Deviant Theory
- Publisher:
- Routledge
- Publication Type:
- Chapter
- Citation:
- The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design, 2019, 1, pp. 92 - 110
- Issue Date:
- 2019
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In one short passage, Milan Kundera summarizes how theory, using text as a translational medium, evacuates the violence of action. The scenario outlined by Kundera involves a somewhat antiquated transaction where this theoretical translation occurs at a time sufficiently distant from the real, lived experience. This temporal spacing is important because text, operating as a basis of and for judgment, achieves the clean translation of an experience into an historical event. It is significant that the historical event is a type of formalized or ritualized ‘occurrence.’ The categorical labeling accompanying the event is essential in transforming a specific experience into a type or general instance. It matters little if this rationalization of experience operates retrospectively to assess actions, or prophetically, to explain contemporary circumstances. In both instances, this typology of events creates meaning, and thus judgment, to organize what are often experientially inexplicable incidents. The ultimate purpose of this typological rationalization is to deprive action of its bloodiness. This relationship between action and interpretation provides a useful framework to examine the nature of exchange seen in the ideation and production of architectural objects
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