Weak material: light, time, location and the stuff of architecture

In the 1987 essay Weak Architecture the Spanish architectural theorist Ignasi de Sola-Morales asked the question “what role is accorded to architecture in the aesthetic system of contemporary weak thought?”(de Sola-Morales, 1996 [1987], p. 57). Given the increasing contemporary influence of weak ontology (thought) within the discipline of philosophy and the resulting spill over into architectural theory, this thesis asks a similar question repositioned from the viewpoint of the designer: What impact does the philosophy of Weak Ontology have on the design of contemporary architecture? By questioning the objective relationship between person and architecture (the ontological and the ontic), the plurality and incompleteness of architectural experience must be addressed. The project uses the relationship of light and architecture to reevaluate three foundational architectural elements: its materiality, its linear existence in time, and its fixed location. The role of light within architecture becomes the focus not of the investigation itself, but a demonstration of the accumulative and pluralized influences that overlay the Euclidean underpinnings of architectural tectonics.

Weak material: light, time, location and the stuff of architecture

In the 1987 essay Weak Architecture the Spanish architectural theorist Ignasi de Sola-Morales asked the question “what role is accorded to architecture in the aesthetic system of contemporary weak thought?”(de Sola-Morales, 1996 [1987], p. 57). Given the increasing contemporary influence of weak ontology (thought) within the discipline of philosophy and the resulting spill over into architectural theory, this thesis asks a similar question repositioned from the viewpoint of the designer: What impact does the philosophy of Weak Ontology have on the design of contemporary architecture? By questioning the objective relationship between person and architecture (the ontological and the ontic), the plurality and incompleteness of architectural experience must be addressed. The project uses the relationship of light and architecture to reevaluate three foundational architectural elements: its materiality, its linear existence in time, and its fixed location. The role of light within architecture becomes the focus not of the investigation itself, but a demonstration of the accumulative and pluralized influences that overlay the Euclidean underpinnings of architectural tectonics.

Ontology learning algorithm using weak functions

Ontology is widely used in information retrieval, image processing and other various disciplines. This article discusses how to use machine learning approach to solve the most essential similarity calculation problem in multi-dividing ontology setting. The ontology function is regarded as a combination of several weak ontology functions, and the optimal ontology function is obtained by an iterative algorithm. In addition, the performance of the algorithm is analyzed from a theoretical point of view by statistical methods, and several results are obtained.

Media i geopolityki późnej nowoczesności. Naturalizacja i nostalgia jako horyzont wspólnot wyobrażonych.

Contemporary media organize exchange by means of Internet, bridges, convergences, double addressing… The result is overproduction of hybrids with mixed weak ontology and inclusion of digital augments into living space. Implementation of technology makes people face a change and requires domestication of innovations and subsequent products of the language of mathematics. Adaptation is slower than the technological change. What counts is an actual range of transformations and cultural content. It is about proxemic schemes characteristic of numerical media and schemes according to which media space is perceived, presented, understood and created. Experiencing a place and recording human reactions to a digital place lead to geopoetics. Virtual geographies and patterns of home and route… repeated by media result in questions about imagined communities and content which is able to integrate them nowadays. Two strategies of being-in-the-world dominate in late modernity: naturalization and nostalgia. In the context of them people still live in the horizon of home and of encountering the others, and a global culture still remains a question of time.

Is Charles Taylor (Still) a Weak Ontologist?

In this paper, I critically discuss Charles Taylor’s employment of the concept of ontology by shining a spotlight on a shift in emphasis from an anthropocentric to a non-anthropocentric viewpoint in his more recent writings on ontology. I also argue that Stephen White’s characterization of Taylor’s ‘weak’ ontology, while revealing, only partly explains Taylor’s position, as White’s interpretation leaves no room for the metaphysical thrust in Taylor’s thought. Drawing attention to a Taylor left out of White’s Taylor, I ultimately seek to show why Taylor’s distinctive mode of argumentation is not consonant with White’s weak-ontological approach.