the critical debate in architecture must move beyond the blob vs. the box. the exploration of form as an end-in-itself is no longer delivering radical shifts. for the past ten years, architecture has focused on computationally intensive geometry. now, it must engage the territory presented by the network, both as a site for a new kind of architecture, and as a tool for rethinking the nature of design as a cultural construct.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
agency in multiplicity
It is important to be clear about what is meant by contested space. It is not about contest; contest is the process by which contested space is packaged, constrained, delimited, framed, turned into content, embedded with the marks of power-domination. Rather, contested space contains the many layers of history, points of view and positions that surround any thing/idea/understanding. As a construct, contested space is fundamentally ambivalent, a dataspace representing the range of intellectual, emotional, political negotiations and divergences. It does not frame this dataspace in any way, but remains smooth, fluid, amorphous, isotropic. This raises the question of interface. What are the characteristics of an interface into this dataspace such that it can be embedded with (transient, self-recursive) meaning/organization - that it can be folded onto itself - without introducing contest/consensus as a mechanism of control and definition? In other worlds, can an interface be conceived which allows agency without disrupting multiplicity?
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