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automating the civilization final
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HowEmerging
TechnologyReConfigure
OurLives
Curator:Philip Pongvarin
Xuan Wu
Arch 432PeoplePlacesandCulture
USCSchoolof Architecture Spring2010
META -SPHEREWu XuanABSTRACTThe virtual world comprised of multiple layers of digital data has long been set. Today they are being em-beded into our physical daily life in a far more seamless and pervasive manner. In this way the boundary between real and virtual is blurred, or even, the boundary between human beings and machine is blurred if you think of how intuitive and intelligent the digital devices would be, and how a individual’ s activities, movements, and even emotions could be digitized and transfered in the digital world at real time. This digital world, in its most ideal situation, would be a sphere of coexistence, in Peter Sloterdijk’ s sense, a space in which we enjoy the augmented freedom, democracy,and reality.
Think about some familiar and even routine scenarios of your everyday life: you get up in the morning, turn on your computer to read the news or emails while having a cup of coffee; at a short break during office hours, you chat witha friend in another side of the earth and she shows you the new dress she just bought; after a shower you go to bed togother with your blackberry, waiting for an important email from the colleague. All these seem to you are so banal that you would not think of them when you hear about the term technology – they just become as prosaic as a vase in your house or a cosmetic mirror in your purse.
Then think about something more like to appear in the futuristic fiction: you hold your cell phone toward a city map, and the images of the streetscape appear on the screen; you pick up a pair of goggle from the bag and wear it, and then the webpage in your computer, or the image of your friend in Skype, come to be floating in the air in front of you; your lover send you a message and as a result, you feel a slight pressure coming from the T-shirt you wear which resemble a warm hug; you step into a city plaza, the scattered LED installation begin to emit sound or light according to your movement – they are interacting with you.
Then what do all these suggest? Certainly the media installation that creates an additional layer of space is more than devices that tantalize people’ s sensations, and the Graphical User Interface of iphone that enables the immidiate tangibility is more than a metaphor of the substantialisation of intangible information. They do, anounce the coming of the new era marked by the revolutionary way we get, store, and interact with the digital information.
CURATOR’S WORDS
DIGITAL INTIMACYIMPACT ON SOCIAL NETWORKINGIn the first place, this ‘ meta-sphere’ renews the way in which we interact with both digital data and each other. With the explosion of the hyperlocal and hyper visual infomation cloud it is supposed that the intensity of social interaction would be amplified and multiplied, as well as the complexity of communication between non – humans – namely machines, data, animals, etc. – would be revealed and grasped. The consequence of its impact on social network will be complicated and controversial, as no one would predict that whether people would be encouraged to leave their isolated self to communicate with larger social group, or merely maintain their own cocoon sustained by the technology
MENTAL LANDSCAPEIMPACT ON PUBLIC DOMAINIt is for sure that the public domain, in its traditional sense, a place with reference to certain space and moment, would be eroded by a ‘ cyberspace’ in which every participant creates his own system of spa-tiotemporal reference that may or may not be shared with others. In this metasphere, as stated before, one comprised of hierachical layers of tactile interfaces, every one has the potential of being a interface himself in that every action taken on a micro level is itself new information which informs on a macro level what oth-ers see and sense. Thus the envelope of public domain is no longer defined by the place, event, or social group, but rather depicted by the computational programming you choose to construct your own itineraries and encounters in the vast mental landscape.
ENVIRONMENTAL EMBODIMENTBLENDED IN META-SPHEREPerhaps it is less about the cliche of that whether technology, often rendered as potentially malign force, would lead to the domination of virtual over real, machinery over humanity. It is more about the body’ s capacity to proprioceptively map its own positions and displacements in the pervasive data field since it is already there. In his book Camouflage, Neil Leach states that we human being have the innate tendency to be blended and absorbe into the environmentwe inhabitate just as a smart chameleon does. It is through such course of self sacrifice that we identify and represent ourself, determine our coordinates in the infinite matrix. Maybe the principle pertains equally to the way we project ourself into the ambient data field through which we learn to mediate both space and moment. And moreover, the environment may begin to be animated as a chameleon that suits the desires of our own. It is said that all human triesto do is to recreate the warm and safe environment that they first experience in the womb. Again, the answer to the question that whether the meta sphere emerging now would better facilitate our effort of environmental blendness is complex and contraversial, depending highly on the personal pattern in which you see, sense and operate.
Reference:4dspace: Interactive Architecture (Architectural Design) by Lucy BullivantPlace: Networked Place, Kazys Varnelis & Anne FriedbergIphone City: by Andrea BettellaSpheres I: by Peter SloterdijkCamouflage: by Neil Leach
PROGRAMMED HUMAN INTERACTIONPhilip PongvarinNew technologies have significant impact on human since the dawn of time, yet the past 10 years of tech-nology have a larger impact than the period preceding. Population growth and available human knowledge power effects this, but it is the need for an effortless daily life that drives new technology. As human, we have gone from walking, to using human-powered carriages, to animal-drawn carriages, and finally to machine-powered means of transportation. Same can be said with communication, or any type of human interaction; there’s usually a mechanical device already invented to aid almost all human contacts.
The most basic of human interactions involves at least two people within each other’s vicinity. The problem arises when the two people don’t live within walking distance. Other means of relaying messages must be invented, hence messengers using horse, ergo postal systems. Further, there’re telephones, which began as land lines, but that was deemed an inconvenient where land line was unavailable. Hence wireless phones for land lines are invented, which eventually paved way for cellular and satellite phones. Lastly is probably the most important technology of all, computing technology, which found its way into many devices and machines.
The positive impacts of these technologies are immense, but the concerns of the sudden emergence of these technologies are the impacts they have on human on a social level. Cell phones have become that replacement of direct social interactions, lessening the needs to see acquaintances frequently. People often ask, why walk or drive long distances when he or she can simply call or text. The lessening of human inter-action was taken a step further when social networking sites are created for the internet.
Current social networking has already taken a drastic step with virtual realities, a place where people can lead a second life, hence the name of the game. Its actual existence and legitimacy are often questioned, yet obscured by certain aspects of the game such as interrelation of currency, where real world money translate directly into virtual money, and virtual money can be translated back to real world money. People in the virtual games can have a job, house, and even a second set of friends. If this “game” persist, human will began to question what is real and what is not, and perhaps creating a situation thought of in many media; one popular film came to mind: the Matrix.
What do all these issues mean for the future of technology? Does it means that laptops will now have stan-dard transparent-able screens so that students will have to turn their screens transparent in class, so that their professors see they’re taking notes and not playing games or browsing the internet? Would this mean that online classes through webcams will be the primary way of conducting classes, rendering physical lecture hall ancient, and the need to be at education institution reserved only for hands on learning such as laboratory experiments.
The direction technology takes lies within human necessity. It is our responsibility to “vote” by usage, pur-chasing, etc. on which technology that will be beneficial rather than breaks down the essence of human, to keep that fine line between what is real and what is not.
CURATOR’S WORDS
ReferencesBoellstorff, Tom. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton University Press, 2008.Corn, Joseph J. Horrigan, Brian. Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.Dregni, John. Dregni, Eric. Follies of Science: 20th Century Visions of Our Fantastic Future. Golden, CO: Speck Press, 2006.Hayles, Katherine. How We Become Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernatics, Literatures, and Informatics. University of Chicago Press, 1999.Meadows, Mark. I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life. New Riders Press, 2008.Wilson, Daniel H. Where’s My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived. New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA, 2007.
Nolli MapGiambattista Nolli.1748
In the ichnographic plan of Rome, now universally known as the Nolli Map, Giambattista Nolli uses a figure-ground representation of built space with blocks and building shaded in a dark poché. Enclosed public spaces such as the colonnades in St. Peter’s Square and the Pantheon as open civic spaces.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
iPhone City, written by Andrea Bettella, is an interesting and insightful article whichtalks about how we properly theorise the digital at the scale of the city, and the city rendered
as digital media.
If the first function of the city is proximity – to people, goods, information, transportation, etc.– then the proliferation of information network as well as the smart digital handset such as
iPhone condense the city into an extensible software + hardware platform, a meta – interfacecomprised of millions of smaller tacticle ones. Phone + City is a composite read – write
medium, allowing for real time communication through multiple modes. It is the most importantinfrastructure of any emergent global democratic society. This is not only because it enables
physical, communicative and thereby social mobility, but because it reinserts the specificlocation into digital space, and does so by ‘ making location gestural ’.
According to this emerging scenario the author made his suggestionto architects, as he stated:
“ One half of the architects and urbanists should stop designing new buildings and newdevelopments altogether. Instead, they should invest the historical depth and intellectual
nuance of their architectural imagination into the design and programming of new softwarethat provides for the better use of the structures and systems we already have... “
It is true that space, in its traditional sense, a place with reference to certain structure andmaterial, would be eroded by a ‘ cyberspace’ in which every participant creates his own
system of spatiotemporal reference. Thus the term Space may be less defined by thearchitectural form, but rather depicted by the computational programming you
choose to construct your own itineraries and encountersin the vast mental landscape.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
iTravelThe screen of the smart handset such as iPhone is now tool for us to orient and navigateourselves, altering the way we experience the city. With location-based technology, users
can search for the best restaurants, bars, clubs, museums, shops and Design Hotels memberhotels that are closest to their current location. There’s also no need to worry about expensive
roaming fees because the content is accessible offline as well. The team of journalists areconstantly researching and updating the listings and reviews to keep travellers current on
happenings in the local scene.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Mr Apick up location3111 Walton Ave.11:20am
iDriveNetwork
Mr Adrop off location
Ms Bpick up location3111 Walton Ave.07:27pm
Smart Car is an intelligent system designed by MIT MediaLab. Based on the interface of handset such as iPhone, the system is to
facilitate the user experience of car rental.Currently people spend a good amount of time in picking up the car
and returning it in designated location which may be far awayfrom their destination. This system is designed to allow the
users to pick up the car in a place nearest to his or hercurrent location and drop it near the destination which
in the most ideal situation would right be the pickup location of the next user.
Since the process of car rental would be facilitatedit is hoped that more and more people would use
the rent car as transportation alternative thusthe environmental impact of too much
private vihicles would be alleviated.
iDrive
Every action takenon the micro level
becomes newinformation
whichchanges on
the macrolevel how
othersare
informed
PUBLIC DOMAIN
iFly is a student project done by Xu, Xiaochang in the Architecture & Media studio, USCschool of Architecture. It is also a nevigating system based on iPhone interface usedin airport. Traveler landing on an airport which he is not familier with could use thephone to get all the related information such as 3D map to nevigate himself and moreoptically arrange his route and schedule. The sistem also allows the airport to locateindividual traveler for better administration.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Eco friendly A virtual facade elimi-nates the need for usage of many material resources, helping re-duce pollution during the construction process.
Virtual Facade: WouldArchitecture’ s Allignment With Multimedia Lead to More Attractive & Interactive Public Space?
Variety There are limitless pos-siblilities of facades, only limited by the programer.
Interactivity The facade can change ac-cording to the type of users, or any festivities of the time.
Cost saving The projection system only uses electricity and programming. Instead of having to build and rebuild, the projection does all the work, reduc-ing production cost.
Virtual FacadeThe integration of multimedia technology into architectural design in recent years changes the built environment.
There is some obvious advantages, among which the most promising one would be to let the building facadedirectly communicate with people or their digital handset such as cell phone. It is connected to our daily physical
experience in a most seamless manner, rendering the public space more attractive and interactive.
3D projections were used in these images to transform the facade into many different design language as seen fit by the architect. An “automated” program can be written so that a building can visually change shape and texture, lessenning the importance of a physical space designer and demands for virtual space designer.
Recently, cafe’s have been become a meeting place for many people, whether it is for business purpose, education, or just leisure.
What pushes cafes to this status of meeting place depends on the incentives offered at the cafe. People can go and get food and drinks,
while being in a social environment, as they congregate and discuss any matters at hand.
Cafe’s provided a public space for people to engage in social behavior, such as conversations or debates. They also provide ambient background
for those individuals who need to be in social environment in order to work.
Cafe business owners have been looking for ways to improve the social settings already present by adding amenities for their customers and visi-tors. There are often thoughtful background music, comfortable furniture,
and art decorations. The available amenities were pushed futher when free internet access were given to customers, as an incentives to keep
people in the cafe for longer peroid of time, for better business.
Many cafe franchise has taken onto this business regime, such as star-bucks. This idea is one in which that individuals have the need to gather in social setting, even by themselves, was explored. This is the idea that we are not necessary alone even if we are not interacting with those in close proximity. It is the idea that just being in a social setting, connected to the
internet, the virtual social world, means that we are not along.
Public Domain: Networked & elsewhere
Tele-TrustThis page:Many of us wants privacy, yet at the same time wants to be noticed by others. The cloth on the images on this page is specially made to “hide” the wearer. However, it has the ability to monitor the wearer’s emotion so that as the user arrives at certain loca-tions, the information will transfer from the cloth to the monitor, reflecting what is going on with the user. The emotion comes out for people to see, but the user remains hidden from public.
Opposing page:Clothing technologically desgned based on Intimacy, the idea that the clothes change transparency according to the people the wearer en-counters. Would this kind of technology let human re-examines the level of exposure and guard we have in the public domain, or even with aqquaintances?
BibapWith Bibap, an online virtual world was created with five different environments for the user to navigate through, each offering different possibilities for inter-acting with the application. (www.bibap.nl)
Body inBits And Pieces,
an onlineapplication that
entices visitors tothe BIBAP website
to interact in anexciting virtual
environment.
Window Phone,transparent
screen will change a window
into a varietyof weather,
accordingly.
SOCIAL NETWORKING
Transparent Windows PhoneImagine if your phone can change its appearance according to the weather or your emotion. Suddenly the phone can have different designs instead of one.
Further, the phone in the present day, with the internet, allow the users to connect virtually to anyone on the planet. Wire-less phone has become so advanced in recent days that many people spent as much time on a cell phone as a computer.
Social networking through cell phone has lessen the normal face-to-face human interaction, and has paved way to virtual webcam interaction through phone’s cameras.
For about a week during the Ars Electronica Festival,Marienstraße, a side-street in downtown Linz, willundergo strategically orchestrated design interventionsthat will shift it out of the real cityscape and morph itinto a zone of transition into virtuality.
“Tree”, four life sizesemi transparentSecond Life trees ona construction site inMarienstrasse
“Missing Image”, the graphical errormessage from Second Life as a reallife shirt
“Chat”, the reallife interactivespeech bubblesas a mobileinstallation /performance
“Are you social?”,T-shirts related to the topic
of privacy and Web2.0 services
In which form does this networkdata-world really manifest itself in
our physical everyday-lifespace?What is being fed back into physical
space from the “cyberspace” intowhich data has been fed for so
long now? How do these digitalinnovations influence our actions
in everyday life?Ars Electronica festival 2007 showcase many new
technology for the virtual space. The festival took in anoutdoor public space in the center of Linz, Austria.
One of the exhibit was for “Second City,” a part of the festival situated in a deserted shopping street between other festival places like
Ok-Center, the conference Forum and Pfarrplatz.
The topic of virtual reality of Second Life was a subtopic because the festival was more focused on representing the virtual world,
in a physical world in their outdoor public space.
In an ironic exaggerated way the design of Marienstrassepicked up the main reason for Second Lifes success: moneyand shopping. In a typical akward Second Life style bigshopping panels and default wood cubes were scattered alongstreet. Visitors could choose objects from these billboards and
order them at the Second City Shop. The Second City Shop was the center of Second Life. Virtual objects were delivered by
the real life clerk, a physical lasered shape of the virtual objectserved as a receipt and represented the “real” object in SecondLife. Visitors could later show each other what they got for their
avatars and exchange these objects.
Beside serveral pieces and presentations, five differentworkshops were offered at the Second City Shop: “Create and
trade”, “Export to world”, “WoW”, “Handmade” and “Cut andpaste” which allowed the import and export objects in
all kinds of ways from the virtual world Second Life. (Second Life, Aram Bartholl).
SOCIAL NETWORKING
“ Export to World ”seeks to commentironically on thedesign and productionof merchandise invirtual worlds.Retail space onMarienstraße will betemporarily convertedinto a shop like thosefound in Second Life.custom-made orpurchased virtualobjects that shopperscan buy at a pricedetermined daily bythe current Lindendollar/euro exchangerate.
“Are you social?”,T-shirts related to the topic
of privacy and Web2.0 services
“Are you social?”,T-shirts related to the topic
of privacy and Web2.0 services
The data-based world of digital networks has become an increasingly importantpart of everyday life. A diverse array of platforms, devices and services vie forour attention. The acceleration of communication and networking in recentyears has been considerable. The digital world can be extremely useful, oreven indispensable if you will, but it remains arrested on a rectangle full ofpixels. With each new communications service, people’s online habits change.Whereas big-city anonymity still prevails in everyday life in the public sphere,the most minute details of private life are being exhibitionistically put on displayin the Internet.
Who are you?What do you do?Where are you?Who are your friends?The Internet services of so-called Web 2.0 trigger undreamt-of synergy effectsfor their users in the form of social networks;the price, however, is anonymity.But whoever doesn’t get into the swim doesn’t make a ripple in the networkedworld; they go unnoticed and go without access to the big data flow.Humanbeings themselves comprise the interface between the abstract, digital worldand the material, analog one.We lead a sort of schizophrenic lifebetween the rapidly moving, difficult-to-grasp world of communication and reallife in space and time. It seems to be something regarded as completely normalto be chatting with someone in a café while simultaneously writing an SMS,but these are two fundamentally different worlds of communication.
SchizophrenicalLiving
We identify and represent ourself, determine our coordinates in the infinite matrix. Maybe the principle pertains equally to the way we project ourself into the ambient data field through which we learn to mediate both space and moment. And moreover, the environment may begin to be animated as a chameleon that suits the desires of our own.
Digital World a space in which we enjoy the augmented freedom, democracy, and reality
Meta-Sphere consciousness of the seven “rays” of meta-physics: will, love, intelligent, harmony, knowledge, devotion, and order.
Digital Intimacy
the constant online con-nection to social net-working sites
Mental Landscape
the computational pro-gramming you choose to construct your own itineraries and encoun-ters
Environmental Embodiment
the body’s capacity to proprioceptivelymap its own positions and displacements in the pervasive data field Programmed
Human Interactions
the possible scenarios in the digital world, readily planned for any users.
Public Domain
openly available to ev-eryone and for everyone
SocialNetworking
online community for the people
GLOSSARY OF RELEVANT TERMS
4D Space 3D space with the addi-tion of time and motion of the object only
Transparent the characteristic of be-ing able to allow light to pass through
Envelope that which define some-thing; a limit
Facade the front of a building; the sides
Technology a subject branch that deals with the creation related to art and sci-ence, or similar
Communication the act of the inter-change of thoughts,etc
Automate the method of control by a mechanical or electri-cal device
GLOSSARY OF RELEVANT TERMS
IMAGE & GENERAL INDEX
Transparent Win-dows PhoneDesigner: Seunghan Songwww.tuvie.com
Rome Mapwww. fonisol.com
Toyota Yariswww.toyota.com
“iPhone City”Benjamin Bratton
Airport Terminalwww.inhabitat.com
World Mapwww.bristolsto-ries.org
Varietywww.gourmet-delight.com
Tangible Video Projectionwww.projectionsonbuildings.com
Intimacywww.v2.nl
Tele-Trustwww.v2.nl
Interactive Displaywww.fredericeyl.de
Images Selectionswww.datenform.de
Transparent Win-dows PhoneDesigner: Seunghan Songwww.tuvie.com
The Bridge Projectwww.citrinitas.com
World Connection Densitywww.chrisharrison.net
The Cafe Terracewww.1st-art-gallery.com
Laptop Userwww.geekwith-laptop.com