Hybrid Derives and Ornamental Ghosts Part 2 Dissertation 2013 Laurent Dubuis Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture de Paris | France Going through historical anecdotes, fictional description, narrative speculations and case studies, the thesis is investigating contemporary and historical trends that emphasize the interrogation of boundaries in a measure of excess, a measure of possibilities of going beyond. It explores as a manifesto the various aspects of ugliness, as an issue itself to the search of singularity to assert a unique aesthetic, the aesthetic of outrage, uneasiness, and repulsiveness. If the nature of the monster and the horrific has been suspended by fear of distortion, the unknown, it has however determined and materialized a crucial approach in the representation of things. It defines a new language of expression, an "in-between", blurring the boundaries between what exists on our doorstep and what we perceive to be otherworldly and uncertain, embracing the proliferation of the mist of fear. In a social, political and cultural context, ugliness provides the opportunity to embody an unlimited territory where variations, turbulences, fantasies and fascinations can be expressed. How to transgress architecturally the stable boundaries of convention? Ugliness has been adopted as a positive as well as a negative term, but it constantly forces a creative, speculative and critical approach to the existing system in order to redefine and ascertain an architecture identity no longer predictable, an aesthetic yet to be determined, a language that explores the transgression between the knowable and the unpredictable, the common and the exceptional, the sublime and the grotesque. As Derrida says, "a future without monstrosity could not be a future; it would already be an anticipated, expectable, and programmable tomorrow." Tutor(s) Ricardo De Ostos