Modern position of the Diagram (pg.

59)
INMATE/PRISONER
(constantly conscious /
permanently visible)

POWER FIGURE

Panopticon prison

Jeremy Bentham - The works of Jeremy Bentham vol. IV, 172-3

A prisoner, in his cell, kneeling at prayer before the central inspection tower.
N. Harou-Romain, Plan for a penitentiary, 1840. From: Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish.

Idea originates from Discipline & Punish by Michael Foucault

Panopticon - a generalizable model of functioning ... it is a diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form. - Foucault
Is a machine which... induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.
- Foucault
Foucaults diagram functions as an embedded entity... separate yet indissociable from the concrete work-event. It animates in which it
resides. - Kwinter
generalizable model - able to serve other functions/programmes where similar needs for the power are needed. i.e hospitals, barracks, schools
ideal form - the hierarchy of the diagram seem to result in a specific physical form
embedded entity - the effects of the diagram and its physical existence are intrinsically tied

Modern position of the Diagram (pg.59)

Deleuze isolated the diagram from their concrete events via a phenomenon called abstract machines. - Kwinter
Conceptually and ontologically separate from material reality, but are fully functinoning machines. - Kwinter
Abstract machines are organized shaping forces, micro-morphological regimes.
REALITY

AB

ST

sem RAC
T
b
dep lage, MA
loy org CH
me ani
s IN
nt,
etc ation, E
)

(as

RAW MATTER

(something in a state
of disorder)

CO

PO

SI

TI

ON

AL

EV

EN

TS

OBJECTS /
COMPLEXES
(ordered)

machine - agencies of assemblage, organisation, and deployment

morphology - a study of structure or form

Modern position of the Diagram (pg.59)

They (abstract machines) are part of larger assemblages through which they communicate as if across a continuum.
Events from one place transfer their effects to other places and scales.
Forms, things and objects are mere chimeras of these underlying processes!
- Kwinter

continuum - from a relativistic view, it is a coherent whole (field?) characterized as a collection, sequence, or progression of values or elements varying by small degrees of changes
chimera - dream, fantasy, delusion. or an optical consequence of something else.

Modern position of the Diagram (pg.59)

Approaching the incorporeal is a major challenge of contemporary design practice.
Used to be innocent times where this was done with little self conscious and brilliance (does it mean designers today are too self conscious?)
Eisenman, Fuller, Moholy Nagy, constructivists, Kubrick, etc... had clear intuition of the interstitial space they had to occupy as diagrammatists.
It is a space of synthesis, integration and catastrophe... where forms are launched and filtered, not made.
Genotypic diagrammatism underlying phenotypic/formal expressions as mechanistic genetic approach to design:

genotype
(rudimentary instructions)

(A)

adenine

(G)

guanine

intermediary space
(regulatory processes)

phenotype
(beautiful shapes and their
concatenations)

(C)

cytosine

(T)

thymine

Kwinter insists that the diagram lies here, between

the space of the two, in a wild field of cybernetic
interactions.

incorporeal - not having material existence

synthesis - the combination of components or elements to form a connected whole
catastrophe - (in a drama) the point which introduces the close or conclusion / the height of a play. Kwinter might be suggesting that the Diagram is the height / peak of form generation?
cybernetics - of regulatory pressures, channels and control loops (based on Deleuzes term actualization which is taken from Bergson)

Modern position of the Diagram (pg.60)

The sciences and cybernetics provide the understanding of diagram... as dynamic, algorithmic nature.
Three phenomena of Cybernetics :
integration :

c
a
b

o
lo

system of
correlation and
exchanges

world

ground
(threat)

n
ou

/ discontinu
i ty

the
ith

y
da r

d
e
e

organization :

occurence of patterns from internal controls... through sequenced events

...that give rise to both differentiation and stability

coordination :

smooth and graceful transitions between variety of states..

....exhibiting coherent behaviours / rhythmic morphology

Cybernetic models operate throught the flow of time and duration.

Hence the diagrams effects or materiality can only be felt through time.

...every moment represents a succesive individuation-differentiation of matter from the state that preceded it...
...everything... its qualities, its effects, its structures may be apprehended in space... but in time, and only in time, do matter and world reveal themselves...

- Kwinter

photography as a tool to freeze sections of time, and thus form.

a single human cell

figure ground drawing of manhattan, nyc

tissue formation from congregation

of multiple cells

ever shifting delineation of national boundaries

brazilian favela

solar system in motion

mud-brick-palm house in Ghadames, Libya.

interaction of celestial bodies in the galactic scale

...active and flexible... in continual communications with the ground through feedback loops... throwing out boundaries of order...
...occurence of patterns from internal controls... through sequenced events... that give rise to both differentiation and stability....
...smooth and graceful transitions between variety of states... exhibiting coherent behaviours / rhythmic morphology

visible observations of cybernetic models of integration, organization and coordination in the natural world

- Kwinter

Modern position of the Diagram (pg.59)