The document summarizes key ideas from several sources related to communication, language, and human/non-human expression. It discusses Stanley Kubrick's film "The Shining" and how it explores containment and danger. It also discusses Robert Smithson's land art piece "Sixth Mirror Displacement" and how it brings the sky down to earth, metaphorically opening up the earth. The document also summarizes the author's own film "The Abyss" and how it questions human presence and captures implications of further reality through camera techniques. Key theorists discussed include Gille Deleuze and his concept of non-human expressivity, as well as Emile Durkheim's view of religion as an expression of social forces and

1. The earth Is an Abyss
Ahmed Mohtaseb
Pratt Institute School of Architecture
Degree project booklet submission
Dan Bucsescu / Marc Schaut
ARCH 484p.03/.04
11.20.2007

2. Table of contents
The overall purpose of the titles and subtitles of each chapter is to provide a frame for the reader
to reference in reading the pages that precede. The chapters also suggest a turnpoint in the thinking,
and making process. Inspired by contemporary cinematographic techniques in direction, shooting and
editing, This bookelt is presented linearly in that its chapters follow a structured outline. The Subtitles
of each chapter, however suggest a non-linearity in that the concepts may apprear in previous or
preceding paragraphs. This ‘o -sequencing’ is a product of the thinking process, and naturally of the
revision process in writting (or for lm’s sake editing). Once recorgnized, the o -sequencing was
embraced, and therefore controlled so as to create total coherence. Ironically, the Thesis of this book is
inspired by the lack of total coherence that terminologies create.
I. Precis - Re-Appearearance
Within this short chapter is the thesis of the project. The thesis of the project is the main state-
ment which will re-appear in some paragraphs of later chapters.
II. Genealogies - Questioning Supportation
Within Genealogies are the supporting precedents, the responses which turn into precedents,
common initiative questions, and the responses which turn into questions. In every response that
attempts to ground any of the immaterial ideas inherent within the precedents, a branching idea is
given birth. With this realization, the term and method Replacement is thus given birth.
III. Performative Techniques - Replacementation
Replacemention is the perfomative technique of choice. In literature, literary devices are tech-
niques that may be used in the creation of a story, such as metaphore. In Architectural design, Perfor-
mative techniques are metaphorically literary devices, and Replacemntation is metaphorically a meta-
phore. In literal terms, it may mean the replacement of a decaying older structure with a new one. in
gurative terms, idealogies.
This Chapter attempts to track the motion of an idea, and begins to materialize its presence in
diagrammatic form.
IV. Programmatic Frame - Intervention
This chapter will explore the dynamics of an architectural intervention. It will attempt to chal-
lenge the symbollic status a certain building type may have within a community. It is the look of a
building as an object that anticipates human inhabitation, and the look of human habitation in the
presence of the object.
V. Field of Operations -Placement
Once an idea is materialized it exists in space. In architectural terms, the space that an object
exists in is site. within this chapter, a speci c locus is identi ed, and explored in depth. Questions of
placement as replacement and of impact on location are asked.
page 1

3. I. Precis
Of all living organisms on the planet earth, the human being is by far the most complicated. What brings irony
to the above fact is that human beings are the only living things on earth able to comprehend complication. It is partly
the duty of a human being to make sense of not only human complication, but also those other complications found
in every aspect of the world and beyond. Acadameia is filled with different approaches of clarification, each focusing
on a different complication, wheather it be human or non. Education is that which helps a human being fulfill his duties,
and simulateneously that which creates new complications . While communication and interaction is not specific to
human beings, it can only be found patterened and in organized form among human beings. Communication is that
which attempts to clarify complication; perhaps it is that which contributes to it.
COMMUNICATION- the gift given to us from education for the
purpose of education and the prepetuation of education.
My thesis will emphasise the way we learn about ourselves and the world around us. It simultaneously will
attempt to challenge the way human and non-human communication is understood. Language is a structured form of
human expression that attempts to answer the uanswered questions of existence. Answers often are found, however
may take the form of questions, which open up series of questions that may or may not be answered. My thesis will
attempt to track motions of arising ideas, questions, and the methods used in the field of science
SCIENCE - the study of science differes from other fields
in its method of aquiring information. in a restrictive sense,
the “scienctific method” refers to a systematic practice, as well as
to the organized body of knowedge gained through research.
Science is of interest in this thesis precisesly due to the “Restriction” its folowers must undergo. The scientific
method is a product of the structuring of ideas. It may also be argued that the scientific method is a metaphor for the
structuring of ideas which is a product of language. This Thesis will attempt not the break down of the restricted and
structured practices of science. It will rather incorporate into the pedagogy a nonhuman method, which is to say a
non-human structure.
INVOCATION - An act of utter communication. The intersections
and coexistence of several entities.
The question of how a nonhuman method can be accomplished by a human is essential to this thesis. For this,
a look at Deleuze’s theory of Non-human Expressivity, and at Malinouski‘s Functionalism in “Magic, Science and Reli-
gion,” will prove to be equally vital. This thesis is the interdisciplinary marriage of two methods of communication.
2
page 1

4. II. genealogies
“The Shining” by Stanley Kubric
The idea of the container is obviously a motif in the shining
which Kubrick translates architecturally. One example is
manifested in the scene where Wendy locks her husband
Jack in the kitchen cabinet to contain the danger he has
increasingly become to her and her son Danny. In this scene,
Kubric plays with the paradox of containing danger while
simultaneously being contained from danger. The audi-
ence's understanding of the person contained once Wendy
securely locks Jack in the cabinet is suddenly switched when
Jack reveals to Wendy what he has done to the snow cat and
the radio. From that moment on, the crushing feeling of
claustrophobia that is caused by the monstrous architecture of the Overlook hotel is only intensi ed. Kubric also introduces the
idea of correction to the original script. The idea that a persons thought can change, or be changed by architecture.
“Sixth Mirror Displacement” by Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson is an American installation artist is famous
for his land art. One of the pieces he is famous for is entitled
“The Sixth Mirror Displacement” and is a part of a larger
series entitled “The Yucutan Mirror Displacements.” In this
installation, Smithson places fragments of mirrors at on
sand-scapes and photographs the sky re ections that
“become part of the ground.” for Smithson the act of bring-
ing the sky down to earth is metaphorically the opening of
the earth. “Smithsons concious awareness of the earth as a
dangerous maternal image is clear when he refers tio the
earth beneath his overturned rock as ‘nameess slime, raw
roots, abyss, a damp cosmos of fungas and mold.” The opening of the earth allows one to enter in to the otherwise structurally
sound earth, and begin an exploration. The earth is what we are contained from, the mirrors help us escape by bringing the
endless sky to the ground, but for Robert Smithson, the mirrors are simply teasing mirages, because one can not really fall into a
mirror. “ the artist redirects in his own words “The Earth is an abyss.” He eplores the dissatisfactions of escaping into the unknown.
“The Abyss” by Ahmed Mohtaseb
In my Film quot;The Abyss,quot; The camera puts to use fore-
ground close-ups to capture what is otherwise 'over-
looked.' Implications of a further reality and of non human
experssivity is also captured in mid-ground and back-
gound shots within those close-ups. Light is a mirage, it
creates space that isn't really there. Light fools a lost
hiker into thinking there is a way out. It may also fool an
observer into thinking something may be seen better in
light. Nature's language affords a walker the opportunity
to create shelter as in the tent which is supported by the
fallen tree. Vision is constantly interrupted by thought, which is made up of Human Language. The Film also question
human presence in the woods.
page 3

5. Sonic - level 1
un-satisfying
start
escape
un-satisfying
un-escape
+ 1 l i fe
oxygen
st at ion
???
???
+ 1 l i fe
Dynamics of an Escape
Robert Smithson
In an attempt at understanding Robert Smithson’s meaning with his quote
“ The Earth is an Abyss,” a look at Sonic the Videogame proved necessary. The Sixth
Mirror Displacement created a seem in the structurally sound surface of the earth. It
allows an escaper to enter the earth’s inside, and therefore become part of its mean-
ing. The Abyss is a place lled with unknowns. For Robert Smithson, there is no such
satisfaction in an escape, but the attempt allows him to experience
what previously was not available to him. He simultaneously
becomes part of the world. One of the goals this thesis attempts to
achieve is to provide di erent meanings of satisfaction by providing
education

6. Gille Deleuze
Non-Human Expressivity
Gille Deleuze argues that in the absence of terminology, one is
able to comprehend the expressions of the non-human world
A Thousand Plateaus -Geology of Morals
-Postulates of Linguistics
Non-Human expressivity is the theory developed by Gille Deleuze in his book “A Thousand Plateus,. In the excerpt entitled
”Who does the Earth Think it is - The Geology of Morals, Deleuze talks about the earth’s ability to express it self. He uses examples
geological examples such as rock formations that express the materials that make it up, and the techtocnic movement of the the
earth’s plate. geology for Deleuze is the begining of non human expressivity. “ The substantial elements may be the same throught-
out a stratum without the substances being the same. The formal relations or bonds may be the same without the forms being he
same. in biochemisty, theere is a unity of compostion of the orfanic stratum de ned a tthe level of materials and energy, substantial
elements. (Deleuze, 45) ”Maps should be made of these things, organic, ecological, and technological maps one can lay out on the
plane consistency. on the other hand, language becomes the new form of expression, or rather the set of formal traits de ning the
new expression in operation throughtout the statum.
Deleuze displayed a deep interest in ethology, which is the science of animal behaviour. He believed that one of the
biggest dangers that human beings can fall into is to live only within the small provincial world of humanity The danger is in
closing ourselves into ourselves, and believeing we were chosen by god to be the way we are, and live in the world and do what
ever we want to it. He urges human beings to become part of a rock, or to have a conversation with a rock. He believes that there is
an innate communicative ability found in all human beings that is taken away in the development stages when human beings
begin to pick up cultural knowledge. there is a sense of “otherness” outside the human world that can only emerge in the absence
of human constructions. Deleuze argues that there is infact a way for human beings to be a part of that “otherness. ”Vocal signs
have temoral linearity , and it is this superlinearity that constitutes their speci c deterritrialisxation and di erenciates them from
fenetic linearit. genetic linearity is above all spatial, even though its segments are constriucted and reproduced in succession.
For Deleuze, the world exists outside the human mind and a ords opportunities that any living thing that exists within it
may take. An example may be a spiders ability to create a web where opportunites for a web may be handed over to the spider.
This thinking, for human beings, is an essential step forward into understanding that the world does not belong to us, and that we
belong to it. It is also essential to think of ourselves as guides of the planet, and not owners.
one of the ideas that may be taken forward is the idea of emergence. In the absence of terminologies, a new set of termi-
nologies emerge.
terminology new terminology
quot;To see is to FORGET the name of the thing one sees”
emergence
Architecture EMERGES in the absence of Language, or in the
birth of a new one (as in the case of the bounding light in quot;The
Abyssquot;). Light is the Architecture of the Abyss, which emerges
only when one is fearful of being stuck.
page 5

7. Berlin Wall
destruction
de
ty
11.09.1989
m
er
oc
“The fall of the Berlin Wall
lib
ra
unleashed forces that
om
ultimately liberated the
cy
freeeee -d
captive peoples of the
Soviet Empire. It tipped
the balance of the
c
balance of power across
a
p
the world toward those
it
advocating democratic,
al
consensual, free maket-
ism
orineted governance, and
away from those advocat-
Thomas Freidman
ing authoritarian rule with
centrally planned econo-
mies”
distruction of wall distruction of communism
or or
construction of democracy construction of democracy
construction
06.16.1961
It can also be said that in the
distruction of architecture, a
counter force emerges, as in the
explosion of democracy in berlin
once the berlin wall came down
in 1989.
Gille Deleuze
emergence

8. Emile Durkheim Emile Durkheim
The Social current...
Durkheim’s theory of religious forces seeks to explain belief in the contagiousness of the sacred. In this, he
demonstrates that the sacred is the expression of social forces. The sacred is that act on the individual means of
these forces and are not intrinsic to the objects or other realities to which they are assigned. However he argues that
the assignment is completely arbitrary. If so, the forces are mobile, and are capable of being replaced, such as the
replacements of any organic things with their o spring.
quot;The man who lead the religious life and have a direct sensation of what is really is object to this way of
regarding it, saying that it does not correspond to their daily experience. In fact they think that the function of
religion is to make us think, to enrich our knowledge nor to add to the conceptions which we come to science.
[Religion] is another origin and another characteristic to aid us to live.quot; Durkheim observes in the Australian Aborigi-
nes the believed function of religion and is able to conclude that religion provides social control, cohesion, and
purpose for the people as well as another means of communication ad gathering for individuals to interact and
rea rm social norms.
Bronislaw Malinowski
Functionalism. Basic need and
Bronislaw Malinowski
Cultural Response
Bronislaw Malinowski’s contribution provides anthropology with a di erent approach and understanding of
culture and religion than that of Durkheim. He makes the distinction of the elements of a culture, but recognizes
their traits as part of an integrated whole, and not isolated. quot;The rst human need, metabolism, refers to the process
of food intake, digestion, the collateral secretions, the absorption of nutritive substances, and rejections of water
matter.quot; (Website, check bookmarks) Culture meets this need by possessing the domains such as how food was
grown, prepared, and consumed, and where food was consumed, etc. these domains are linked and function
together to meet a basic human need- metabolism. He is credited for bringing the idea of functionalism to anthro-
pology, which explains the cultural response to basic human needs. For example-
Cultural Response
Basic Need
1. Metabolism commissariat
Religion
1. Emotional stress
2. Reproduction kinship
Magic
2. Di cult tasks
3. Bodily comforts shelter
Science
3. Organization
4. Safety protection
5. Movement activities
Gille Deleuze
6. Growth Human as Excitable cell...
training
7. Health hygiene
page 7

9. III. Performative Technique
Writing Techniques
Metaphor
Replacement
Brainstorming
Revision
Film Techniques
Non-Linear Editing
Non-Linear Editing
Sociology Techniques
Sociological Perspective
Semantic Di erential
At the arrival of an architec-
tural performative technique, two
main methods come back from the
earlier genealogies. The First comes to
us from Science- the scienti c method.
Sociology in particular is of
interest in its use of the Sociological
perspective. It allows human beings to
be seen as a whole, which is to say as a
single entity. It provides an abstract
view from a distance, and blurs the
detailed interactions that may bring
one back to the surface of the earth.
As an architectural metaphor, the
sociological perspective is the view of
the world from a map. The variations
of line thickness and placement may
suggest circulation, congestion, or lack
there of. In this sense, the diagram on
the left may serve as the replacement
paths of the revision process.
One of the gifts abstraction a ords us is the ability to weave in and out of ideas, while simultaneously abiding by it’s
law. The diagram on the left, as a case, suggests also a sectional quality. This transformation may also extend to its
scale, and meaning.
8
page 1

10. Kubric relies on the minds reconstructive abilities to make
associations between and
SOUND LIGHT
The second method comes to us directly from an interest in lm editing, and screen play writing and
revision. Brain storming is perhaps the method that gives birth to a thesis. In a very literal sense, the process of
revision allows a writer to replace terms, ideas, and in lm’s sake, scenes. As a literary device, metaphor replaces
an idea by way of disguise. The gathering of ideas may take the form of a written outine, or the form of a scattered
web. The former is organized, and universally structured, the latter is chaotic, and seemingly un structured.
In lm, visual metaphors can be used as methods to make associations between two seemingly irrelavent
ideas. In “The Shining,” Kubric relies on the mind’s reconstructive abilities to make associations between sound and
light. The time it takes for the tricycle to make sound between the two di erfent surfaces it rolls on is the same
amount of time that it takes for the camera to pass through the light in a latter scene. These associations prove to
be important in the stories overall coherence. Architeturally, these associations are the structures that maintain the
idea’s soundness.

11. quot;Nostalgiaquot;
Fog in film implies isolation and distance. associations
are made between DISTORTION and MEMORY
Andrea Tarkovsky’s “Nostalgia” uses a similar associative method to that of Kubrics “The Shining.” The Di erence is
in that Takovsky will make associations with a persons memory. Although everyone of us has di erent memories,
one thing we all have in common is that our memories are in the past. The Image that is captured by our mind is a
distorted image that is often very unclear. Tarkovsky uses Fog to distort an image in hopes of making associations
with an audience’s memories of Nostalgia.
The Model below is photographed from several di erent perspetives. though the Volumes never physi-
cally intersect, the di ernt views suggest so. each volume may be space a di erent program, which intersect from
certain vantage points of view.

12. IV. Programatic Frame
In thinking of a program that best ts the accomplished research from the
previous chapters, several building types come to mind. However the aim of this
thesis is to recreate the meaning of edi ce. The rst of the di erent elements that
entail the invention of program is the paths that connect spaces. Cirulation allows
the building to breath. As a metaphor, hallways are the vessels that allow blood to
ow from the organs to the rest of the body. This thesis will aim to invent a new
system for people to ow.
A second element is that of function. A building is often expected to have
purpose and the Space within it anticipates a number of occupants. As an
example, a theatre is not presumed to house one person, similiarly, a bathroom
does not accompate hundreds of people. The activities that occur in a volume may
be challenged and assorted to alter the expected experience.
As a technique, the scienti c method anticipates non-arguable programatic
facilities. However architectural suggestions may impact the process in a positive
manor. Invocation on the other hand does not require a speci c location. for
example, a Mouslim who is not in the vicinity of a mosque, is only required to nd
the direction of east. A place for budhist meditation is de ned by the invocator
himself. “In the Western work, the personality is conceptualized as comprising the
physical body with emotional and mental elds interpenetrating it. Integrating
these three worlds of the Self is the principle of the Will, and Self Consciousness.
The Superconscious level of the mind is the eld in which the human individuality
evolves to achieve ever-higher states of mastery over its vehicles and the powers
inherent in them. This process of spiritual evolution is called initiation in the West,
and constitutes an expansion of the conscient principles together with a new state
of attunement with the Divine Life. The Western Work characterizes major Initia-
tions that culminate in the mastery of Superconscious vehicles.” (George Boyd, 23)
The edi ce is an education facility which will combine the method of science
with that of religion. The crossprogramming of these two seemingly opposing
practices will prove their similarties, and alter their implementations.
page 11

13. 5.1
In diagram 5.1, two types of formal languages are present. One is the orthogonal,
and the other is the diagonal. There are 6 squares that are connected to each other
by parallelograms. Although each square may be sectioned o by the bounding
lines, the diagonal line suggest a connection and may break the boundary of the
sqaure. In plan all of the lines suggest a seperating wall, in section the at lines
suggest a walking surface, and the diagonal lines suggest an elevated circulatory
path.
5.2
inner-connectors
in-connectors out-connectors
5.3
page 12

14. In diagram 5.4, the module’s versatility is determined by the crossing of the
program. In certain cases, a space may be multi-functional. In other cases, a space
must be seperate from the others. The size of the space is also determined by the
maximum number of occupants. The module anticipates further growth as dis-
played in diagram 5.1. The direction of the growth is to be determined on the site
that it will exist in.
Chemisty Courtyard Lecture hall
Labs
Chemisty path
Physics
Labs
Meditation path
Meditation
labs
5.4
In Diagram 5.5, the form “The city is the place of availabilities. It is the place where a
small boy, as he walks through it, may see something that will
begins to take a sectional qual- tell him what he wants to do his whole life.... ”
ity. The 2 dimentional diagram
from above is no seen as a three
dimentional. some of the vol-
umes that are connected are
above ground, while the others
are cantilevered over a court-
yard.
The space that is seperated
may become a place for medita- The measure of the greatness of a place to live must come
tion. Its orientation on the site from the character of its institutions, sanctioned by their
sensitivity to desire for new agreement, not by need, because
5.5
will face away from the stree and need comes from what already is. Desire is the thing not made,
the roots of the will to live. (--Lobell, pp.44-5)
towards the back of the site
page 13

15. V. stite
William Paterson University, Paterson, NJ
William Paterson University was Founded in the city of Paterson in 1855. It is one of
the nine state colleges and universities in New Jersey. Set on 370 wooded acres in north-
east New Jersey, the campus is located just 20 miles west of New York City. The University
has 10,600 students. William Paterson University o ers 33 undergraduate and 19 gradu-
ate programs through its ve colleges: Arts and Communication, Christos M. Cotsakos
College of Business, Education, Humanities, and Science and Social Sciences.
Four of William Paterson’s colleges are located on the main campus which is on the
border of Wayne NJ. The science and Social Science college is located 5 miles away in
Wayne.
The aim is to relocate the college of science and social science closer to the main
campus in hopes of unifying the univeristy, and moving the isolated college closer to the
city of paterson. One of the challenges will be to transport the tranquility of the forest that
the old department was situated on to the new site in the congested city of Paterson. The
Main campus in on the intersection of Pomton Road, and Hamburg Turnpike. Within the
new site, which sits across pomton road is a pond and a parking lot. Although the parking
lot will eventually be the site that the building will sit on.
A. science building
B. Campus
page 14
1

16. V. stite
William Paterson University, Paterson, NJ
Section