by LJ Frank
Except for personal experiences there’s nothing new under the sun. Different contexts. My primitive ancestry is rooted in stardust. The soil beneath my feet offers an equilibrium in my evolution though the footing is never equal between individuals.
The soil is my connection with the universe for which my body will inevitably return. The wiring in my brain is not unlike the connective linkages in the universe. Everything in the cosmos contains strands and places of perceived peacefulness and violent, explosive turbulence. Was there an Om like sound in the beginning? Perhaps someday I may find out. Then again.
The physical attachment to the dust that I stand on and am part of is subconsciously quite deep. Mentally deeper than the physical. My theory is that the universe itself has a subconsciousness or memory in its chemical makeup. It’s not a new idea except in my head.
The architecture of my existence is in many ways like a building structure. It may appear minimalist on the surface but is complex in detail. Like the architect that designs a building and the contractors that built it, someday the building will reach its final stage of deterioration and all will return to the soil.
I knew a child in a large city who resided in a building where she lived out her brief life. The building was not many years older than her, after her death, when it was torn down for financial reasons that was linked to politics. And the question in later years was debated whether the child or building ever existed. Records were kept. Otherwise, no one would have paid attention. That’s the nature of life itself. Paying attention before returning to the soil. Statistical data and anecdotal information can be misleading, and at times purposefully so.
And like the person passing away the buildings and relationships between the people and their residence or workplace or whatever, eventually become a memory and memories may be reviewed over time as more knowledge and experience is accumulated. And memories are revised. The subconscious is revised. It’s revised to fit within the context of the current day’s amended cultural and educational metabolism, political persuasions, and intellectual orientations.
Another year just passed; attachments change. Last year consists now of documents and archives and the people’s memories. They are part of a past universe. And like our buildings we too become a passerby as history is rewritten and the language and vocabulary of that original context is never quite as lucid as before even when recorded and archived and perceived as such. Remembrance is selective even among the participants who experienced the same event. Lies can turn history upside down though misinformation and disinformation.
Through our subconscious we all have attachments to place(s) that involves a physical and emotional architecture.
Modern office buildings are easily forgettable but not so with architecture that probes and adjusts the meaning of life itself, be it a church, cathedral, temple, synagogue, museum. pyramid, certain buildings on an academic or scientific campus, and military/government or other stylized facility, stadiums (memorable as they serve as a metaphor for warfare between opposing sides/enemies and are designed for entertainment) and then there’s the extremes in housing from luxury to impoverished…which all in turn affects the human subconsciousness and consciousness of who I am and how will I fit in or be received or respected by other humans and my own dignity and sense of self-worth.
And, both within and exterior to the context of a plague or pandemic the use of electronic architecture dominates my life and the ubiquitous communications apparatus, and computer become an architectural attachment. And for some workers more is accomplished with less expense on vehicles and the energy required to operate them. For some they conduct their business from their personal vehicles, so the design of those vehicles begins to be reshaped to accommodate the different attachments and functions. Form and function are a blending.
Attachments may become disposable. For the subconscious to become disposable through manipulation of information and knowledge is a dangerous path for humanity to proceed. Behavior modification begins in the environs of our subconscious.
The sentiments we had with older architectural designs retain a nostalgia. And even the nostalgia may be revised …which in turn affects our brain and what it perceives. The brain is elastic and adapts as it’s susceptible to the vocabulary and propaganda of the world in which it lives.
Architecture has shaped our subconsciousness and our attachments to our planet and universe. Self-disclosure and other awareness are the subconsciousness’ search for clarity of who and what we are and will be, knowing we will all return to dust with the lingering metaphysically inspired query of whether energy itself has a form of subconsciousness that we could interpret as – memory.
