Sightfulness

This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2019Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references.Architecture has historically been situated within the world of mixed reality. Brunelleschi's Baptistery in Florence introduced illusory space inserting depth into a two-dimensional plane in the fifteenth century. Centuries later, the Bauhaus challenged the hegemony of perspectival space in favor of axonometric projection, subverting the perceived experience of architecture for its formal attributes. Today our perception of the world is mediated by social media, photo manipulation software, and screen resolution. These technologies conspire not for a fidelity to reality but to promote social and political agendas-truth is not truth. Conversely, rapid improvements in camera technology attempts an objective unification of what qualifies as "clear" and "crisp" photography to document the world while counter-cultural technologies, including hallucinogenic drugs, seek clarification of a different kind. Sightfulness is a guided trip through media phase changes. It fluidly moves between photo realistic representations of common elements in space to impossible infinite multiplications, inversions, distortions and moments of pure abstraction. It leverages advances in computational software that allow a blurring between the virtual and the real. It disorients the viewer through unpredictable transitions, destabilizing their conception of the world that they are inhabiting.by Kyle Branchesi.S.M.S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architectur