J- Networks and Interconnectivity
1) Mark Wigley, “Network Fever”, Grey Room, No. 4, Summer 2001.
Negin
This idea “The evolution of technology is the evolution of the human body” seems very interesting to me and it can change the way we look at architecture in future.
According to what is explained about “Accommodating Human Unsettlement” , what does it mean by the stability of unseen infrastructural networks that makes global physical instability possible?
Rob-
1. McLuhan’s statement that “networks of communication, like any technology, are prosthetic extensions of the body” (page 86) really makes sense. For example, a phone can be seen as an extension of the ear, and cell phones could be seen as an even more direct extension since people are always connected to their cell phones.
2. McLuhan states that technology is essentially man evolving himself (each piece of technology is a form of evolution). Could there be a point where we can no longer evolve? Or could our technology outpace us?
3. In Doxiadis’s idea of ekistics, he states that if global information and data were controlled, cities could be controlled. Is he saying that cities and data are the same thing? Or that they are dependent on one another?
Yuan
1. What does the “diagonal link” and later the term of “triangulation rules” mean on page 108?
2. “The architect is seen as a networked animal that networks networks that are themselves animate. In extending the body, networks have to extend its organic logic” Please explain this part on page 94.
3. “It is in order to connect themselves to this network that people gather in the cities” on page 105. Is the trend of suburban dwelling a product of network beyond author’s prediction?
William
How much has the internet changed our understanding of networks? Our invisible network infrastructure is tremendous, and becomes more invisible and more extensive as time passes. Is the resurgence/continuation of network discourse a response to the particular actualization of the network theory of the past? If it is just an echo, how do we move forward?
Wesley
– We are tided to the technology now in many networks, the technology is creating the network of communication similar to the idea of “the city is created from connections to the network”. As we are connected more deeply into the invisible networks they are extracting us from the space all the time. Do we still have capacity to disconnect from these networks?
2) Kazys Varnelis, “The Rise of the Network Culture”, Networked Publics, MIT press, 2008.
Rob-
1. Varnelis writes that postmodernism undid all meaning and any existential ground outside of capital. It seems as if this is what really paved the way for network culture in that all meaning is taken out of physical things and can be put into digital things. Is this what he’s getting at?
2. Is network culture a form of capital (i.e. is it social capital)?
3. Varnelis states that, in today’s world, the idea of self is not constructed by identity, but rather reduced to “dividuals.” Can anyone truly be an individual anymore?
Yuan:
1. Refer to the diagram of network structures, the decentralized model is less convincing to me. Because the infrastructure of network is ultimately a complex one with different overlapping networks; and there should be no dead end on any nodes. To my understanding, its structure should be at the point somewhere between decentralized and distributed ones.
2. Please explain and distinguish the terms of “modernism” “postmodernism” and “late capitalism”.
3. Considering the capitalism of non-profit and public based network product in the example of Facebook, is it paradoxical to author’s opinion that amateurs’ creation will lose its role of competitor and eventually be absorbed by capital?
William
To what extent has our understanding of identity changed? We seem currently a schizophrenic culture, one divided between a physical and digital version of self. How do we evaluate the self in a network culture?
The recent execution of Troy Davis and the (temporary?) dissolution of the #Occupy camps reify the question of power in a network culture. How large is the rift between perceived capability and physical manifestation?