Charles A Rose 000948791-3 Thesis Title: A Relationship with Our Homes: Issues in the Introduction of Domestic Digital Intelligence Module: ARCT-1060-M01-2017-18-130 _Architectural_Thesis Course: MArch Architecture Year 5 Full Time Tutors Thesis: Mike Aling Design: Harry Bucknall & Melissa Clinch 02.03.2018
That s what fiction is for. It s for getting at the truth when the truth isn t sufficient enough Tim O Brien (cited in Carter 2014)
A Research Method Statement Abstract This document epitomises the idea of heuristic fiction. Through epistolary narrative digital intelligence is explored within the axiomatic filter of domesticity. It questions assumptions on the identity of personal space and the increasing unhuman infringements upon it. Using speculative Sci-fi techniques, tranches of artefact are given to build ideas of the complexity of a cross-entity relationship and what it means when our homes become a part of that discussion. Introductions, research material, conclusions, and even parts of the bibliography are all on a fictional basis, however the allegorical style is based on academic writing methodology and real research with the guiding influences of other narratives and realities. The intention is to present an environment we don t yet have access to in a manner that won t solidly presume, whilst still interrogating the different viewpoints of subject matter by setting them in parallel. This will hopefully become part of the increasing bulk of academic literature regarding intelligent systems in architecture and how they become part of the anthropological whole.
There is no idea, however ancient or absurd, that is not capable of improving our knowledge Paul Feyerabend (1975, pg33)
Future Artefacts futures that act as catalysts for public debate (Dunne & Raby, 2013 pg 6) The Contents of the document are the following artefacts i. A logged transcript of complaints relating to a Domestic Digital Intelligence ii. The case notes for the complaints procedure relevant to the recorded call iii. A Post-Installation User Guide for the Digitally Intelligent house iv. A government white paper criticising the introduction of Domestic Intelligence into the public realm. v. Thesis Extracts - including introduction, one chapter and a conclusions with additional notes uses the other artefacts as primary research material vi. Full Mediography given with the thesis extracts x. This RMS and structural diagram which sit outside the fictional framework
Methodology / Objective The piecemeal character of epistolary forces the reader to apply gradual triangulation of the concepts they are considering. This personal view created by both the order those pieces are read in and the individual experience and ideology held by that person adds a forever differing part to the polylogic discourse. Though, with the two colliding personalities from the thesis subject matter, that of human and house unable to comprehend how each other processes their environments, there comes a challenge akin to disproving David Chalmer s favourite p-zombies (1996) or any epistemological consideration of solipsism. Due to this glut of unknowable attributes, this document anchors itself by having the epistolary pieces resemble found footage by both their realistic content and relaying content broader than the subject matter approached. Though fictional, this act of world building is in adherence to the Possible Worlds Theory, where all discourse is a construction of a mental representation or world in the mind (Gavins, J. & Lahey, E. 2016, pg 4) that dictates our independent views of the actual world. There is obvious intention to dictate direction here by the author using plot devices, but the ligaments of connection exist within what the narratologist Paul Werth describes as Common Ground: the totality of information which the speaker(s) and the hearer(s) have agreed to accept as relevant for their discourse. (Werth, P. 1999 pg 119) A large part of the document is its fictional counterpart; the future thesis extracts. This develops an introduction and then a fairly structuralist chapter analysing qualitative data associated with the human concept of home and the various ways humanity has imagined the effects of the uncanny upon this spatial ideal. This reflects a large portion of the real research done for this document, both for its content relating to our fictional use of domesticity and Digital Intelligence, and its intent with the methods of manipulation of norm and epistolary technique. Also important are domestic historicisms both psychoanalytical and technological, and perceptive philosophies. These act as deictic foundations for critical reasoning within the fictional text world and then the post-critical when viewed through the readers understanding of the multiple-narrator s perspectives. Basic interpretation of the methodological position the other elements of the document hold are as follows: - Transcript acts as a personal and recognisable introduction to absurd circumstance through its realistic portrayal of a complaint made through a call centre - The complaints procedure form builds on this, by adding detail and background. These pieces act as a form of narrative portraying the issues studied in part by the fictional thesis - The government white paper acts a heavy critical viewpoint to the circumstances and the hard-science fiction mannerisms portray a realism of the speculative technologies. - The manual is a fairly light visual grounding for the environment; significantly adding to the built world its primary function is to depict the idea that these entities have been seen as appliances. Research Pitching style of thesis you have to look towards a wide spectrum of narratological material. This begins with the overview of evidence-based study which when placed in this fictional setting need to rely upon the Emphasis of Natural where the _questions change during the process of research to reflect an increased understanding of the problem (Wang & Groat, 2013, pg 218). This fluid induction of qualitative data can be informed by texts such as Analysing Qualitative Data: Systematic Approaches (Bernard s, H. et al. 2017) or the above Architectural Research Methods. But just as important are the idioms of narratologists; texts and methods on using narratives in conjectural writing like Narrative Networks: Storied Approaches in a Digital Age (Alleyne, B. 2015). The next step is the direct look at quality narrative; almost all advice given here first directs you to William Strunk Jr s The Elements of Style (1935). His quote language is perpetually in flux: it is a living stream, shifting, changing, receiving new strength from a thousand tributaries, losing old forms in the backwaters of time highlights the joyous challenge here with determining syntax and style, from disparate fictions as haunted house stories driving both part of the faux analysis of the thesis and the underlying weirdness of the intelligent houses, to the epistolary tales like Miéville s Report s of Curious Events in London (2004) and Danielewski s spatial horror House of Leaves that inform the multi-layered narrative. The fiction is all balanced against philosophies of perception, such as the limitations of humans in Diderot s Letters to the Blind (1749) or the limitlessness of digital intelligence described in most of Marvin Minsky s bibliography; and then against historic anthropological analogies relevant to the discussion. Additionally, each individual piece requires a modicum of typological study, for example company logoisms, government document layouts, corporate complaints procedures and manual types. Conclusions Methodology There are conclusions throughout the document; given in the thesis s extracts; at the end of the government document; and indeed here. However, it wouldn t be fallacious to consider that a conclusion was never the actual end of a document and an direct intentions of apparently concluding text in this whole work should be seen as extrapolated speculations only. As a suffix to a document, questions are far more representative of reasonable conjectural work. And, though this piece, in its exploded, combined methodologies, may lack some of the analytical precision usually favoured in theses that circumnavigate psychoanalysis or sociology, it does favour heavy questioning. Being ergodic in manner and its extension into future context already determines that the reader has to remove what Barthes called the limit of the text (1967, pg6), the ambition here is that the questions evoked on domestic philosophy, our perception of technology and other entities go far beyond this document.