Dear Eduardo,

Perhaps performance meets higher goals than
"objectuality". As the "flow man" (Mikhail Cy-long too
difficult name to spell) established, it gets close to
optimal experience if you are the appropriately
challenged performer(as you know from drawing.
So  manu-facture could approach perfection (optimal
experience) for the craftsman and for the fully
engaged designer up to the point where it is out of
their hands. Frustrated expectations of the
performance of others can then breed anger. Most
designers experience this. The only remedy is to find
a satisfying, fully immersive collaborative way of
working that involves, throughout the process, all
those affected. This kind of optimal experience is
harder to achieve.

I don't really buy the idea that a per-fect society is
a finished one. It may be optimal but never per-fect.
So words are getting us into trouble again.

Best regards

Chuck

Dr. Charles Burnette
234 South Third Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Tel: +215 629 1387
e-mail: [log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD
studies and
related research in Design
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf
Of Eduardo Corte-Real
Sent: Sunday, May 02, 2004 6:37 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: cubes of gold and Stradivarius;
perfection and design


Dear Charles, Keith and Alan:

Little miracles of life that children of four like to
watch:
Flushing and parents that really can wake up in the
middle of the night.
At the moment I'm a victim of the second miracle
observation, so I should
say that you solved very fast my agony.

One way to go on this is the neo-platonic way. Luca
Pacioli's way, for
instance, on the "De Divinae Proportione". Golden
section relations
amongst all elements are assuring perfection of some
geometric solids
among others. Since Pythagoras, this relation between
numbers, dimensions
and aesthetics perception (sound proportions) was
established. Rudolf
Wittkower gives good credit to this perfection, the
complete made thing,
as you say. This is a platonic assertion where
geometry plays a role on
legitimating perfection, since there are objects
nearer to pure ideas than
others.
I was wondering about, thinking of stradivarius,
manufacturing. By the
same order of ideas, as in per-fect, manu-factoring
means made by hand.
This leads us to the conclusion of machines being
extensions of human
hand. A perfect manufactured object would be a
finished object hand made.
What I wanted to point out was objects purposed made.
This, I think is the
very goal of design. The object performance leads to
the destruction of
its objectuality? Perfection is, here, legitimated, by
purpose
achievement. From another side I addressed this matter
in "reading boat
mast as can openers". From the boat mast opening cans
you arrive to the
perfect can opener (the electric one with a magnet
that my brother gave me
for Christmas) which looses its objectuality by
performing so well wile
the boat mast remains so boatmasty wile is being used
as a can opener.
Nothing gives more power to the objectuality (the
stubborn power of things
being outside what we want them to be) than the
refusal to perform.
On the discussion next door we argue about the
possibility of perfect
societies. Victor's arguments tend to lead us to the
conclusion that the
extensions of human hand (the perfect manufactured)
are promoting
imperfection, since the objective goal of being
society (the general
welfare of humans) is being corrupted.
As Keith pointed out, a perfect society should be a
finished one. The
Portuguese sailor that gave account to Morus of the
way of government of
an island with no place, spoke of something not to be
altered.
Technopromises, as part of the construction of Utopia,
have hollowed
objects along with hollowing people.
Perfection is a bitch.
Sorry, a witch.

Best wishes,

Eduardo

PS. I'm perfectly aware that all this is confusing.



WITTKOVER, R., Architectural Principles in the Age of
Humanism, Academy
Editions, 1949.