A Brave New World

Time has come wherein changes in our thoughts, actions and products are perceivable. Important it is, to understand the nature of this change – which is resulting in the transformation of our Society into something different than what we have been accustomed to think. This change needs to be deliberated from many angles so a direction can be envisioned in due course of time which should respond appropriately to India’s context. This article, like the previous ones, does not make tall claims – it is intended to initiate an enquiry and to suggest to the reader, that we pause to take a stock of where things seem to be heading.

A lot has been written for a couple of decades on effects of globalization on local cultures and I wish to pursue one theme that seems to alter our ways of perceptions – digitization and the increasing use of virtual media. I am building on my own experience of my life as a pupil, student, professional, academician and exposure to international academic environment in International University outside India. The intention is to understand the nature of change in our ways of thinking and how we seem to think of our place and people and how these in turn seem to influence our ways of thinking about architecture. A logical way to elaborate on the nature of ‘change’ may be to compare situations before and after the advent of digital environment. The focus is to understand a ‘lived’ experience rather than trying to apply a theory in practical world, so that most people may be able to relate to it. The narrative is generalized – by that I mean it may represent numerous lived experiences of everyday life – from making decisions, interacting with people, getting things done, cooking for the family, designing, handling labour, making judgments, understanding language, writing, and appraisal of music and so on. It is hoped that the Reader may relate to any of his/her incidences in life. Thus, how does one understand ‘change’?

In the previous article (Garde, 2016) it was pondered how we seem to view spaces around us and the factors on which our perceptions seem to depend. It was argued that our experience itself was contextual and revolved around the specifics of ‘place’ and ‘people’. These two words mean everything that come under the influence of climate, geography (or topography); local skills of handling technology and materials; ways in which people choose to live and optimize resources; and people’s relationship with themselves, community and Nature. Summarily, experiences born out of this situation, as far as Indian context is concerned, are ‘localized’ (or ‘grounded’ or ‘contextual’). To be involved in the act of creating ‘spaces’ means to generate an appropriate response stemming from in-depth understanding of local climate, people’s culture and aspirations and appropriateness of technology. The idea of architecture is not purely architectonics (or a straight forward process of ‘form’ making). It means to be aware of the relationship of self with community and Nature and to acknowledge the interdependence of all systems of which, architecture is a part. How do we understand the constituents of ‘experience’ (towards people and space) created in this context? The key ingredient is wholesomeness and the need to think about a response (social or spatial) as a set of relationships. Simply put, the need is to think about everything that may lead to sustenance of life rather than the individual alone. This means to be aware of the influence of culture or history or past or memory to determine our ‘actions’. It should also be elaborated here for the sake of clarity, that perceptions of people, notions of privacy and the community, aspects of hierarchy, gender relations, biases, belief systems, myths were also very different from the way of life we experience in urban India nowadays. In a nutshell, the entire perception of social reality (and therefore spatial perception) was different. Thus, thought might not have been purely rational – rather, the understanding of local history, evolution of culture or memory may have tended to make our experience towards ourselves and architecture emotional/ intuitive/ experiential/ philosophical. And in delving in such thought processes, the architecture that we may have created, may have expressed the Intangible and the Profound. Does this make ‘thought’ too much burdensome by the consideration of the Past? Does this stifle newness and creativity? Does this retard ‘change’ or progress?  What constitutes ‘development’? Such questions are bound to occur and each of us is required to explore these questions.

In ‘modern’ rational perspective, such integrated approach of thinking about the interrelationship of different systems for generating an appropriate response may seem challenging to many of us, especially in the era of acute shortage of time and super specialization of domains of knowledge. It will be worthwhile to then ponder about what is exactly creating the so called “complex” contemporary situation?  Why is everything perceived to be complicated and what is the cause of such complexities and contradictions? The answer may lie in the nature of thought itself. The nature of thought creates the experience of reality. It will be pertinent to ask ourselves, how are we changing and what kinds of realities and relationships we seem to create for us, in the process?

Let’s try to understand the above question by contrasting the above experience with what I observe today, because of rise in our contact with virtual reality and increasing interface of digitization.

Let me summarize what most of us might be experiencing in contemporary situations in our actions, thoughts, workplaces, relationships and other dimensions of our lives:

The digital media and the internet seem to have exposed the phenomenal ‘alternatives’ of realities of existences across the globe and the ‘choices’ one requires to make to propose a line of action. Not that we were not aware of the diversity around us before, it has now been made very explicit. Climatically, geographically, socially, culturally, religiously, technologically, the globe is extremely diverse. Thus, contextual understanding of local realities is bound to be extremely different. The challenge ahead of us is to understand and internalize this diversity, or understand it in terms of interrelationships/ interdependence. The aspect of understanding ‘place’ and ‘people’ is bound to take time. Shortage of time to assimilate and condense such diverse expressions of realities can cause gross errors in formulating responses and can lead to disastrous spatial responses. There seems to be blatant mass copying of ideas and cutting + pasting of forms + visual aesthetics resulting in architecture being divorced from contextual expressions. We seem to be disconnected with what needs to be done. The disconnection is within us, it is amongst people and it is with contextual understanding of place. Let’s understand the factors of this disconnect:

1.       Speed: In the rush for delivering outputs (because of increasing competition) and continuous demand entrusted by users on designers for micro planning and micro adjustments (related to countless options generated by software by tweaking a set of variables), we do not seem to give sufficient time to digest external data and tap into our own repository of intuition/ knowledge/ wisdom. This is terrible, for how can architecture ever be profound, if It is not dealt with due respect? Not digesting contextual social and/or cultural meanings of places, because of shortage of time, results in extremely shallow process of creation and is just restricted to an exercise of enclosure - making with an icing over a box kind of an approach.

2.       Virtual contact: The disconnect is further enhanced by being engrossed 24X7 in digital virtual world and by constant personal consumption of virtual vocabulary of images and sounds.  Fast, fragmented, hyper, visually loaded, scattered thoughts, sense of instant consumption are some of the experiences that are getting generated in us. However, it is a fundamental need in our designing process to peel off the superficial information and realize the fundamental nature of a situation. This means to ‘empty’ the mind of information jargon and to understand fundamental relationships that exist in Nature. In doing so, we start to understand what constitutes an appropriate response. The overemphasis on being in touch with virtual world also takes us away from experiencing ‘real-world’ incidences of interacting with people; understanding effects of climate on people and architecture; understanding the use of spaces by observing, participating and experiencing; forming meaningful dialogues and relationships and so on. Indian life cannot be contained in a virtual world – it has to be lived by active participation in all forms of art, festivals, cultural and social events, so as to be a better designer. Indian life is not streamlined and organized and uniform like the developed world. It is messy, chaotic, noisy, diverse, extreme, contradictory, hopeful and depressing at the same time. It has a rich (and burdensome Past) and at the same time the youngest aspiration population existing side – by –side. Can we ignore this reality at the cost of catering to only a virtual diet of places and people?

3.       Too much emphasis on the rational: Reality has many dimensions - rationality being only one of them. In using the tool of digitization and as more and more of our daily life processes get controlled by the digital environment, we end up getting ‘ordered’ and ‘efficient’ like a machine. People and processes are spoken of only as resources to be exploited or consumed. The increasing micro analysis of each and every fraction of our processes (enhanced again by software) leaves lesser and lesser room for spontaneity and novel ideas. In the process of rationalizing everything, we lose out on the ‘fun’. We tend to become unemotional, extremely predictable, non spontaneous, unnecessarily aggressive, hyper, anxious, impatient, ego centric, noisy and so on. The ‘subtleness and the tranquility’ contained in gestures, body language, and lived experiences is sadly forgotten. At stake is our own experience of reality. Should architecture also tend to be aggressive, non spontaneous, and ignore the intimate gestures of human experiences? Should we forget the wonderful experiences of seeing the morning Sun, a cool breeze or the fragrance of agarbatti or the taste of zunka bhakar? Have we forgotten to be silent and just observe with a peaceful mind what happens around us? Can architecture hope to create such quality of tranquil spaces? Can architecture create positive feelings or mood? It is important to be aware of what we are thinking and what is determining our thoughts.

4.       Compartmentalized thinking: This is a complex phenomenon and the roots lie in over emphasis on rational approaches, digitization and the birth of super specialization in different fields of knowledge. The ‘fragment’ of the phenomenon is mistakenly considered as the ‘whole’ and this tendency indicates lack of time to understand a phenomenon. The fragmented thinking considers you and me as being separate, the activity, space, and anything that comes within architecture as separate. Addressing one fragment is not enough – its effects on others are important to be considered to curtail haphazard responses. Are we giving ourselves sufficient time to know these relationships between fragments? A highly fragmented approach may not be able to discover the influences of culture, history, ecology and time on creating profound experiences. 

I feel what is at stake is the understanding of ‘Time’ and by extension – spirit of place. At stake is the web of inter relationships that create life. At stake are matters related with ecology, culture, memory and intimate experiences. 

Can we reconnect with ourselves by pausing? Can we hope to slow down our pace of life and rediscover the wonder of Time? 

It is upto us.

Niranjan Garde

References:

Garde, N. (2016). Introspection. Architecture + Design, 33(03)