Jordi Vivaldi

In experimental architecture and during the last decade, second-order cybernetic systems (SOCA) have been broadly explored. Under this umbrella, the implementation of robotics and machine learning in recent experimental projects has impacted academia through new fabrication strategies, new design methods and new adaptive devices. This lecture presents a theoretical approach to the aesthetic side of this impact. In particular, it argues that SOCA re-articulates Benjamin’s concept of “distracted perception” through three structural principles of Surrealism: the emphasis of presentation over representation; the centrality of the notion of automatism; and the simultaneous management of closeness and distance. Each alignment is doubly articulated. First it establishes a comparison between Surrealist artwork from the first half of the 20th century and three SOCA projects in which the notion of autonomy and ubiquity are crucial. Second, it evaluates the impact on Benjamin’s notion of “distracted perception”. The argument concludes that the Surrealist aesthetic structures analysed in SOCA differ from traditional Surrealism in the replacement of an inner and unconscious other by an outer and algorithmic other. Its presence simultaneously expands and contracts Benjamin’s architectural understanding of “distracted perception”, a double movement whose perception paradoxically occurs under the single framework of Benjamin’s haptic vision.