The concepts of symbiosis and alliance are similar in meaning to the category of synthesis in modern theoretical thought. So, Jeffrey Kipnis outlines a synthetic direction: «Folding» is a strategy for creating «smooth mixtures», according to which something fundamentally new can be created from two or more qualitatively different types of structural organization. For example, a homogeneous modernist «grid» can enter into a symbiotic connection with a hierarchically ordered structure» [41, 602-603].
A radically contrasting position was taken by Patrik Schumacher in the Parametricist Manifesto [69], who formulates opposition to modernism as taboo: «Avoid rigid geometric primitives like squares, triangles and circles, avoid simple repetition of elements, avoid juxtaposition of unrelated elements or systems… We might think of liquids in motion, structured by radiating waves, laminal flows, and spiraling eddies… There are no platonic, discrete figures or zones with sharp outlines» [69].
The modernist type of forms, and with it the entire ancient type of form perception, is declared obsolete, discrete, and rigidly regular. Turning to Losev’s thought, we see that the ancient understanding is much deeper than such a parametric reduction of Antiquity to a single Euclidean type. A. F. Losev expressed the idea of the heterogeneity of space most fully in his work «The Ancient Cosmos and Modern Science»: «Space has varying degrees of tension and is completely heterogeneous. Only metaphysical prejudices and blind dogma could make us believe for centuries that space had an absolute character. Space is just as compressible and expandable as a physical thing in a commonly understood space. Here, it is not the qualities of absolute space that are heterogeneous, but space itself is devoid of absoluteness and is relative everywhere, i.e., it depends on various other conditions» [1, 226].
If in understanding the heterogeneity of space it is possible to find a common point between the ancient cosmos and parametericism, then the concept of «seamless» takes us away from «sculptural» and «figurative» in the opposite direction from the classical understanding. This is «a new type of form that has absorbed all the dynamics of its own generation, tending to a kind of «formlessness«, to absolute freedom» [41, 601]. The juxtaposition of such concepts as architectural form and «formlessness» sounds paradoxical. Not without irony, A. F. Losev wrote: «A pile of sand, they say, is shapeless. But, of course, this formlessness is only relative here, that is, we are talking about it only when comparing this pile with other objects. In the absolute sense of the word, a pile of sand also has its own distinct shape, namely the shape of a pile. The clouds in the sky are also shapeless. And again, this should be understood only relatively» [7, 68]. Protozoa is the bionic form that is most closely related to «seamless» searches. And the icons for gadgets also paradoxically bring us back to an earlier moment of the birth of writing, when letters were just beginning to form as hieroglyphic signs.
Let’s summarize our comparison in a table of key concepts:
