Chapter Two: The Outsider
An Introduction from the Editor
The notion of an outsider suggests that there must be insiders. Is this distinction determined by others when long-held beliefs are challenged, or is it a self-appointed title, a badge of honor for questioning orthodoxy?
The term outsider often carries a negative connotation—alienation, exclusion, limited access due to their otherness, often with an insinuation of being less than. Where did this perception come from, but more importantly, what can we learn from the outsider?
An outsider’s distinctiveness often stems from cultural, social, or personal factors. It can be tied to their background, beliefs, and choices that set them apart from the mainstream. The relationship between outsiders and insiders is inherently subjective, depending on the context and perspective of where the judgment is
coming from.
Being an outsider could be as simple as not having a formal studio education. The boundaries between industry disciplines are often compartmentalized, leaning towards silos. But “design is basic to all human activities- the placing and patterning of any act towards a desired goal constitutes a design process”1. Is a scientist as much of a designer as an architect or artist? Outsider status could also stem from a willingness to critique conventions in their field of work, or even the systems that govern our daily lives.
Non-conformity is a threat to those hoarding power. Designers’ robust egos can sometimes cause them to overlook vital nuances. An outsider’s perspective serves an important function- to see things that would otherwise be overlooked. A healthy dose of skepticism from an interloper can provoke strong emotional responses from insiders. It is the outsiders who influence new rhythms. How do things become mainstream in the first place? Who decides when something is no longer “The Norm”?
by Michael Crosbie
Michael J. Crosbie, PhD, FAIA, is practicing architect & architectural critic. He has made significant contributions in the fields of architectural journalism, research, teaching, and practice. Having served as an editor at Architecture: The AIA Journal, Progressive Architecture, ArchitectureWeek.com, and is editor-in-chief of Faith & Form, a quarterly journal on religious art and architecture, he is also a frequent contributor to Architectural Record and writes about architecture and design for the Hartford Courant. Additionally, he has served as an adjunct professor at Roger Williams University and Catholic University Crosbie is a registered architect in the State of Connecticut and has practiced with Centerbrook Architects & Planners and Steven Winter Associates.”
A few weeks ago I was invited to make some remarks at a gathering at Cornell University’s New York City Center to open an evening panel discussion by architects and academicians on “Space, the Sacred, and the Imagination” My brief remarks focused on the desire to experience a sense of the sacred in our lives through architecture and art; and on the idea that this yearning is at the core of the human condition, whether one believes in God or not. this hunger for the sacred seems to have risen to a pang, as evidenced by a proposal made by the philosopher Alain de Botton in his new book, Religion for Atheists, to build a series of temples for atheists on sites across the United Kingdom (see figure one). The first, a “Temple to Perspective,” a black monolith of 151 feet, would be constructed in the City of London’s financial district Botton’s argument is that awe-inspiring architecture should not be just for believers; atheists should have their own architectural monuments, erected to glorify their belief in nonbelief.
The panel quickly veered away from a discussion of the sacred in architecture, and instead was recast as a desire for architecture that is ineffable, oceanic, possessing absence, a void, a vanishing point.
It seemed that most of the panelists were uncomfortable with the very word “sacred,” freighted as it is with the requirement of belief – something quite outside the control of the architect.
One panelist commented that this discussion was a more profound assessment of transcendent architecture because it did not engage in the “purely instrumental, functional aspects” of sacred space. It appeared that most of the panelists were much more comfortable speculating on a secular sacred architecture, abstract and safe, than on one that demands human engagement to make it sacred.
Only one panelist, Anne Rieselbach of the New York Architectural League, dared to use the “S” word to question whether architects can indeed create a space that makes religious enlightenment possible – one shaped by liturgical needs that serves a religious belief system She even ventured the possibility that
a space cannot be sacred in itself, that it is only through its setting as a place of gathering for worship, that architecture can become sacred.
It is the very instrumental nature of architecture, its functional aspect, that helps to call forth the sacred.
The palpable discomfort of many architects, artists, and academicians in using the “S” word could be a symptom of their own disbelief or uncertainty But an attempt to disengage the act of belief, of coming together as a community of believers, from the space in which that gathering happens – why it happens – keeps architecture and art at a safe distance from the immeasurable, the ineffable, and the mysterious.This is why De Botton’s program for temples for atheists doesn’t make much sense, either . The worship of architecture and art is secondary to their roles as midwives of the sacred. Awe is in belief.
by Sean Ekins
Sean Ekins is a British-American pharmacologist and CEO of Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which focuses on drug discovery using machine learning approaches. His work spans various fields including cheminformatics, computational toxicology, and drug repurposing, with a strong focus on rare and neglected diseases. He earned his Ph.D. in Clinical Pharmacology from the University of Aberdeen and has held senior roles at Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and several biotech startups. He has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey since 2007 and previously served as Entrepreneur in Residence at UNC-Chapel Hill Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
The Nobel Prize winning chemist Roald Hoffmann looked at molecular beauty in a 1988 essay, believing that people outside chemistry could learn what this is because he felt aesthetics is deeply rooted in our soul. By 2012 a group of researchers developed a method to measure of drug likeness called QED that could be used to quickly measure a molecules desirability as a drug and in so doing they proposed that it might also capture the aesthetics of medicinal chemistry. Molecules can be designed by chemists to perform functions that at one extreme can treat or cure diseases while at the other they may be designed to kill us. This may not be an ideal place to compare the beauty of such molecules but their design in the latter case will also raise serious ethical and legal questions.
How do we frame this situation if there is now no longer a human involved in the design but instead it is performed by an artificial intelligence (AI)?
Neither aesthetics, ethical nor legal aspects may be rooted in the soul of the AI. Does this call for the need for more human / AI collaboration to improve the output of such tools in the future as they are used in design of molecules and perhaps beyond?
As a drug discovery scientist, I can go back 27 years to my first use of a computer to use the biological data I had generated in the laboratory to then build a computational model. Admittedly I did not have a lot of data, literally that from a handful of molecules. In 1996 the software available to me was crude but expensive with a basic user interface running on a Silicon Graphics workstation costing tens of thousands of dollars, but the output delivered after many hours of calculations was a graphically intuitive 3D arrangement of molecule features that related to the activity, what is called a pharmacophore. The models were interpretable and intuitive, they illustrated how a molecule might interact with a protein and what features were important. There was a beauty to these models, I was hooked immediately seeing their potential to help explain my data to predict drug-drug interactions and that sparked my use of many different computational approaches for drug discovery since.
Fast forward to today, we now have a massive amount of publicly available biological data for all different types of biological endpoints and properties while our computers and software are so much more powerful and cheaper. We model these datasets with state-of-the-art machine learning methods and the output is delivered in seconds as a black box which is uninterpretable. There is nothing to look at, just a prediction unless we use generative approaches to design new molecules. We can however use these machine learning approaches to predict whether a molecule will interfere with human target proteins but we do not really think about the aesthetics of what the models look like or for that matter rarely consider what the molecules look like as long as they do the job, are safe and effective.
We can turn this logic around, when we design a new phone or a building, human health is not always at the front of what we are doing, increasingly we care for the aesthetics of the object or building we are designing.
Do we care more for the beauty of the object than for the impact, whether positive or negative which it may have on human health?
Do we try to design our environment to maximize our exercise or interactions to become more effective or productive? Do we stand versus sit, are we sedentary or mobile. Promoting stationary behavior with minimal interactions may be ideal if we want to be isolated but not if we crave or need other human interactions to be productive. Should we be thinking along these same lines when we design molecules?
In drug discovery, we are designing molecules at the nanoscale that will never be ‘seen’ unless we look at them using X-ray crystallography, cryo-EM or some other biophysical technique which may detect them. Therefore, their beauty is rarely discussed or considered important outside a small community of scientists. In our design of molecules for a disease, increasingly we are also designing them to avoid other targets that would lead to side effects that may be harmful. So not only can we design molecules to fit in a target we can build in these other features or physicochemical properties which may fit to our ideal of chemical beauty.
Now we are entering the stage of using AI to generate molecules “the generative AI generation” and doing it at a scale which could make us obsolete. What difference would it make in life and on society if we could provide the AI with the human qualities, we take for granted? Can we effectively collaborate with the AI to put a human element back into the design process. What qualities could humans give to AI that it might lack? Could it be considered something akin to a sense like smell or taste? Are aesthetics and ethics at a much higher level of abstraction than say understanding the connections between different areas which one would imagine AI could easily master?
We have seen recent examples where human feedback was leveraged with AI in molecule design. For example, Microsoft and Novartis researchers collaborated to show how active learning from their
35 chemists could be used to improve the drug-likeness (comparable to molecule beauty). Could this set the stage for more human / AI collaborations? Would we be able to train our generative AI to design molecules as if it were being undertaken by a well-known chemist by simply training the AI with all their published syntheses? Why stop at a single chemist, we could use a collection of chemists, of course they may be no longer alive, so they are unlikely to complain if the AI inspired by them is used to design new molecules.
By doing this would we impart enough of the individual humanness rather than aggregating massive numbers of reactions which would effectively dilute each scientists’ contributions. Similarly, could we use buildings by well-known architects to train AI to build in their “style” or similarly create products in the style of well-known product designers. Of course, well-known may be a rather artificial term because output from less well-known chemists, architects or designers could be as useful. This seems rather trivial when what we would like to do is just make AI derived results more aesthetically pleasing, more ethical or ensure that it does not break any laws en-route to developing or designing a product, whether that is at the nano scale as a molecule or at the macro scale as a building or other object.
There are many areas where AI and ethics may clash not only in individual rights, privacy, non-discrimination, and non-manipulation which are often grouped as ethical AI. One recent example involves using a generative AI approach to design VX and other chemical weapons7. While none of the molecules were synthesized this would point to a need for providing more ethical training to those using such AI to generate molecules to ensure that the technology is used for good and not for nefarious purposes. But instead of training the scientists using the AI, what if we train the AI to understand the ethics involved in designing such molecules so that it could then make the decisions of what could be designed that complies with the ethical guidelines provided to it and then predicts their relative safety or potential for misuse in the future.
If we look further into the distance we might use such generative
approaches4 to design molecules that could increase human creativity. We are already seeing how traditional medicinal chemistry approaches can take a psychedelic natural product molecule like ibogaine and remove the side effects8, while computational approaches can effectively do the same as the human chemist in designing these molecules and produced many other potential candidates4. Could we identify molecules that act on biological pathways that improve creativity, then we might use AI to design new molecules that enhance this further.
If we create a virtuous cycle such that we train an AI to design molecules to then increase our own creativity this may then feedback into the AI.
There may be a potential for synergy by humans actively collaborating with AI. Depending on how close this human interaction becomes with AI, perhaps it could not only learn about beauty, ethics, and other deeply rooted aspects of humanity that it eventually develops a soul. Of course, defining when we have reached this point may be difficult.
with Jean Michel Dissake
Jean Michel Dissake is a Cameroonian artist known for his “pictosculpture” technique, which use found and recycled materials to represent a balance between nature and technology by weaving natural objects such as wood, vines, termite dust, water hyacinths, and palm fronds together with computer boards, aluminum wire, license plates, and car parts. His work is rooted by his cultural heritage as well as wisdom gained from living for nine years in the forest on the Mungo River. His installations emphasize the sacredness of human connection and the soul’s restoration. Dissake’s art has been showcased internationally, including at the Venice Biennale and the Gregg Museum of Art and Design
Frank Stasio
Coming live from the American Tobacco Historic District, I’m Frank Stasio.
As a boy growing up in Cameroon John Michel Dissake’s grandfather taught him an important lesson about our place in the world. Humans, he said, are part of an interconnected web of life that includes animals, forest, rivers, and the ancestral spirits that inhabit them. John Michel took that message to heart; so much so that after two years of studying economics in college, he left the classroom to live in the forest. The inspiration he took from the trees and rivers continues to shape him and his art. John Michel creates mixed media sculptures that meld the natural world with the built environment. He’s here in North Carolina to share his approach with students and the public and joins me now John Michelle, welcome to the state of things.
Good to have you here.
Jean Michel Dissake
Thank you. I’m happy to be here and to share the message that I brought from the forest with the people here in North Carolina.
FS
Talk about that message and when you first or how you first learned that message in Cameroon?
JMD
I am John Michel Dissake, the grandson of King Dissake, and since I was a child, my grandfather would send me to the traditional ancestor school even when I tried to go to the modern schools. But during one of my holy days, I went into the sacred forest there with him and he cut the vine; and he drank the water inside the vine. And he gave it to me and I also drank the water from inside the vine. And after, he took the vine back and just threw it aside. I picked it up and I decided to start my work from that. After I went to college, there were people who decided to destroy the sacred forest in my village. It was a big deal because they were trying to find oil. I was worried about that and I went to see my grandfather and asked him if it’s possible for him to try to figure out how they can work without cutting the trees down. But it was too late, the decision had already been made. So I went there to collect what I could find, like the vine. Because the vine for me is a symbol; it is the veins, it is the nest, the DNA, the umbilical cord and that connects us to the earth.
FS
I think it’s that. That connection that is so profound in all of this and then a vine is the perfect image, right because of the way it wraps around and spirals but also is rooted in the soil, and now we know even our own biology is telling us about the interconnectedness of fungus and trees and the communication that goes on so it’s not as spooky to us. But it seems to me that there is a fascinating juxtaposition going on. Here you are learning political economies in college where they’re explaining to you the importance of jobs and gas production and productivity. And then this generative economy that has been going on for millennia without anybody extracting that wealth and funneling the wealth up to certain individuals. What was going on in your head when you’re learning about political economies, which is so utterly antithetical to life on Earth?
JMD
When we were talking about consumption ,the only thing that we were talking about was about human beings and how human beings live. Now, as I’m working with found material I am trying to gather information about modern society and also how to share vibrations, how to share the resources in modern society. There is a big way that you observe influence; how the trees communicate, and the vines in the forest also share natural resources with the big tree and the small trees. For me, this is the symbol of unity and love. In our urban centers, I see we have many households that share electricity and internet connection.
So we are building some kind of tree of communication that I can call the Web.
And that allowed me to have this dialogue with you on the radio. Your listeners just received my song, the song of my voice. The song of my voice is also the vine. I am trying to check the balance because today we need nature, but we also need technology.
FS
So tell us how that works in your art and how your art comes together. Maybe you can describe some of your art and how these ideas come together in your work.
JMD
Each idea that comes together in my work is talking about human beings because I think human beings are also a sacred forest. Wherever we go, sacred forests are both inside ourselves and outside ourselves. So in my work, I just talk about human problems we have to deal with climate change. To have culture, you need to check the environment where you live.
FS
You use found materials in your work, talk about the materials you use and the way you shape them to frame these ideas.
JMD
I use scrap aluminium, I use old fabric, I also use other kinds of metals. I also use wood, I use everything that human beings have already touched. Sometimes parts of a computer. And I also use termite dust….
FS
Wait, termite dust?
JMD
Yes, because of the color. I need to let everything in my work be connected to nature. Because in my area, termite dust reconnects us to the ancestral world. And also for the material to give me the real color of the society where I live. Maybe when people pass they have something to communicate to us; and all those materials they leave behind have atoms. They are very connected. [In my work] You can see that I’m trying to put fabric together with metals. That’s not possible. But they have one link, atoms. I’m talking about something that’s strong, and something that can be flexible. So I am calling people to a dialogue by using some different materials.
FS
I want to understand this. You grew up knowing about this connection. It was the air you breathe, literally, and the ground you walk on, quite literally, and figuratively as well. When you try to describe feeling the vibrations, which I think people didn’t in the modern world have literally muted themselves to; what they could feel. Because they grew up learning that anything that makes any activity that you do slightly easier, is the best thing that could possibly happen; without regard to the collateral consequences. If you grow up in the western world knowing that, in the core of your being, how do you talk to that person who grew up with a very different set of assumptions and try to describe the vibrations that they have learned not to feel anymore?
JMD
What I will first say is this, we are all human beings. We are always connected. And the way I see it, is that there is not something different. [In Cameroon] sometimes we hold ceremonies in the sea. And when I observe how the priest holds ceremonies at the Catholic Church, it feels like it’s the same thing. Even if you are from a Western culture, you must first be humble. You need to have a dialogue with your material.
You need to listen to nature, to the trees.
Even if it’s different there are always sacred places here in the western world, think about Stonehenge in England. Anyone can have a connection. Western people don’t have dreams sometimes. Dreams are real. You can have a dream and that sends you somewhere, that is also one way to be connected. And to do that you need some time to practice; drawing, doing yoga…also in western areas, people are in a dialogue with animals. I see they respect animals. This is another way to be connected, so we need to be very humble and listen.
FS
I will also say that in modern life and western life, humility is not a virtue. So [chuckles] you’re told not to be humble but to toot your own horn when we are growing up…Jean Michel spent several weeks in a residency at North Carolina State University and Steven Nohren is a freshman at the College of Design. He participated in a workshop with John Michelle and joins the conversation now. Welcome Steven.
Steven Nohren
Hi! Nice to be here!
FS
It’s good to have you here. What did you learn in these workshops?
SN
A lot about how to listen to objects. That was a very different approach than what I have seen in school. Because in design, a lot of the time we’re taught to look at textures, at the shape, the form, the objective facts of an object; not so much the story of it even got there. And there may be some talk about the story but not on the deep spiritual level and the vibrations that come along with it. So while we were at the scrap exchange, the only instruction we had to pick out these materials for our project was to pick out what spoke to us. And a lot of us were asking each other “what do you mean speaks to us?” I wandered around for a while just looking and picking up things asking myself “Well is this speaking to me? What about this?” Some time goes by and I basically decide, if I picked it up, obviously that spoke to me on some level and I don’t need to explain it right on the spot. So let’s just throw it in the cart.
FS
Does it change your approach to design?
SN
I think it will. [Editor’s note: it’s safe to say it did]
FS
Jean Michel, what happens? How did you put this project together or the artifact together when the students came to you?
JMD
My job was to try to put the ideas together from the information but also to listen to the students, to capture the vibration because you know, when you are going inside the forest sometimes you can feel the vibration if you are a member of the tree. I used to go and fall asleep on the tree and just capture the vibration. When I came here the students gave me the vibrations and I just tried to organize them. It was a great pleasure because I also discovered a sacred forest at NC State not only in Africa.
FS
Well I want to thank you very much for bringing your message and your work to North Carolina. I’m talking to John Michel Disakke who is an artist and NC State College of Design freshman Steven Nohren was also with us. We have all the links to Jean Michel work at our website, stateofthings.org. Thank you so much for being on our program. Just ahead, the music of Tom Merrigan’s Hot Raccoons, stay tuned.
