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"In the case of thinkers such as Žižek, it is argued that change can only be thought if we theorize the existence of a subject that is in excess of any and all symbolic structuration, a subject that is a pure void irreducible to any and all of its predicates, and the act of which this subject is capable. In the absence of such a subject and a completely undetermined act, it is held that any actions on the part of the agent would simply reproduce the existing system of relations. A similar line of thought can be discerned in Badiou's account of the void, events, subjects, and truth-procedures." Levi Bryant, "The Ontic Principle," in The Speculative Turn, 272. This is the major point of departure from the Badiousian line followed elsewhere in this essay. To sustain engagement requires a flexibility to go off-script; the uncertainty of the reconfiguration reinforces the necessity of sounding the environment for resonances.

In lieu of scripts or narratives, then, architecture needs to access procedures, which should be thought of as the incremental or atomistic units of performance rather than the rigid roadblocks they are sometimes considered. In fact, as Bogost has argued, most of the negative connotations associated with procedures result from situations which have too few of them to deploy or are fixed in a sequential linking that prohibits a nimble reassessment of conditions. 35 A positive model of procedure occurs in choreographer William Forsythe's use of "propositions": instructions characterized by indefiniteness about the form a movement might take, though this does not mean they are undirected. 36 "Propositions alter the ground of active relations," writes Erin Manning of Forsythe's approach, and while propositions can often clearly indicate the type of change or positioning they are meant to effect, they also acknowledge that every change is implicated in other relationships and connections. 37 These connections may resist the action of the proposition or they may dissolve and need to be reassembled; the results will vary in every occurrence according to the dancer's instantaneous momentum, balance and flexibility. 38 Likewise, the performances of Ballett Frankfurt under Forsythe's direction have been described by Mark Goulthorpe as "a staging of the very possibility of ballet." 39 They involved working through or over the material of ballet while shedding the identity of the whole and the habits that reinforce that identity. Throughout his career, Forsythe's choreography has asked, "Can ballet, something we know, actually produce something we don't know?" 40 By not dictating the position of the entire body as conventional ballet poses do, Forsythe allows the possibility of unknown, unnamed movements to emerge outside of what is scripted. Forsythe develops this idea further in his installations of "Choreographic Objects" like Scattered Crowd (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014), which uses a dense cloud of balloons suspended at different heights to give the audience subtle prompts that alter how they move through the gallery. Scattered Crowd evinces the impossibility of a single, perfect interpretation of the choreography; the viewer's movement is always a negotiation between engagement with the installation, an individually desired trajectory and the influence of other bodies.

Similarly, Galván and his collaborating pianist, Sylvie Courvoisier, cast off the traditional form of flamenco, reworking its procedures precisely to explore the potential they contain. Galván's La Curva is unique not simply because it involves improvisation in the movements and music, but because both were developed in an ecology of codependence with the equipment and materials of the theatre, set and piano. The mechanical modifications and unconventional playing techniques Courvoisier employs maximize the percussive potential of the piano in the same way that Galván's stage preparation and aggressive auditory (rather than visual) movements enhance the percussive potential of the flamenco and the mutability of the compás or rhythmic pattern of the dance. Arguably, the high point of the performance is an intensely visceral, droning buzz that fills the theatre; the footfalls are inseparable from the piano, and one feels that even the catwalks are sounding. It is a moment irreconcilable to any classical definition of flamenco, but assembled out of the excess of potential which La Curva discovers within it.

Forsythe's oeuvre suggests ways in which architects might also work free of specificity by opening up or preparing a space for action, working to "set up what comes next without impinging in the least on what is actually said" to create an effect "that is light but also decisive." 41 Architecture is always a trajectory of emergence that outlives 41 Bruno Latour, "Reflections on Etienne Souriau's Les différents modes d'existence," in The Speculative Turn, 309.

Israel Galván, La Curva, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, Lausanne, 2010, with Sylvie Courvoisier, piano; Inés Bacán, voice; Bobote, compás its constitutive event. The option of staging re-showings of architecture's same old performances in the face of environmental pressures and diminishing returns requires us to agree to ignore its inherent multiplicity in favor of unambiguous limits, while also reducing the plurality and agency of the public realm. The alternative is to explore architecture's reserve of potential to produce new and unique events that are materially present within the discipline. 42 Since the state of an architectural object engaged with its environment typically follows a process of differentiation-whether through adaptation, direct response or withdrawal-what is needed is a parallel process that vigorously stirs these components to prevent sedimentation, a procedure which effaces this differentiation. We need an architecture capable of forgetting. 43 In other words, we need an architecture composed of generic, mutable procedures (or propositions) that propel architecture to move toward the position of an interface that both acts and is acted upon. As an interface, architecture is capable of steering the directions in which identity and information are shaped, though only indirectly, because an interface directs interaction without defining it while also enabling action. 44 Occupying such a position constitutes a substantial reconstruction of authorship 45 and implies a forgetting of (a singular 46 ) desire inasmuch as it requires a commitment from the architecture to the inconstancy of the future.

In my reference to the generic, I do not mean simply the homogeneous, the unconsidered or "all the same." 47 I am suggesting that we deliberately forget the specifics of formation: interiorizing and subsuming the details, the knowledge and the definitions that are necessary for the production of architecture. These facts of architecture would continue to structure the responsivity of the discipline in an infrastructural or prepositional mode. Nor is there anything preventing such details from re-exerting themselves, just as one can forget a set of directions and yet reconstruct the way from recognizable landmarks. By avoiding explicit articulations (through processes of indexical trace or didactic physicalization), the architect prevents preexisting definitions from overdetermining the forms which future activity will take. The generic is "a subset that is 'new' insofar as it cannot be discerned" 48 from the situation; that is, while the generic may be identified, its limits are not yet drawn: it cannot be comprehended in its entirety.

Likewise, mutability can refer to a remedial quality that addresses the tendency of architecture to reinforce and stabilize identity by undoing the privileging of the present. 49 Architecture has to shift from being a reaffirmation of itself to being available as a set of procedures that can expand and adapt. This would entail the exacerbation of the many modes of reception to which architecture is subject, that is, the seeking out of disequilibrium, much as the artificial intelligence behind Cedric Price's Generator developed patterns of organization to accommodate its occupants, but was programmed to become bored with stasis, even when reconfiguration required unlearning all the patterns it had developed. 50 In the context of architectural representation, this principle is especially opposed to iconicity. Additionally, mutability suggests that current networks ought not to define the type or form of future networks which may be created or to which an object might align. If the generic allows architecture to emerge, mutability prevents it from calcifying in its first configuration. Forgetting allows architecture to remain creative.

Together, these three characteristics of a forgetful architectureinterfaciality, genericity and mutability-would contribute to the establishment of an agonistic architectural environment that would formulate the contested status of its own inherent complexity as a condition to be extended rather than resolved. This is not an easy challenge; the techniques are not yet well defined, and addressing the nonspecific always proceeds less surefootedly.

Ultimately, whether taken individually or as an entire spectrum, the performative still lacks the capacity to produce this uniqueness. It is, at the same time, too little a scenography for projecting desire and too much a capitulation to technological optimization. It has, however, done well in pointing to a space for interpreting architecture's subtraction from the specific. Undoubtedly, many elements of the performative will continue to supply important tactics and provoke further adjustments. Efforts in digital simulation suggest positive steps toward embracing genericity in both design and authorship, but tend toward a hyperspecific and unseverable connection between form and its representation within data-structures. 51 Attempts to deemphasize representation draw on the variability of the environment and its reception, but too often posit the singular performance as a solution. 52 Both approaches assume that belonging to a set, network or assembly is contingent on or confers similarity. 53 Yet, belonging does not equal becoming, nor does engagement at one stratum erase autonomy at another. Thus far we have not been able to see architecture for its inconsistent multiplicity; thus far we have not seen past the performance.

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