Reading Four

Blobs look all in the same, yet no two blobs are alike. If you ask someone to draw a blob, no one’s blob will be exactly like the others, but they overall will look the same. Topologies are disciplined mathematically and have families of sets of certain properties which are used to define a space. If you look at a topological map from New Orleans, you will be able to see a set of black contour lines on a white surface. The lines describe the different land levels. However, if you move a little over to the left, for instance in San Antonio, you will still be able to see a set of black contour lines, but they will be different, curving at different angles and there will be more lines. Topologies, just like blobs, are similar in that they all look the same, but are indeed very different. Unlike blobs, however, topologies have more of a geometric sense and can then, in return, be measured, calculated, and planned. Blobs are more likely to come out of the blue and just form. Whatever the artist or architect is thinking or feeling, a blob will form as a result of it. Another way of creating a blob would be, for example, to retrieve the already available topological map of the area and then somehow use the contours of the levels to, let us say, invert them and make a blobby space. You could then take the surface of the structure and transform it anyway you need – shifting, extruding, shearing, stretching, etc. There are endless possibilities for blobs in architecture, or for any specialty field or major profession in that manner. It would be difficult, I would say, to try to measure or calculate a blob. A blob always seems to be moving. There are convexes and concaves, which make up a blob, everywhere. Blobs in old horror movies are objects which are icky, gooey substances. Its inner is its outer and it can shrink into nothing or grow when it “eats” something in its way. A blob, therefore, is complex. It is not multiple, nor is it single.