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Power Structures and Events

Thoughts on Global Power Structures, pre-industrial to post-industrial to networked futures.

Reflections + Projections

We are taking some time out here to reflect upon where we are at and where we are going.

It is important to acknowledge all of those people at our affiliate links, the research and efforts that you have seen posted here at SUPERSEDED are really the results of a group effort and dialogue.  Whilst most of the work here can be attributed to SUPERSEDED its important to note that workshops and paths of inquiry follow a "bigger than me" scenario.  The dialogue within our little group has been essential to developing elements of our project.

Through this group work a number of elements have emerged that interest SUPERSEDED;

REFLECTIONS (bananas)

A large quantity of useful information came out of our studies, the existing and future condition of Sydney.  The virtual environment never really was a true or enacted reflection of the real world.  Today it plays out on its own, and in the future it will feed back into the real.

GAMING - the concept of gaming was introduced in about the foruth week of SUPERSEDED's life, and it has helped develop the scenarios and situations for the future.  Gaming dialogue and taxonomies provide useful insights into how future interactions can be played out.

IMAGE/SPACE - as virtual environments and information delivery becomes more sophisticated, as they multiply ~image and/or diagram~ will be the way of interacting. Information will be presented in more complex, but easy accessed ways.  It would be useful at this point to return and do research on how information can/ is /will be / would be delivered in these game / virtual / physical environments.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL HOLDBACK - we have discussed the tendancy of collections of people to hold on to what they know.  The technological gap between me and my parents is much larger than the gap between my grandmother and my mother.  As technologies advance in faster speeds there will always be those that chose to step aside, switch off, opt out and "dwell in a cave". 

PROJECTIONS (pajamas)

SYSTEM - the real project should be a system, the idea of designing a game with presupposed outcomes is pointless.  In the future games and interactions will happen on a multiplicity of levels, the physical city is only one of them.  The site of interaction is the place / thing / object / time / moment / technology / FORMAT / project / forum that needs to be developed / DESIGNED.  The outcome is open ended, an anthropological organism.

The random elements of human nature play a role into the future.  Its important to recognise that new lucrative technologies in the hands of Rupert Murdoch would have a different outcome if they were in the hands of Richard Branson.  We can't account for this, but we acknowledge that the ultra-rich will be key players in the future.

GLITCH - There should always elements of protest/criticism in any established western system.  The opportunity for people to exercise their own will, in various capacities will not only be granted, but will BE DEMANDED.  As technologies seem to intrude our lives further people will always want to "turn it off"; people unjustly treated and those with too much spare time will always seek to disrupt. 

GAP - The future gap between the wealthy, not so wealthy and poor will grow.  Those at the top will control and those in the middle and at the bottom will upset and protest. 

GAP - Those that chose not to interact with the technologies will either be programed in or left behind, the division between those who are techno-savy and those who are not MUST be mediated or truncated.

GAP - The potential for environmental and resource problems to exaggerate the gap must be illustrated.

"the future is in our hands" the eventual  project outcome should acknowledge this and provide people with the chance to input.  The democratic and economic systems of the future must allow all citizens to play a part, and the ever connected virtual world is one way in which people can play out, play in, test and imagine their interests.

Here at SUPERSEDED we are keen to develop the project with our affiliates.

Love in 2030 (the human element)

The future can never really be in our hands when projecting so far.  The famous historian James Burke points out that leaps in history and technology are governed as much by chance as they are driven by social need; its only because two random strangers sitting next to each other on a plane struck up a conversation that we have domestic and commercial computers; only because of the Dutch royal family's name are carrots orange; only because one man married another man's sister that they worked together and discovered something called plastic.  Check out his "Connections" series.  

Random acts involving the most basic of human emotions have great impacts upon events in the future.

When we design or "make the leap" into our post-human successors programming, or writing elements of love and therefore hatred will be important for us.  In the west we value these things above all else.  In the future random acts involving small people will have huge impacts on the trajectory of our own future history, just as they do now.

John had been seeing Alana for about 6 weeks now, and he already knew that she was something special.  It was “the morning after” and he was smiling.  As he stepped into the office Alison looked up from the reception desk and stopped halfway through her usual greetings.

“My, you look pretty happy with yourself” she said with a smug grin, “What’s her name?" 

John’s reply was just a bigger smile, he wasn’t one for office chatter, he decided to let Alison run with this one.

  The conversation Alana and he had last night got him thinking.  He logged in to see where she was and an unfamiliar avatar asked for his password, it acknowledged his authority and granted him entry for the first time.  From here he could see that Alana was already underway with her 8am class.  To be able to see where she was whenever he liked was the privilege she gave him last night.  He knew from his line of work that these tracking signals were easy to fabricate.  If Alana was much like his past girlfriends he had to know she wasn’t sleeping around.   Trust wasn’t one of John’s best attributes and he struggled with this situation.

            She was right though, it didn’t matter if he could see where she was.  If Alana was ever going to grant John the privilege that he asked of her, he had to learn to trust her.

Naked in the city

Naked in the City

Thanks to our friends at "Small Change - TACK" the funny side of CCTV in the city was sourced.

Sydney AS Game

Navigating the city through gaming activity means that the experience of the city must be new.  This projective map suggests rather than imposes activity in the city.  Through navigating the city as a game what do we learn? how does the experience of the city change? will this be one type of city experiences in Sydney 2030?

Sydney Game Mapping

Two current movements through the city were mapped, with similar trackings as those in the game.  The destination was on the north-wester side of Circular Quay from two different starting points.

City Branding

The way in which Sydney brands itself to the outside world is important.  There is no denying that Sydney as an international destination is successful.  What is a physical city's presence in the international arena? Here at Superseded we stumbled upon a webcam of Circular Quay, which got us thinking about Sydney's physical presence on the internet.

If we market a city to the international audience what exactly are we marketing?  We're not pretending to be able to answer this question, but we would like to pose another. What parts of the city are present to the internet audience?

Results above.

Sydney Webcam

RTA webcams

Game Mapping

One map of one game play.  You can follow one game play on a map level and see how objects and enemies play into the decisions the game player makes.  The investigation here tracks the movement of our hero over the course of 2 game weeks.

Heroes of Might and Magic V ; Ubisoft

Gaming Typologies

Our friends at SUPERFUTUREprojects have completed a little study of gaming spaces.  In light of the previous mapping exercises it will be interesting to investigate a number of city interactions with these new taxonomies and ideas.

Check it out HERE

and HERE

CCTV Sydney

Surveilance technology in Sydney City can now track your every move through the streets.

Check out this article.

Game Mapping

Navigating the virtual, technological is quite different from doing so in the real world.  Communication technologies have yet to have a dramatic impact on the way in which circulation through spaces/cities happens and can be enacted.  The next few posts will explore the circulation in the real and virtual worlds.  We shall seek to understand what we can learn from games, internet mapping and other various forms of navigation and (hopefully) how it can inform a new way to interact/navigate the real world.

The above image is an attempt at trying to understand the pathways available within the game "Heroes of Might and Magic 5".  The diagram explains itself with the key in the top left corner.  Particular to the platforms of these games is that their is only really one successful outcome, and how you get there is controlled to some degree, within the game we can only chose from a limited number of paths to take.

Moment - Sydney 2030

How much will our lives differ in 2030?  Everyday moments will be mediated by differeent technologies, but ultimately we're all still human.

The shop is quiet this time of day, the silence seemed to take over your mood, only two other people here going about in slow considered ways.  The heat outside made the fruit store a haven this time of year.  As I picked up the basil I checked the list to make sure I had everything, tomatoes were the last.  Five of the ripest, and the best flavour Bowral has to offer us in the city here.  Turning my mind to cooking I looked up to see the store light flash for me and stepped out onto the footpath, into the wall of hazy heat and humidity. My eyes hurt from the glare and I squint before they adjust.

            Even though I know its about spending time with my best friends, I always get nervous cooking for two chefs and their lovers.  The city was there to ease my mind, no traffic at this time of day and not many pedestrians ventured out in this heat.  The recent rains had cleaned the grim away, everything bleached out in the harsh Australian sun, a faint breeze and silence broken only by a magpie; just a crackling painful cry of a single lonely bird and me, a girl off to roast tomatoes.

Preliminary 2030

These next few words have been floating around Superseded and our friends for a little while now, we're putting it out there to see what you think.  So please COMMENT!

SYDNEY 2030

WAR

War and technology are the primary drivers of the built urban environment, this project is an investigation of how war in the virtual environment can change the form and interactions that currently take place in Sydney.  In 2030 virtual gamers will play a part in reconfiguring/building the real environment of the Sydney CBD.  

GAMING

Gaming in the virtual environment is a relatively new kind of interaction, it utilises the new technologies of our contemporary world.  Whilst gaming environments often reflect the real world, technological and virtual environments have yet to have a major impact on the way the urban environment is built.  As our interactions in the virtual /information world become more ubiquitous the virtual world our investigation seeks to formulate how the virtual will change the fabric of Sydney in 2030.

RUPTURES (glitches)

Gaming environments involve areas of extremely high activity and low activity.  This will be observed and mapped, then implied/imposed/juxtaposed into Sydney 2030. 

TECHNOLOGICAL and SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

The current rate of technological development in unsustainable.  The cost of new technology will be beyond most people in 2030.  As a result groups will band together assembling older technology (think the PCs we use today) to virtually and actually navigate and affect the space of the city.  The processing power required to be involved in this enviroment will grow, but the cost of these new processors will be far too expensive for anyone but really rich.

The supremely rich people and groups will be major players in the new world.

(Human RELATIONSHIPS)

It will be possible for people to participate from their PC in China or their mobile phone in Circular Quay.  These relationships will develop in two types, those that engage in physical face-to-face interaction and those that engage in a completely virtual environment.  The hybred form of these two relationships will be the most common and involve a number of interactions;

DEVICE

Two aspects will develop;

1.     Prior to 2030, wireless technology develops and as a result device will slowly disappear.  Peoples’ obsession with object will transfer to symbols and signs that identifies them with social and commercial groups.  (think logos and words that you can pull on and off easily).

2.     As people are forced to recycle old computers, mobile phones etc an aesthetic and fashion culture revolving around “retro” will develop.  (Suitcase style 1980 mobile phones will be cool, apple laptops that we have today will be cool again.  Successfully advertised products of today will reappear as cool in 2030).  This will be juxtaposed/combined with a new generation of savy inventors who primarily recycle old bits of technology to interact in the new virtual and physical world AND more importantly, each other.  These people will be highly resourceful and intelligent, their ability/potential to upset/sabotage the rich at sporadic moments is huge.

PEDESTRIAN

1.     Walking through Sydney 2030 will be a different experience, spaces will be influenced by “the game”, for cars and people the city will be a far more dangerous place.

2.     As people walk through the physical sites of Sydney they can interact in the real and virtual environment.

SUSTAINABILITY

There will be far less cars in Sydney, as a result pedestrian activity (in the real and virtual) will be the predominate form of transport in the city.

The rising cost of resources means that only the rich will be able to afford access to the advanced new technologies.

Consumer Rights in Information technology

Inventor of the Web sees consumer rights at risk with proposed systems that track your browsing history, then specialise and target advertisements for you.

see - BBC 18th March 2008

WEB 3.0

It isn't even close to being operational yet, but already major thought and construction has gone into WEB 3, (that's the proposed replacement of the current internet).

check out -  How Stuff Works

Alternative Culture Movements in Sydney

Check it out, ... Sydney actually has an intellectual past, who'd have thought it could happen in Australia?

S y d n e y  P u s h

Tales of the Royal George

Sydney Recommendations 2030

In 2007 City of Sydney Council employed Gehl Architects to carry out a study and provide recommendations for the future of the city's design. Its an incredibly dense document, with a lot for Sydney to think about, but is its primary position correct? Exactly what areas of Sydney does it see as valid?

Gehl Architects Data Report
Gehl Architects Recommendations

UPDATED Blog,

Thanks to all our affiliate links and their bloggers! We have discussed a number of issues relating to the Gehl Report and a few things stand out as major criticisms.

1, there is no denying that the report is completely Eurocentric, a discussion of the history of Sydney is completely absent.  Australian Urban Design History remains absent from the report.  Lifestyles of Sydneysiders are different to that of Europe.  Gehl seems to presume that Sydney can turn in Copenhagen.

2, Verticality in the city is completely ignored.  The only engagement with views and any level beyond the ground or underground mall is criticism of the Cahill Expressway.

Device (future object) - Body?

Superseded was recently ask what we think in regards to the future of "device"; the mobile phone etc. As the demands for information exchange evolve then so too will the device.
In context of the urban environment it should be said that the devices' impact is more concerned with the capabilities of the technology rather than the device (object) itself.


WIRELESS- as the technology itself get physically smaller, the connectable activities of the device will grow. Connection without a device (enter the cyborg/hybred) or rather without a physical interface will the new status quo.



ATTACHMENT-human obsession-
What happens to the object? What is the new state for "fashion" of the object? People like objects, and their implied value, they like to show them off, they like to play with them. What next then?
Will the portrayal of the object transfer to the body, to fashion, to the self-projected image? has it already?


image source - http://www.makemeheal.com

The future (?) for oil economies

image source- The Oil Drum

Peak oil is no new concept, we don't want to advocate the doomsday scenario here at SUPERSEDED but we thought this image was definitely worth including.

The way in which cities and gadgets shall be designed in the future shall be directly affected by the availability of fuels and resources.  Will technology be the catalyst that allows us to deal with a resource shortage?  Is the rate at which our society progresses sustainable when our most important primary resource is running out?

The fundamental (philosophical) aspects of sustainability (AKA Homage to Prof Atkinson)

"The speed of technological development is accelerating exponentially and, for this reason, by the year 2030 it will seem as if a whole century’s worth of progress has taken place in the first three decades of the 21st century.

By 2030 it will appear as if a mass of dizzying scientific breakthroughs have suddenly been made simultaneously – in computing, in healthcare, in communications, in wealth generation, in materials performance (including smart plastics), in travel and in robotics. In many ways, life in 2030 will be unrecognisable compared with life today."

Ray Hammond (ibid pg7)

We often hold that the future is a place where the pace of technological development continues along the same trajectory as it has been following since the industrial revolution.  The question of whether or not we can sustain such a pace is rarely addressed.  When we consider the resources and levels of specialization that goes into advancing technologies we see that today our society or professions are far more specialized than ever before.

BUT....

Is this sustainable? As oil prices rise can we maintain the production of plastics so cheaply and readily? The IPCC reports says that food shortages, water infrastructure and availability are likely to be a problems in the near future.  As famine rises in the developing world can our wealth in the Western world protect us?

Can the trajectory of technological advancement maintained ...when food prices go up? ... when water isn't so readily available? ...when the cost of oil drives the price of so much up?

When resources are limited and the cost of living takes a far greater percentage of our incomes is our modern way of life sustainable?

"Virtually certain"

IPCC Report 2007

Water security is set to be a major concern for Sydney and global security in the future, this is highlighted by a number of politicians and social commentators.  Food price rises and extreme weather event another part of life in Sydney 2030.

New Zealand set to benefit from global environmental change?

World in 2030 - Futurology

"The fourth decade of the 21st century will be the beginning of the end of human evolution as it has progressed over the last two million years. As machines surpass the intellectual capacity of humans they will become a companion species on Earth with the potential to become humanity’s successors. But, as genetic medical techniques allow humans to alter their own biology, individual humans will have the ability to enhance their physical and cognitive abilities and to greatly extend their longevity. Humans will also have the ability to interface at a neural level with super-intelligent machines. How these developments will affect the future of human evolution cannot yet be discerned with any confidence."

Ray Hammond-November 2007

Check out the Report (also the image source)

Plastics Europe

Through Sydney 2

Tracking through the City

The act of moving through the city is one thing, the traces and record of it are another.

Through Sydney

A few pictures taken in order to try and understand how our sequences are controlled by signs and cameras, if at all.

Sequences (aka TSCHUMI)

SPC VNT MVMNT

The idea that spaces/architecture can orchestrate our exposure to the environment is nothing new. The processional way, an ancient idea, leads us through the city, past the significant buildings to the seat of power.  "...architectural sequences do not mean only the reality of the actual buildings, or the symbolic reality of their fictions. An implied narrative is always there, whether of method, use, or form" (Bernard Tschumi, "Sequences")

1 Space 2 Event and 3 Movement

The three key factors for sequence, here the relationship of architecture and body can vary.  Architecture can be designed to control the event and imply certain relationships of spaces.  Event and choice can also subvert this relationship, that is to say that we do exert a certain amount of choice within the parameters that the architecture sets.  When we consider Tschumi's obsession with film we can understand that it sets up the right metaphor for his discussion.

For Tschumi the ritual or seat of power; ie church, company or parliament, implies a frozen relationship, in order to exert total control the institutes aim to avoid disorder.  The processional way is a ceremony as much as it is a site, and only really exists in one form or type of event.

"The expanded sequence makes a solid of the gap between spaces.  The gap thus becomes a space of its on, a corridor, threshold, or doorstep- a proper symbol inserted between each event." (ibid)  The construction of spaces in this light then is contingent on program.  The insertion of an implied intention is thus essential for creating a sequence, essential for architecture.  The program can shift and move around the architecture, and indeed the development of the architecture can shift and move around the program.

Tschumi closes by stating; "Alternatively, of course, architectural sequences can also be made strategically disjunctive (the pole-vaulter in the catacombs)"(ibid).  Then where does that leave us today? In light of our focus on technology we must think; how does or can device change this relationship?

The ubiquity of which one can access telecommunications means that sequence (or program, or event) can be interrupted by device.  Access to information (no matter how useful) can then break the intended sequence.  Is this in any way a breaking? or is it simply a shifting? an new element? should or three point include a fourth - 4 Information?  Does this element become part of a new narrative, ubiquitous among all sequencing? 

The potential for information to make sequences change and become similar throughout the world is there; the potential for us to exercise a certain amount rejection, or rebellion through this medium as set in this system lies awaiting.

1 Space 2 Event 3 Movement and 4 Information

Weak Architecture (Sola-Morales)

Ignasi de Sola-Morales argues that the trajectory of Modern Architecture through the 20th century can no longer be read in one straight line. The presentation of an ideal society no longer exists, "On the contrary, it presents itself to us as a plural, multiform, complex experience in which it is legitimate to cut trajectories that run not only from top to bottom, beginning to end, but also transversely, obliquely, and diagonally. In some sense, it is only by way of approximations of this kind that the diverse, plural experience of the twentieth-century architecture allows us to unstitch and unravel the intrinsic complexity of the modern experience." (Sola-Morales, "Weak Architecture")

For Sola-Morales the reading of history in this manner undermines any idea that there is a ultimate and upright moral outcome, what Nietzsche called "the death of God"; "...that is to say the disappearance of any kind absolute reference that might in some way coordinate or "close" the system of our knowledge and our values at the point at which we articulate these in a global vision of reality." (ibid)

It brings about the end of Illusion, the ground on which we now produce architecture is no longer stable "...contemporary architecture, in conjunction with the other arts, is confronted with the need to build on air, to build in the void."(ibid)

For Sola-Morales the periphery is the place from which all design and life is in this case approached. As a result the aesthetic experience becomes the most substantial, "Art is understood as being a space in which the fatigue of contemporary subject can be salved away"(ibid)

hyper-marketing

a taste of illusion

What happens when marketing and product development goes too far? With all of the information and presentations that we are exposed to today how are we suppose to know how much substance or quality lies in a product?

We are really purchasing a lifestyle or image associated with a product, and it is these medias of the virtual that the lifestyle/image is shown to use.

the means and message to the masses

The Russian Metro system was set up to bring art to the masses.  At this point in time the Russian politicians saw the train as a medium of which to express and educate the people in thought and ideology.

At the same time that these stations were being built trains were going into the country with recorded messages so that the illiterate population was bought out of ignorance. (image source unknown)

Habit in the virtual world

One of the most useful tools that I have utilized is Amazon.com's recommendation tool.  Based upon your purchasing and rating history it can effectively suggest other books that you might like to purchase.

In this system the dumb analysis of your purchasing history compared with all other peoples can suggest common material.  The potential for this system to be incorporated into a larger system for social activity remains unexplored (more to follow in later blogs).

Questions of the Virtual (Baudrillard)

An investigation of the virtual world is an important undertaking for urban theorist today.  We now negotiate our lives with the aid of the many forms and mediums that make up the "information superhighway" ie mobile phones, facebook, internet sites and services.  One of the main focuses of interest here, given that these technologies change the way in which we experience the world, is presented by the question how does the virtual world in turn affect the way in which we need to design the spaces we use.

To consider the "virtual world", however you may define it, as a reflection of the real is perhaps an outdated concept.  Now the virtual world is an entity onto itself.   

"The virtual coincides with the notion of hyper-reality.  Virtual Reality, the reality that might be said to be perfectly homogenized, digitized and "operartionlized", substitutes for the other because it is perfect, verifiable and non-contradictory. ... 

We no longer have the good old philosophical sense of the term, where the virtual was what was destined to become actual, or where the dialectic was established between the two notions." (Baudrillard, Jean - "The Virtual")

Can the virtual present a dialectical or ideal version of our own will? If so, what are the driving forces? and what do they expose about our current value system?  I am not sure at the moment, but I have a few ideas, (more to come in later posts)

One other important element raised by Baudrillard is of a much more fundamental question... 

"...the peculiar irony there is in the fact that these technologies, which we associate with inhumanity and annihilation, will in the end, perhaps, be what frees us from the world of value, the world of judgement. ...

At the stage we are at, we do not know whether technology, having reached a point of extreme sophistication, will liberate us from technology itself - the optimistic viewpoint - or whether in fact we are heading for catastrophe.  Even though catastrophes ... assume happy or unhappy forms." (ibid)

For me this closing statement highlights an important questions that as far as I know is not yet addressed properly in contemporary discourse of technology, and the is the simple question of whether or not we can sustain the rate at which technology is produced, utilized and understood.  For me the real question of investigation should be two things, 

1. What is the value of technology, or; what is the aim of technology production and utilization? and;

2. Do we really understand the implications of what we are employing, or perhaps more fundamentally; do we know where we want to go?

Welcome

Welcome to SUPERSEDED.

This new blog is will centre around the changing role and perception of technology in contemporary society.  Whilst the focus is primarily on our experience in the urban environment we are open to discussion of any nature.

We look forward to having onboard and welcome comments.