Soft is the warm breath that blurs sharp edges, the quiet elusion of fixed categories, the slow wearing away of the rigid. A silk scarf brushing against the skin, a blade slicing effortlessly through warm butter, red lips murmuring from a billboard, a backup in the aether of iCloud. Soft material, soft sound, soft-mannered, soft sell, soft power, soft management, soft computing, soft politics, software, soft shell, soft architecture…
Soft is desire, blooming with each click – a fleeting satisfaction swallowed by the next fancy. The seamless seduction of curated needs. We strive to soften borders, making them fluid yet resolute in their quiet force – much like Schengen, where travel, trade, and movement flow seamlessly. Soft as a gated community, where friction is minimized, yet control remains firm.
An ever expanding wave, soft yields, absorbs, envelops. It is the presence that lingers, bending rules without announcing rebellion, dissolving order rather than breaking it. It does not shiver in confrontation; it makes confrontation unnecessary. Soft is a revolution not about imposing, but about becoming undone. It is the gentle sabotage of the unyielding. Soft forces hold the potential to reshape the hard world; subverting norms, transcending categories. Beyond zoning restrictions and against governance. Soft indeed is a site of resistance and deformation. Reshaping political spaces by seeping through the cracks of the Empire. Working along its edges, rendering control porous and vulnerable. Quietly quitting. Often mistaken for weakness, it is power in disguise.
In its quiet persistence, soft is not always gentle. Velvet rhetoric only seemingly pacifies conflict. Gentle curves seducing without consent, white arches mirrored in still waters – a beauty that disarms. An effortless manipulation, just as snow suffocates sound. Through it, power is rendered less visible, allowing existing hierarchies to persist in forms that feel less coercive but are quietly entrenched.
Soft is touch, without reaching matter. In soft space, concerns are cushioned. Fixed positions are of ephemeral appearance, while scales are simultaneously fitting and useless. Movement in this space is made frictionless – forgetting the labor within it.
The sand beneath your feet turns to concrete.
What do you feel? Touch it.
Trans # 47 wants to be touched—by your softness, your pressures, your dissolutions.
Send us your abstract (200-400 words) to trans@arch.ethz.ch by the 13th of April 2025!
x
Chéryne, Gabriela, Giacomo, Vitus
NOTES
