"Real Virtuality" in the Process of Digitally Embedded Perception

Abstract

The "digital turn" in architecture is ontologically drawn from Deleuzian philosophy, particularly the thinking defined by Manuel Delanda as real virtuality. This philosophical thinking reflects the essential paradigm of digital design-a generative process driven by intensive difference to approach the singularity of form in a space of possibilities. However, no matter how dynamic the design process is in digital software, the construction result of a building is unavoidably static and permanent. Thus, the essence of digital design will always be misaligned with the material reality of its production. Addressing on this confliction, the research is trying to rethink the philosophical term "real virtuality" in the process of human perception. By examining different theories about the anti-static condition of perception, it forms a novel perspective to address the dynamic relationship between building form, virtual "information" and human perception, and extends the productivity of "becoming" from digital design process to the process of building colonization.