ASSOCIATIVE MEMORY AND SUBCONSCIOUS STRATEGIES THAT AID THE PROCESS
OF DESIGN
The single functioning unit of the human body that consists
of nearly 11-13 billions of neurons is the brain. The brain is what controls the functioning of
every move of the human body and the neurons are what pass the signals required
to carry out its functioning. Thus, for a human being the brain is what helps
it distinguish colours, understand patterns and systems, communicate through
languages and also produce the required reactionary actions to all of these
intangible characteristics of the human commune. The philosopher Hippocrates has said: "Men ought to know that from
nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and
sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations." These are all the
tangible and subjective aspects that the brain is able to process and exercise
actions to and forms the second attribute of the brain. The third and probably
the most important attribute of the functioning of the brain is its ability to
hold Memory. The brain is the only part in the human body that functions from
the very birth of the individual, it starts drawing associations, conclusions,
amalgamations, and holds them all due to this memory. Therefore, what the study
of the brain reveals is that man is able to respond to tangible emotions,
process and create associations and derive his own conclusions and observations
from it and use his memory to draw references in a non-linear and associative
manner.
Architecture is a medium that engages all the senses of the
human body. What is however the most prominent of all these senses is the
Visual. We look at the built form around us, analyse its physical attributes
and that defines its architecture for us. The second sense that this branch of
art explores is that of Experience. The feeling that someone gets while at home
is very different from what he gets in his office. This feeling may be
different for different individuals. Why is it so? Well that is what gives us
an idea that Architecture of a space is deeply linked to the working of the
brain and its Attributes- those explained in the previous paragraph. Since the
behaviour of memory inherent to a person draws references from his past and
consistently toggles with the idea of planning of a future it is safe to
conclude that the brain functions in a non-linear manner. Hence through the
following paragraphs I would try to explain the Rationale in which the brain
works while defining, designing or critiquing the Architecture of a space.
These Chapters – as I may like to call them – are independent approaches
towards the analysis of a single process that is followed to attain the
eventual Design of a specific built form. However, since the process of
building in itself is linear and so, these Chapters place themselves in a
particular order and within their functioning associate and disassociate to
each other.
Chapter 1 - Word Associations.
Halbwachs writes in La Memoire Collective: “When a group is
introduced into a part of space, it transforms it to its image. But at the same
time it adapts itself to a certain material things, which resist it. It
encloses itself in the framework that it has constructed. The image of the
exterior environment and the stable relationships that it maintains with it
pass into the realm of the idea that it has of itself.” Through this it can be
said that as man grows, he starts building his own associations,
understandings, comfort zones and conclusions due to every single thing he
reads, writes, hears and speaks about. For example, as an infant, if he sees a
certain style of walking, talking, laughing of the people around him, he
derives from them, and aptly copies them. This not only makes him one of those
who are around him but also starts defining his own character. His responses
are defined even by the slightest hint of data supplied to him. When as a
child, one is made scared of the existence of spirits that would condemn a
person on the basis of his/her behaviour, as he/she grows the notions of good and
evil are then directly embedded in them and helps that person to take decisions
accordingly. So, when posed with a certain word or sentence it is inevitable
for a person to start analysing, determining and reinterpreting its Meaning
according to what it means to him. It can be said, that every word Means
differently to each individual. Now with this Meaning, the associations that
are drawn within the subconscious end up building something. In case of
Architecture, It may be a Built form. For me, when someone says Pergolas, I
immediately imagine a continuous grid of concrete members, this imagery further
develops into an envelope of grids, which further develops into the sharp edges
of a mesh, into the hands of a monster and so on and so forth. This process of
imagery arises from the fact that when I was a kid, I was entwined in a net
once and was unable to escape until my mother freed me. The explanation to the
sequencing of this imagery might sound irrelevant and irrational to many. And
that is agreeable because someone else might not have been through the same
experience in a similar way. In Fact, they might create different associations
and lead themselves to different imageries. So how does this help while
designing? When faced with a word the mind now starts to draw a sequence of
imagery for those words, relates them back to the hidden/revealed associations
held in memory and after the trip eventually formulates the idea of a spatial
understanding.
Chapter 2 – The Sculpture
As part of the Syllabus in English literature in my
schooling, I once had come across a story which was about a Sculptor name
Jaikishan. The Story described Jaikishan to be a gifted sculptor who would sculpt
out immensely detailed and beautiful idols of Lord Krishna. In one of his encounters
with an enthusiastic nemesis of his he asks him “How do you end up inventing
from this mere blob of clay forms of Krishna and detail them so immaculately?”
To which Jaikishan Replies “I do not invent anything. I just Discover. The
sculpture is right there within that blob. I just discover the right places to
sculpt.”
Where word Associations lead an individual to details of
form, the idea of the constructed sculpture helps to derive the overall form.
Due to immense amount of exposure to built form, theoretical inferences and
associative memories, any individual, if put forth with a program
subconsciously builds a building. This building exists within the subconscious
and the brain periodically sends signals and impulses on the character of this
built form. It is difficult for a person to understand and decode these signals
and that is where the process of formal training of Architecture comes in.
Architecture schools often propagate a mandate for a Process. The process in
this case, means the approach one needs to follow to attain that built form.
Each school moulds the students approach (Process) and helps him/her develop it
further. The structure of this process is again different for different
individuals and thus the Sculpture – or the built form attained is different.
The Process is thus, nothing but Sculpting out the blob of clay (in this case,
making the subconscious, conscious) and eventually revealing the Sculpture.
That form which already exists in that blob of clay.
Chapter 3 - The Fissure
The fissure is perhaps the most interesting and unpredictable
attribute in existence. Firstly, I would like to define what a Fissure is. A
Fissure is simply a break. Henri Lefevre states in his essays on Everyday life
that, when a person embarks on a journey of everyday life, at first it is
interesting, it develops further into a cycle, which after a while becomes
monotonous and boring. Man gets used to this monotony and is somehow addicted
to it, however, after a while feels a desperate need to break this monotony.
And hence introduces festivals, functions into his everyday life, which make
his life interesting and break the monotony. After these breaks or Fissures as
he may call them, Man resumes his everyday life routine, now rejuvenated only
for it to become monotonous and boring again where another fissure is
introduced. These Fissures may not just be man-made, they may be natural as
well for e.g. calamities like floods, droughts and even simple changes in
weather and thus this cycle of everyday life and Fissures continues. Here also,
it is important to notice, how the introduction, execution and effect of a
fissure consists of the involvement of all the three attributes of the Brain.
In case of Architectural Process, A fissure is introduced
when within a process an individual is introduced to something which breaks his
stream of thinking either through the fusion of another individuals’ formal
ideas in person or through written literature or graphics. The fissure now
creates a fusion in the brain of the individual of his own ideas and notions to
those of this other individual. It leads to new Word Associations, new
additions and subtractions to the Sculpture and thus enriching the eventual
built form. The Fissure thus infuses a sense of instability into the process
and creates a flux of non-linear motion into thinking. The fissure is thus in a
unique way the basis of associative memory at a micro level as it primarily
leads to creation of memory links and associations and at a macro level aids
the process of design.
Chapter 4 - The Final Body
Leibniz says that it is necessary for a space to be occupied.
What then occupies this space? A body, not bodies in general, nor corporeality,
a body capable of indicating a direction by a gesture, of defining rotation by
turning around, of demarcating and orienting space.
This 4th aspect that emerges from the attempt to
understanding this theory of the functioning of the brain describes its
relation to its sole container, the body. The brain may be the commander or the
instructor of the actions and reactions of the body but the body is the formal
existence that bears the residual of its actions or reciprocal of its
reactions. This body is thus the receiver of the existence of its space. The
body thus receives signals from the space in which it dwells and these signals
now amalgamate all the three chapters that I have spoken of earlier. It can be
said that the existence of space is because of its body, just like the meaning
of a word is because of what it is meant to a particular person. The tectonics
of spatial understanding now help one to look back at the creation of the work
and critique it. Hence, the response to each built form is also extremely
different and varied from person to person. The symmetries, axes or the scale
of a spaces and its experiential potential to the liking of one person may be
claustrophobic to another. This is what makes the brain. The brain is thus
nothing but a slave of the many associations it has developed over the period
of its existence and the sculptures it has braved through and at its only
disposal is the body which holds it.
-Chiraag S. Punjabi
Roll no. 348
K.R.V.I.A.
References: Architecture of the city – Aldo Rossi, The
Production of Space – Henri Lefevre, Terrorism and Everyday life – Henri Lefevre, www.wikipedia.com, Balbharati – Std VI.
