Diploma in Architecture from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and is currently an MSc Advanced Architectural Design candidate at Columbia University in the city of New York.