Nowadays, people are using new forms of technology in order to interact with each other and with those responsive tools. But this is like playing squash which in that two player are playing with each other and the ball. The wall as the constant element of the game is not playing an interactive role. But the city which its urban networks are live should not contain any constant element. The real live network is when the elements are not dividable to active or passive. For example, in a road trip it is only the driver who is using the car and some applications to navigate the car; we do not see any smart action from the road. The next step is to providing the last part of today’s urban network which is now absent. This is what our new infrastructure should be, it is maybe what the CIAM congresses were looking for. This can be the city as communication device. Now we are in the disconnection era. But we will connect soon. Maybe it is really the downfall of the modern city and the next connection is going to happen in a virtual world, not through modifying our pedestrians and roads.   MMORPGs which make possible online meetings of individuals, are the primary signs of the next generation of cities for us.

“Every non physical network requires a physical network for its delivery.” quoted from Network Fever.

When my Cantonese-speaking grandfather was young, he lived in a small village. Their accent was a little bit different with others. Actually every village has its own accent, so when people met in a city, they knew where are each others from. After the television spreads into families, it changed. The people who speak a standard accent on the television was seemed urbanized which is fashion and elegant, in contrast, speaking in village accent seemed obsolete and out of date, so people started to imitate the “city accent” on television. Several decades later, now those different accents are no longer exist.

I think some other similar things also happen in many ways. Technology creates a new network which covers our daily life and shrinks our world, it makes diversity more obvious and at the same time somewhat kills the diversity. This can be relates to the Excerpts from The Railway Journey, the aura thing.

As many articles mentioned the transportation is a prosthetic of human being, I don’t think that’s true. A prosthetic is an alternative object which corresponds our original function, our innate organs such as feet and hands. However, automobiles and television are the other thing, they are not replacing out feet and mouth, they are extension, the function is totally different with what we have. Is this “extension” as network kills the diversity? Sometime I really think so. But in other words, without this “extension,” we won’t know this world any much more than our ancestor. It is the network , the “extension” makes us see the difference in diversity, so that we have a chance to look deep in it and appreciate it.

Wigley’s “Network Fever” focuses on our obsession (I don’t mean that in a negative way) with networks and it’s origins.  For a piece that was just written in 2001, I found it interesting that nothing past 1972 was referenced in the text itself, suggesting that Wigley might be correct when he asks “..what if we are actually at the end point of the network logic?”  Of course new networks are continuing to emerge, but are they all based on ideas Fuller, McLuhan, Tyrwhitt, Doxiadis and the like proposed as early as the 1950’s?  I think it is interesting to wonder how far networks can go, and if we have already gotten there.  I honestly don’t know.  Perhaps technological networks have reached their peak and we need to start looking back to biology for inspiration.  For example, much like the spider’s web that Doxiadis presented in 1972, slime mold which Dave mentioned in his presentation is a biological substance which is a network of optimization.  This mold searches for its food by extending “legs” or “tentacles” out in every direction until it finds what it is looking for.  Once it has found the food, it pulls all the other extremities back and puts all the energy into traveling in the optimized direction towards the food.  Slime mold has been used as a theoretical reworking of the Tokyo metro map- by placing points at all the stops desired and letting the slime mold find these nodes, a new, optimal transportation system was developed and could be used when planning future systems for other cities.  In this way, Wigley is correct when he says that “Designing networks has become a biological necessity.

Network. No matter I am talking about what kind of network. For me the two articles didn’t go through the other related equally important issue enough. Connection!

Raising in an under developed country, sometimes you might be able to explore some old equipment, methods and tools which were not available for your peers in many countries around the world. More than 90 percent of internet patrons have been using dial-up connection in Iran the year I entered the architecture school in 2008. (while the global percentage was about 5). You may ask yourself why I brought up dial-up connection. Because of the different style of connection (be connected). Users had to click (dial) to connect a server and then start using [the very slow] internet and again after checking emails and whatever stuff, they had to disconnect in some cases maybe to use the common telephone service and save their money.

In the old fashion place (actual or physical), network, urban space, or café as a public space you have the ability to choose whether or not to leave. However, are you still able to do this with your new version of places which I dare say that we are currently interact in? (right now reading my response).

It has been more than 6 month that I resist activating my Facebook account for some reasons, believe me or not I sometimes suffer from not having one in some ways. I cannot detach myself from  something that is called a new medium, a new place to act and react, and even live simultaneously.

For years people were working with and on internet, and they could take it away whenever they wanted. You could have a new email and id address everyday (for me as a teenager this was very fun). What happened? Let’s have profiles. Let’s tell everyone about your interest. Let’s always be available and online. Let’s demolish your privacy. Oh no, who says that, go to your setting then security and you can decide who is going to see your personal information, I mean an individual not Google, Facebook, etc. Government is not individual, security agencies are made to protect you just like doctors, they know everything about you but they promise not to tell anyone, I mean at least most of the time.

When there is a debate or struggle between those who think we are losing our society because of being that drunken with our quotidian online activities and those who think this new kind of place, space, and even society is just different from our old known version in form and shape while it is still a platform and context for our same social activities, no one tries to define an exit and entrance door for this highway and I am thinking about reactivating my Facebook account and lack of capability of resistance.

The use of the term architecture in reference to any job title other than the traditional ‘architect’ used to confuse me greatly. In reading just the beginning of ‘Network Fever’ i now understand its use and larger implications. When broken down to its simplest description, a building, or piece of architecture, is a system of spaces that is organized to be of use to its occupants. The more complex the architecture becomes, the more important clear and proper organization is necessary in order for it to be used and occupied efficiently. The field of computers, networks and the internet revolve around the same principals; they deal with spaces and the organization of. The architecture of [computer] networks are actually far more complex than buildings and therefore require a far superior [architectural] design.

The ideas discussed in the article revolving around the city as an information network in which people exist and take part is of great interest to me. Over the past year I have been getting more and more interested in the function of current cities and the need for change in the coming future.

There are several things I found extremely interesting about these readings.  Mainly, I would like to touch on the idea of a dual existence.  The presence that one can have in the physical world can be very different in an online existence.  Or one can lose themselves within an online world where they feel almost held back by the limitations of their current place.  Auge in the Varnelis reading says,”That our sense of place, as old as humanity, is coming to an end.”  I disagree.  I believe that this marks a time where our definition of the word place is extending far beyond our own selves in our current location, but now extends globally and online.  This new existence online can begin to usurp how we interact with those around us.  Moreover, I believe that becoming engrossed in a constant connected network has driven people to blur the line between the real and virtual world.  This can be seen in the reading when Varnelis describes the account of a woman that passed away, but her online friends held a memorial for her in their online fantasy game.  The virtual memorial was attacked by an enemy team and essentially ruined.  This was infuriating to a lot of people and brought into question morality and ethics.  But what I find extremely interesting is the completely blurred boundary between how people would react in real life to how it was perceived online.  The people holding the memorial were deeply hurt, but more interestingly was the fact that a memorial for someone that died in the real physical world was being help in a virtual fantasy world.  The two worlds merged and became one.  The virtual world also begins to blur questions of economics.  “Digital” products are being sold and traded for real currency without the creation of any sort of tangible goods.  This has a direct effect on people’s economic well being in the real world.

The virtual data driven network is becoming more and more a part of our perception of the physical world.  Facebook and Twitter are mediums for us to portray our physical activities in an almost choreographed way.  People put in many cases more importance in their online image than their real life.  They want to show the world that they are having a good time rather than actually enjoy the time they are having.  The increased use of RFID tags to embed data in everyday objects begins to add a virtual layer of data to objects that we interact with everyday.  This has the potential for people to communicate with objects and for objects to tell us their stories.  Recent inventions such as the Google driverless car also serve to allow a constant connected network to have direct control of a human life by physically transporting people from place to place without the persons direct intervention.  We now live in a world where the online virtual experience and the physical experience are becoming one.

for me its very interesting how the range of perception and the realm of an individual existence can be expanded and/or enlarged thorough the use of digital mediums. human beings, being social creatures will never cease to require some degree of contact with other people. this subconscious need does not necessarily means direct interaction but the perception of other peoples “Aura”. the lack of that interaction is what makes solitary confinement such a powerful and feared form of punishment. through the use of avatars and social media accounts we can broaden our presence and therefore expand the idea of what we call Public.

the idea of the network becoming an expansion of the human body that just as the latter needs to be housed and sheltered is fascinating; through the use of mobile technology every one of use is a source of data permanently connected to a network obtaining and distributing information.

I believe I wrote about this subject before, though I can’t remember if it was for this class or not. I digress. I’ll start by quoting Wigley

“…in a paradoxical twist, [that] the latest technologies have expanded the body so far that they have shrunk the planet to the size of a village…The paradoxical rationale of the network is that the possibility of infinite extension actually produces density.”

And I’ll follow with Varnelis

“The transition toward network culture is not merely technological, it is deeply tied into societal changes…Steven Johnson suggests that the renewed interest in cities during the 1980’s and 1990’s will only increase with the growth of what Chris Anderson calls the long tail. Anderson observes that the demand curve for cultural products has traditionally been understood as validating the production of a small number of hits to be bought up by a vast consumer market. In his theory of the long tail, Anderson suggests that the Internet is making the flat part of the long tail-populated by products appealing to ever smaller niches-as profitable as the head. According to Anderson, tools such as aggregators and search engines couple with a societal shift in media consumption to the flat part of the long tail to inreasingly leave behind a one size fits all mentality for an interest in more eccentric, niche tastes. Johnson argues that with culture moving to the flat part of the long tail, the diversity of taste cultures that we can find in dense cities will appeal to us more and more.”

And it’s true! Look what’s happening here in Buffalo alone. Statistics are proving that our generation is moving back into the city from the horrible incarceration of the suburbs. And that young people are moving from less dense areas of western new york into the city of Buffalo proper (myself included). My conjecture aligns with Varnelis; that network society has conterintuitively made us long for smaller, denser environments like those proposed by the congress of new urbansim (which is a bit dangerous to say here and may be a touch inflammatory with their obsession with ‘neighborhoods’, but I’ll throw that out there). That the density of network culture provides so much availability of niche tastes that these things become ‘close’ through the net.

That culture has had a direct impact on our environment; literally compelling us to change our environment and restore our crumbling cities. The culture of the collective has returned in the city rather than the culture of the singular with their green grass and white picket fence. We want things close again, we want variability and niche shops in our habitats. What was sacrificed in suburbia, the internet has provided, and what surburbia sacrificed the city provides. Our culture has changed; the American dream has changed.

On another note, if you’ve never seen the serenitynow funeral attack in WoW, here it is. I remember when this happened (a horrifying 8 years ago). It was one of the first times the masses questioned our ideas of reality, but I’d need another post to talk about that one.

Wigley started with a story where neo-futuristic architect, systems theorist Fuller and Marshall McLuhan, philosopher of communication theory, met for the first time in a eight day long boat journey. The brain storming took place about communication, urban growth, data, time, space and technology. They treated all these elements in as a living organism as a body with nerves and arteries joining each part and giving feedback. Doxiadis put his dots on a map for his works around the globe and made a spreading virus form. Pointing to the spreading form he criticizes that cities are expanding out of control. Cities are like complex nervous system of biological body determined by time not space. As the wheel came as the extension of human feet, the city started expand vastly, thus growth is determined by movement, speed and time, again not space, leaving aura. One complex network is juxtaposing to another complex network full of functions without shell holding shelters framed by shell. To hold this complexity a system is needed to stitch these small systems into a super system as meaningful organism. This reminds me of Pask and Beer.

 
In Varnelis and Friedberg physical space broke apart. Virtual space is putting walls in actual space making citizens consumers. Sense of public space changed dramatically with growth of networking and communication. Public space is becoming privatized. At that time Jean Jacob summoned her “the Death and Life of American Cities”. Urban community lacks in face to face interaction and communication. Auge’ s “place” and “ non place” both are falling apart as well. Her non places like airport, parking garage, freeways are now taken over by networks, creating new spaces of fast, vast private and public and Here I should recall Wigley, in this node an interface is created in between this physical and non physical spaces.

Wolfgang Schivelbusch, as we read his piece earlier in this semester, discussed that railway system started to redefine the definition of space; distances become shorter each day since we can travel faster. Then we analyze a distorted map of Europe published by OMA. The map presents a very clear illustration of the influences of railway network on the space existed on the ground for dozens of centuries with no major changes. Today’s network of data is, in some extent comparable to what Schivelbusch tried to argue. Flows of information that connect nodes in fractions of a second, redefined the definition of accessibility in our time. In Vernelis and Friedberg’s text we can see lots of influences of network connectivity on the space we live in. The way telephones change the urban behaviour of managers or GPS maps affect our understanding of spaces and paths. Moreover a non-real space is created via networks whose influences are even more intense on our lives; The simultaneously doubling of space argued by McLuhan. I tried to imagine the new distorted map of the world like one illustrated by OMA and after few seconds I found out that it cannot be a map any more. Imagine a point of very small (means fast) connections when the length of the paths approaches zero. Even if some familiar real spaces were recognizable visually in OMA’s work, in this new distorted map you can not even recognize the Sahara desert or south pole since they are affected by the forces catching nodes all in one point that can be McLuhan’s famous “global village” .

I can hardly imagine all these intense and fast changes without considering the psychological effects hidden behind them. Despite presence of a person in two spaces simultaneously, which is very conceptual, there are more parameters to change our feeling about space and connectivity. The fact that is very clear for us now is that we can be alone and free only by our choice. The other point is the changes on Augé’s non-spaces which is believed to be an “artifact of the past” and its influences on urban planing may be huge. Just imagine that we want to consider highways as places.

Mark Wigley’s piece which is a very interesting story of modern architecture and primitive steps of network notion , was itself a network of many of theoreticians and ideas we read this semester like, Fuler, McLuhan, Giedion and even Licklider. One of the most interesting points to me was the effort of modern architecture to “widening the brief of architecture” argued by Pask. We can see many thoughtful people of their age working on designing systems instead of buildings. Networks are in some extent a system that we can discuss through notions of cybernetics. They were realizing the capacities of Networks not only as nodes connected by cars and people via paths but also as paths of messages carrying information between people.