Graham Harman and the Autonomy of Objects
as that thing which keeps a delicious roast from having to rest sadly on
by Kirk Gordon (MLA '19)
We live with the entire fullness of our spirit chiefly among things; we
live in the world. Max Scheler
This February, the University of Virginia hosted a two-part
dialogue with prominent philosopher and educator Graham Harman.
Harman is one of the founding figures of object-oriented ontology
(OOO), a philosophical school of thought that has garnered tremendous
interest in the disciplines of art and architecture since its conception in
the early 2000s. Object-oriented ontology seeks to subvert an
anthropocentric world view by considering how the existence and
agency of objects extends far beyond our distinctly human conceptions
of them. Harman holds the position of Distinguished Professor of
Philosophy at SCI-Arc, where he currently teaches.
The dialogue began with a lecture held at the A-School on
February 16th entitled On Knowledge in the Arts and Taste in the
Sciences and continued with a seminar the following day. The
discussion centered primarily around Harmans work on formalism.
Harmans insights on formalism and their connection to object-oriented
ontology began with a simple observation: typically, things are
described either by what they are (their material/physical properties,
the parts they are made of) or by what they do (their effects, relations,
or utility). Within this we can immediately observe a tired but familiar
binary: form versus function. A wooden table, for instance, could be
described as a unique arrangement of lignin and cellulose molecules, or
the floor. Harman argues that not only do either of these descriptions
alone do an object justice, but that even when combined, they fail to
adequately describe the object. This is because objects and their various
agencies exist beyond whatever limited access our cognitive or sensory
faculties afford us. Objects are more than what we can observe, and can
do more than the roles we ascribe to them. In this way, objects are
always partially withdrawn from us (and from each other). Potentialities
lurk within. This is the essential tenet of object-oriented ontology. In
the Anthropocentric milieu of shifting climates, ecological degradation,
and post-industrial inheritances, the non-human agencies of everything
from CO2 particles to discarded six pack rings have become strikingly
clear. Extra-human desires reign supreme. With this realization comes a
pressing sense of obligation to reexamine our place in the world, and to
confront the unintended consequences of our actions. In contemporary
practice, responsive design initiatives centered on sustainability or
resiliency have placed a heavy focus on functionality. The success of a
building is assessed in terms of LEED standards and energy efficiency;
wetland restorations are a matter of stormwater retention and
calculated ecological services. Given the high stakes (our continued
survival on this planet), this intense obsession with quantified
functionality and empirical progress is both understandable and useful.
But as many have pointed out, including Beth Meyer in her pivotal essay
Sustaining Beauty, a rigid prioritization of functionality at the
expense of form and aesthetics leads us toward a dead end. Without the
consideration of aesthetics in sustainable design, we overlook emotional
attachment as a prerequisite for long-term stewardship. We are left to
operate within a soulless, obligatory procedure of tacking solar panels,
green roofs, and rain gardens onto every surface we can find.
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 During his visit, Harman offered participants a framework for
considering sustainable practice by inviting us to explore Kants theory
of ethics. Kant believed in a formalist approach to ethics. Formalism
used here differs slightly from our architectural understanding of it, and
is understood as the unrelational autonomy of a thing, a thing in and of
itself, separated from any context. For Kant, ethical practice must exist
outside of any rewards or emotions, like heaven or happiness. An ethical
act is something someone does simply because it is right. To Kant, a
curmudgeonly Samaritan is a more ethical being than an individual who
finds happiness and personal fulfillment in their activist work.
Max Scheler offers further insight into this premise. Harman
explained that Scheler agreed with Kant in that ethics cannot be simply
a reward system. However, Scheler believed that each person has a
distinct ethical impulse, an individual ethical vocation driven by a
persons particular passion towards some thing. For Scheler, the basic
ethical unit is not a detached rational mind, but a compound amorous
being made up of a loving entity and its beloved entity. Scheler
effectively brings ethics into the world, as an amorous and excessive
exchange between objects and ourselves. Rather than allowing
sustainable functionality to slip into a kind of mandated ethical
automation, we must immerse it in a passionate dialogue between
designer, audience, and design. Objects can speak for themselves, after
all.
Harman considers the aesthetic experience to be a particularly
unique example of the dialogue between objects. During his seminar,
Harman explained that an aesthetic experience takes place when the
objet dart suddenly withdraws from us, leaving its qualities suspended
in midair, without support. As human participants we find that, all of a
sudden, we have stepped in to take them on. To feel moved by a work of
art is to actually be moved. In this way, aesthetic experiences are a
practice in empathy. We take on the position and qualities of an object,
and in turn expand the potential configurations of our own selves.
Object-oriented ontology not only shows us that objects possess
qualities and potentialities beyond our recognition, but that these
potentialities are constantly reconfiguring by means of objects
interactions with one another. The mysterious trajectory of the design
process is a great example of this. In the dialogue between our tools, our
materials, our inspiration, and ourselves, a number of interactions take
place which reconfigure potentialities. Yet a majority of these
interactions remain largely obscured. We iterate, we sketch, we explore,
we get stuck. Our pens speak with our desktops while we are home at
night, things reconfigure, and in the morning there is a breakthrough.
Object-oriented ontology offers us an alternative way to conceptualize
making. Our designs cannot be defined by methodology alone. Nor will
they be defined by our intentionality alone. Objects are chatty and
promiscuous beings, whose relations extend far beyond the arranged
marriages we envision in our proposals. Our designs, as objects, have a
private life all their own.
As designers, how do we come to terms with the withdrawn
nature of objects, when so much remains indiscernible and beyond our
control? Architectures fruitful and impassioned engagements with
ideas like actor-network theory have given us oblique yet valuable
glimpses of the worlds objects by way of their relations, allowing us to
reorient ourselves within a much broader field of political and material
ecologies. But as David Ruy observes in his essay Returning to (Strange)
Objects, the shift from architecture-as-object to architecture-as-field
has left many feeling unsure where the boundaries of the profession,
and our expertise within it, should lie. And as Harman points out in his
initial provocation: an object can never be fully defined by its relations
alone.
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 Given this, we might expect a burgeoning desire for a return to Harmans withdrawn objet dart, the tools we use to design, or the
the architectural object itself. Indeed, this seems to be the case. In the entangled particles of quantum mechanics, there is qualitative potential
face of a discipline spread too far, many practitioners and educators are for the architectural object to enact what Einstein refers to as spooky
calling for a back-to-basics approach that refocuses on craft, materiality, action at a distance. Discovering how we might embrace this
construction, and form. Soil, trees, bricks, beams this is what we do. A potentiality is the exciting task at hand.
preliminary interpretation of object-oriented ontology, as an effort to
highlight the object in itself, might even appear to support such a
return. But an object-oriented architecture does not exist as a pathway
towards the nostalgic security of pre-determined professional
operatives. Nor is it an excuse to disregard the obligations and http://lunch-journal.com/blog/2017/3/30/graham-harmon-and-
contextual weight uncovered by ecological discourse. Object-oriented the-autonmy-of-objects-by-kirk-gordon
ontology calls on us to synthesize our recent discoveries into an
architecture that is irreducible, post-relational, and ultimately, very
strange. If relational architecture is all about context and
communications, the object withdrawn invites us to carefully consider
the ways in which architects are also curators of autonomy and non-
communication. Doors create enclosure, windbreaks provide shelter,
and fences afford privacy. In what ways are these principles useful tools
for architects? To be immediately clear, they are not about permitting
social disregard, professional opacity, or warped libertarianism. Gated
communities, un-ramped staircases, and political echo chambers are all
forms of non-communication. But in what ways are obstructed or
restrained interactions advantageous? In a world obsessed with walls
and floods, how might we find utility in the leak?

Returning to aesthetics, we may look toward forms which are

bizarre, enigmatic, oblique, metonymic, allusory, or partially illegible.
Mystery and occlusion are seductive, enchanting, and provoke
continued engagement. We should begin to question existing context as
the primary generator of form, and invite cross-divisional dances
between the established and the alien, the familiar and the queer. Like

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