Architecture, Science, Technology And the Virtual Realm by Antoine Picon

1. The idea that globalisation has somehow affected Architecture’s sense of scale is interesting to me. In last week’s reading Principles of Self-Organization Ashby mentions how before the computer, systems of medium-size complexity were not achievable, as everything was either as simple as the watch and the pendulum or as complex as the human and the dog, thus rendering us unable to completely understand dynamic systems. In a way he was talking about scale, in terms of the amount of information. Picon speaks of scale in the more traditional sense, whereas with advancements in technology we can observe phenomena in both the macro and micro-scales. And, according to Ashby, it is the computer which has enabled us to study these complex dynamic systems. But how will this “blurring of the very big and the very small” change how we produce Architecture, or has it already?

2. Picon refers to the suspension of the traditional scale of perception and the intensity that it generates as hyperrealism. In Simulacra and Simulations Jean Baudrillard also uses this term to refer to another reality beyond the real which is usually hidden by different power structures. How are these two definitions of hyperrealism related? How are they different? I am just wondering what is meant by this term in both essays?