HowEmerging

TechnologyReConfigure

OurLives

Curator:Philip Pongvarin

Xuan Wu

Arch 432PeoplePlacesandCulture

USCSchoolof Architecture Spring2010

TABLE OF CONTENTSCURATOR’S WORDS

PUBLICDOMAIN

SOCIAL NETWORKING

GLOSSARY OF RELEVANTTERMS

iMAGE &GENERALiNDEX

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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.

PUBLiCDOMAiN

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

Phone + City:Software + Hardware

Platform

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.

For theorist Jürgen Habermas, when the public sphere emerged in theearly eighteenth century, it did so in the context of the café, the learned

society, and the salon.Together with the rituals of coffee drinking, thecafé increasingly provided both forum and fuel for critical debate about

the latest pamphlets, newsletters, and broadsides.What kind of public do we have in the café scene of our quotidian present?

Women sit alongside men, and the patrons vary widely in age and ethnicity.But they are not engaged in debate or dialogue with each other. If theycome together, it is simply to establish an ambient visual experience ofbodies in near proximity, which is as psychically necessary in this wiredand wireless age as it was in the days of Australopithecus. The material

space of Starbucks is designed to facilitate this through its neighborhoodlocation, its anonymous yet familiar design choices, its comfortable furniture,and the carefully calibrated background music. But if these individuals don’tinteract with the other cafégoers verbally, they are engaged in a calculatedcopresence: while comfortably sipping coffee or its commodified equivalent

in the franchised design of this local Starbucks, they are—via a networkconnection, mobile phone, or wireless laptop—in another place.

But face-to-face encounters are only one level of human interaction: theStarbucks anecdote suggests that, for some reason, we still have an urge

to gather together, even if in our solitude. And this idea of solitude isdeceiving: a great deal has changed since Augé’s day. The proliferationof mobile phones and the widespread adoption of always-on broadband

Internet connections in homes and offices in the developed world meansthat we are not necessarily alone even if we are not interacting with those

in close physical proximity to us.

Place: Networked PlaceKazys Varnelis and Anne Friedberg

Public Domain: Networked & elsewhere

SOCiALNETWORKiNG

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?A major part of the Ars Electronica festival 2007 took place in

outdoor public space in the center of Linz, Austria. The socalled “Second City” part of the festival was situated in a

deserted shopping street between other festival places likeOk-Center, the conference Forum and Pfarrplatz. The festival

management rented all empty shops of Marienstrasse andturned 3/4 of the street into an exhibition space. More than

60 pieces of a wide range of international artists were shownat Second City.

Besides the over all topic “Good by Privacy” Second Life andmetaverses were a sub topic of Ars Electronica 2007. Thefestival management was interested in showing a physical

representation of the virtual world in Marienstrasse, Linz.

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. “Buy a new pair of eyes ora nice taint for your skin.” The Second City Shop was the centerof Second Life Marienstrasse. Virtual objects were delivered bythe real life clerk, a physical lasered shape of the virtual object

served 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. What is more importantthe virtual item or the real object?

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” allowed to im- and export objects in all kinds of ways

from the virtual world Second Life.

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

What if YOU

can havea

second life?

SOCIAL NETWORKING

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.

GLOSSARYRELEVANT

TERMSOF

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

iMAGESGENERAL

iNDEX&

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

IMAGE & GENERAL INDEX

Piggy Bankwww.51qite.cn

Leafwww.jykel03.wordpress.com

Varietywww.gourmet-delight.com

Tangible Video Projectionwww.projectionsonbuildings.com

Intimacywww.v2.nl

Tele-Trustwww.v2.nl

Interactive Displaywww.fredericeyl.de

Images Selectionswww.datenform.de

IMAGE & GENERAL INDEX

BIBAP/www.bibap.nl

World Networkwww.visualcomplexity.com

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