D.Papalexopoulos
After an initial but
important period, with the emphasis put on the development of localized
information management systems, where the “computer” and the network dominated
the thought and paradigms, a new reality, emphases movement,
displacement and digital interconnections forming assemblages of mobile and
immobile artifacts. A network of localized and interconnected activities, is
combined with a set of shifting activities, interconnected not only with each
other, but also with those bound to a certain place.
A reality of an
significant complexity is created (emerges), one that calls for us to include
within design and planning not only movement, but mainly time, as it is
presented through the simultaneous mutation in the states of the stable /
localized and that of the ephemeral / mobile.
The aim of this
text is to locate the features of the space-parasite, that are reinforced,
mutated and highlighted through this development in digital technologies.**
The identity of the parasite cannot be determined
completely.
It is mobile and localized at the same moment. When being
mobile, it can acquire its full meaning only through its installation. Its
receptacle changes because of this temporal addition. At the same time,
the design of the ephemeral-mobile, must take into consideration all the
possibilities of settlement in places previously unknown to it. On the other
hand, the design of the settling place must allow for intervention, and leave
margins of temporary presence of new spaces-objects, which cannot be completely
anticipated. Thus an ambiguity in the design is introduced, a new version of
the “quasi-object”, in the sense that we are invited to conceive spaces partly
determined by physical elements and partly determined by their “virtual”
installation within unpredictable spaces, or the virtual
perception of temporal constructions.
This destabilization of the possibility for a complete and
exhaustive description of the object (artefact) comes along with the destabilization of the object itself, due to the
generalized introduction of the digital technology, which compel us to conceive
it (the object) as being localized and at the same time as a node of multiple
and unpredictable networks.
Thus the object / space /
parasite is partly physically determined and partly indeterminable, having
an actual dimension and a virtual one, both present and acting in close
relation to each other. It has a “quasi-identity”, with stable/fixed and fluid
/changing elements.
We can discuss
about an already existing functionality, at the receptacle of the parasite,–
before its settlement/ installation. We can also discuss about a new emerging
functionality, one that appears after the settlement of the parasite and the
connection of its networks with the networks of the receptacle. One can
imagine, for example, the parasite as a laboratory and the receptacle as the
site where the parasite’s products/production are exhibited. The digital
processing networks of the parasite are capable of connecting to the digital
networks of the receptacle. Parts, building subsets or objects within the
parasite can interact digitally with similar things on the receptacle, since it
is now possible for computational power to be integrated
into architectural
elements of the parasite as well as of the receptacle. The activity that
emerges from that conjunction is radically different from the pre existing
activity on the receptacle, or the activities that the settled/ installed
parasite could support by itself without interconnections. Even more, through
the connections, the parasite “captures”/ “conceives”, appropriates,
assimilates in its system, digital data, works, activities, programs of the
receptacle. In its perpetual movement from place to place, it carries the
memory of its previous ones, learns from past events, injects elements taken
from them to other new events, elsewhere. It is transformed to a mobile hybrid event with both physical and digital features. The new
emerging functionality is not predictable in its entirety; it can be designed
but not described in detail.
Any conception of the
parasite without integrating time into its design is impossible.
The life cycle of its
physical components is fragmentary. It consists of phases characterized by
connection and localization and others characterized by the movement in search
for a new place: Two distinct and interdependent states and modes of being, that succeed one another.
Its activities can be related
to the activities of the receptacle, even if it is to make use only of the
digital connections in order to accomplish autonomous functions or functions
that are connected with other places. In that case, as well as when it is in
the process of migration, certain hosted activities could continue developing
within the digital space, thus laying stress on the possibility for the
existence of a continuous, flowing time, that acts along with the
aforementioned fragmented one. For example, if the parasite has its own web
site, then its digital substance tends to be relatively independent from the
succession of its localizations.
In this remark on time, one
should add that fluidity and fragmentation characterize both the physical and
the digital space, since physical space possesses continuous, fluid features
and the digital space allows for the development of activities which are
fragmented in time. What is important to keep in mind is the interweaving,
which is simultaneous without clear distinction, of the fluid and fragmented
time.
It is interesting to see a
network in its totality, where localized/ permanent activities coexist along
with interconnected/ mobile ones. Then, the discussion shifts, from the search
for the special features and the fluid identity of one single mobile and
occasionally interconnected space, towards the search for the form of a complex
network of parasites that are digitally connected with receptacles as well as
with each other. We should note that when the design process moves towards this
direction, the digital networks of data exchange can easily incorporate a logic
of performance optimization through the distribution of activities in a
flexible, changing and mobile network of parasites. In this way, they direct
physical space towards a reevaluation of its own limits. “Physical” and
“digital” parasites are combined and one can wonder about the kind of networks
that might emerge. That is, to imagine a set of spaces of
ephemeral-mobile-parasites that are digitally interconnected, acquiring a
functionality beyond and through the interconnection of morphological
signifiers. The functionality of the whole would then be achieved through
digital networking, while the “physical” would try to localize and possibly on
a symbolic level to interconnect the signifiers.
This is an interesting case
of changing form: A novel type of hybrid network of spaces emerges in contrast
to the solitary hybrid space where physical and digital activities simply
coexist, even if they are interconnected with other activities, elsewhere.
The questions on identity,
the search for a new emerging functionality, the coexistence of fluid and
fragmented time and the hybridization of networked stable and
mobile constructions, in the intersection of the “parasite” with the “digital”,
could lead towards propositions that explore the shifting limits
of architecture. Digital technologies do not deny locality, they rather
redefine it, through its interconnections with other localities. On the other
hand, the parasite has a enigmatic relation to locality, one of independence
and dependence at the same time. These thoughts might assist in the formulation
of ideas, towards the convergence of the “digital” with the “parasite”.
17.02.02
**In particular a starting point for these thoughts
have been the notions of “ambient intelligence”, “disappearing computer” and
“mobile agents”, as they have been recently defined in the light of new digital
technologies. There is the belief that the “evading-object” or “quasi-object”,
that we have tried to define elsewhere, in relation to space and architecture,
is related to "ambient intelligence" (collections of artifacts that
interact digitally). However the “quasi objet”, as a concept is found in Michel
Serres, Bruno Latour and Brian Massumi, the latter promoting the idea of the
“quasi-subject” (presque sujet). In order to complete the cycle we would add
that mobile agents are defined by
digital technology as “acting partial subjects”.
These thoughts that suggest certain views, meet with the space-parasite, as it
is brought out as a place for meditation and ideas firstly by Maria Theodorou
and then through the articles of the present volume.