basic description

Ed Sorel, Cover, *The New Yorker,* January 31, 2000.The Boundary Language Project, initially sponsored by a Shogren Foundation Grant (N. C. State University School of Design), was expanded through fellowships and workshops at the University at Buffalo, LSU, University of Pennsylvania, Carleton, South Dakota State University, and Penn State University. Boundary Language is a critical theory protocol accompanied by a graphic notation system, engineered to explore the overlaps of psychoanalysis, architecture, film, landscape, literature, and the visual and performing arts. This collection includes full essays, short position papers, first drafts, readings, book-length manuscripts, and a few ghost stories, along with materials from workshops, seminars, and symposia.

This website is maintained as an archive of work done for the boundary language project but it also serves as a hub for collaborative efforts, dedicated to the ideal of collaborative study. Some studies are intentionally decentered to favor “speculative un-realism,” a look at the impact of inserting an “ersatz” hypothesis into an assumed stable theoretical field. While the ersatz conjecture is not intentionally mistaken or irrational, the expectation of probability is suspended so that new connections can be seen, sometimes for the first time. Just as the idea of putting the Chrysler Building on the Analyst’s couch seems ridiculous, the question of buildings or other objects “having” an unconscious is provocative and likely to be productive, even if the main premise is a bit wacky. For information or collaboration, contact kunze767@gmail.com.

items in the main menu, explained

• recent work

Ideas in the first stage, reconfigurations of previous work, collaborations and proposals. Published work is listed along with unpublished or web-published materials. For a summary, see PUBLICATIONS AND PROJECTS.

• current projects

Ongoing zoom sessions, publications, lectures, and workshops. This tab includes collaborative projects as well as the “zairja” idea that grounds the principle of ersatz conjecture. Scroll down to locate specific ongoing work.

• topology

What began as a plea from Sheldon George to make topology understandable to the “regular Lacanian” has gone through stages: (1) an analysis of the official inception of Lacan’s topological interest, Seminar IX, concluding with five essay contributions to an anthology in progress, (2) study of Seminars XIII and XIV in weekly zoom sessions beginning in 2021, and (3) the recent consolidation of topology around inversive geometry and the induction puzzle. These foundational topics allow the non-mathematician access to Lacan’s actual topological thinking, beginning in 1935 and offer “study method” using ethnology, folklore, religion, literature, film, music, poetry, and popular culture. It’s not about Grothendieck, Heisenberg, Bohr, van Neumann, or David Hilbert, but what ever could be? Praise be to the mathematicians! But, let’s remember that Lacan himself was not one (although he did his best not to tread on their toes). Let’s remember the arts of metalepsis and the religion of Hestia, and plow forward anyway.

• archive

Web documents and reprints of published works covering twenty-five+ years of teaching and research connecting architecture, landscape, film, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. Don’t overlook the work on the zairja, reputed to be the first computer. This tab includes the “Newslitters” circulated bi-weekly for PhD theory seminars at Virginia Tech’s Washington-Alexandria Architectural Center. Go here to find several foundational texts: Thought and Place, Atlas of the Obverse, and Secondary Places.

.• videos

The BoundaryLanguage YouTube channel (135 public videos, 2,440 subscribers) offers a means of front-loading presentational content for review by classes, conferences, zooms, and seminar conversations. Many of these were prepared for specific events, some without audio-track narratives. Recently, some video narrations have been translated into Farsi by Dr. Iraj Ghoochani.

• links

Links with brief descriptions: iPSA (institute for Psychoanalytic Studies in Architecture), zoom event pages, seminars, affiliated organizations. To learn the basics of projective geometry (≠ affine geometry), watch Norman O. Wilberger’s helpful videos.