Visual & Media Studies Academic Journal
ISSN 2299-906X
1. CYBERARCHITECTURE
There are many terms describing the phenomenon of architecture that colonizes electronic virtual worlds. In literature we can find terms such as: Virtual Architecture, Information Architecture (Kipniss 1993), Inter-medial Architecture (Kipniss 1993), Architecture of Intelligence (Derrick de Kerckhove 2001), Connected Architecture (Derrick de Kerckhove 2001); Hyperarchitecture (League Puglisi 1999), Hybrid Architecture (Peter Zellner 1999), Liquid Architecture, (Marcos Novak 1995); Transarchitecture (Marcos Novak 1991).
Elizabeth Grosz notices that there seem to be two different ways of considering virtuality in the context of architecture. The first way is connected to the perception of virtual architecture associated with the use of information systems in buildings, technology that can or should somehow be incorporated into the way that buildings work, and the second way: ‘as an entirely new way of seeing, inhabiting, and designing space.’
The first way is connected to electronic 'extensions' of buildings associated with monitoring, security, and other information systems and networks. This kind of virtual architecture is described in William Mitchell’s book City of Bits. Mitchell calls it Extended Architecture (Augmented Architecture), and he points out that this kind of architecture facilitates integration of electronic and physical spaces. This is not only the architecture of so-called intelligent buildings, where physical buildings are equipped with electronics, it is, according to Mitchell, the entire layer of the bitsphere superimposed on the surface of the Earth, a network of information and electronic systems necessary for the functioning of modern civilization. This architecture allows us to use electronic extensions of existential space.
Derrick de Kerckhove believes that cyberspace, in order to function properly, needs three types of architecture: architecture of electronic connections (connected architecture) – which is a physical electronic mesh that surrounds the planet allowing communications; architecture of hardware - meaning equipment, receivers, and servers; and finally, architecture of software – which is the architecture of code and standardization of distributed data, but most important, it is an architecture associated with visualized data.
This last type of architecture is connected to the term ‘virtual architecture’ most noticeably. The perception of architecture as a process of imaging and creation of visual messages that evolves, and thanks to which we can interact is a new way of looking at the field of architecture and design process:
This method requires re-evaluation of concepts of reality and relationships among rooting, nesting and temporality between real and virtual. [1]
Cyberspatial architecture should be regarded as an emerging phenomenon on the cusp of architecture, music, art, theater, film and poetry. This is the actual virtual architecture, architecture that is programmable, immaterial, architecture of electronic access to the virtual worlds, and architecture of these worlds.
Daniel Libeskind, Micromegas Time Section 1979
2.1. Marcos Novak’s Liquid Architecture
Marcos Novak is a transarchitect, a global nomad, an artist, theorist, and musician. He is one of the first architects to begin describing and defining the notion of virtual architecture. He is also internationally recognized as a pioneer in this field and as the inventor of the concepts of Transarchitecture and Liquid Architecture. Novak’s most important publications are: "Liquid Architecture," about the liquid forms of spacetime, "Transmitting Architecture," and "Soft Babylon," an article referring to the Constant’s concept of the "New Babylon". "Transmitting Architecture," the essay from 1995 which set the theoretical basis for the entire realm of virtual architecture. He describes himself as a creator of interactive, animated virtual spaces. Novak's essays and work have had a major impact on architecture, music, science, and technology.
In his publications, Novak states that architecture has gone beyond the limits of the human sensorium, and learned to use the achievements of science. Architecture became interested in new areas and spaces that have been discovered by science and made available through the development of technology, thus pointing to cyberspace as a new and attractive area for the interest of architects, which should be thoroughly examined:
While our science examines the micro-and macroscopic regions of a curved, multi-dimensional spacetime, we build within the borders of our minimal and limited sensorium, where we can understand something directly with our senses. [2]
Novak believes that the architecture cannot continue to function limited by its materiality. The concept of architecture demands redefinition. We must refresh the field of architecture, allowing ideas from other fields to circulate freely within its domain, while at the same time discussing current paradigms. To be effective, says Novak, the strategies that we use to generate new architecture must reflect the current understanding of physics and cosmology; we need to deal with our most advanced concepts and methods of understanding the world.
Novak believes that ‘cyberspace is, has and contains architecture.’ This is the essence of the mind, and the mind cannot exist without architecture. Cyberspace contains architecture of a new type – a liquid architecture:
Architecture in Cyberspace is LIQUID. Animistic, animated, metamorphic as well as crossing categorical boundaries, applying the cognitively supercharged operation of poetic thinking. [3]
The vast majority of the world around us is in flux. The stillness of architecture has been the exception. This is about to change. Architecture is coming alive. [4]
Novak argues that the liquid architecture of cyberspace is much more than just kinetic, robotic architecture. It is like a biological mechanism - a fine structure of relationships and intervals, which, in the context of creating electronic spaces, means filling them with content and giving them forms. Novak emphasizes new public face of virtual architecture:
Cyberspace can be seen as a vast virtual laboratory for the continuing production of new architectural visions, while the same time returning architecture to the public realm. [5]
According to Novak, contemporary architecture is totally depends on society - its audience, because it is created entirely by a user. Architecture is no longer a subject of the heroic dream of Modernists who dreamed that architecture can change society, but rather the opposite; we are about to realize that architecture can be changed only when society evolves.
Novak strongly emphasizes similarities in the new architecture to poetry and music. Poetry and music are forms of creation of space in time; they are dynamic structures, and, according to him, ‘shelters for imagination.’ Novak links the hypertextual nature of cyberspace to poetry. A poetic way of thinking contrasts with the linear, narrative way, which makes poetry much closer in design to hypertextual cyberspace than linear narrative structures. Access to its resources is not linear, nor sequential, but free, like free access to mind storage resources.
Referring to the poetry of Lorca, Novak brings up the concept of duende, the spirit, the demon of poetry, which is recalled as a poetic fact, poetic image, is not based on any analogy and does not involve any direct meanings, any logical explanation. Novak considers duende to be the liberation of language. He says that we should comprehend the spirit of duende, in order to get closer to understanding the ‘unimaginable complexity of Cyberspace’ (Gibson’s definition of Cyberspace).
We must turn towards not only the technologies but also in the direction of the oldest of the arts - poetry. [6]
Cyberspace is an uninhabited poetry and to be able to navigate it we must be a leaf in the wind of dream. [7]
Dematerialized and non-linear architecture in cyberspace is liquid, according to Novak. It’s architecture of fluctuating relations between abstract elements. It tends to music:
The dematerialized, dancing, difficult architecture of cyberspace, fluctuating, ethereal, temperamental, transmissible to all parts of the world simultaneously may become the most enduring architecture ever conceived. [8]
The functions of the new architecture are strictly subordinated to the functioning of the network environment of cyberspace; therefore, Novak’s Transarchitecture plays the role of the organizer in cyberspace:
When bricks become pixels, the tectonics of architecture become informational, city planning becomes data structure design, construction costs become computational costs, accessibility becomes transmissibility, proximity is measured in numbers of required links and available bandwidth. [9]
New design features for virtual architecture consist of: morphing, transformation, metamorphosis, and change of form in time. Morphing is the newest device for architecture; it has genetic character, not surgical. ‘Collage is mechanical, morphing is alchemical – says Novak - architects must create generative models for architectures.’
Design is not only the act of planning functions but primarily the task of planning processes, it is writing the script for the virtual architecture’s life, determining the extents of freedom for a user within the system, and setting up the scenarios and sets for a user. ‘For the first time in history, says Novak, the architect is called upon to design not objects but the principles by which the objects are generated and varied in time’.
The notion of time in Novak’s Transarchitecture is understood not only as a temporal, spatial relationship, as temporal knowledge of architecture, but also as time simulation techniques. The transarchitect has to become a director, to learn the art of composing (designing) time, as does a composer of musical works or choreographer.
Real time is a challenge for the architect, but also the logistics of maintaining a consistent illusion becomes such a real problem, as the physical limitations of materials. [10]
Constant’s ‘New Babylon’ returns in Novak’s essays as a ‘Soft Babylon,’ a concept that was an opposition to the Modernists’ ideas. Constant’s megastructure, which was to cover the entire planet, has been interpreted by Novak as the global Internet infrastructure. ‘Soft Babylon’ is a self-organizing structure; built in the system bottom–up. Society has complete freedom in shaping this environment. Novak calls this concept ‘the Naked City.’
Novak’s projects are a continuation of the philosophy of architectural visionaries. His postulates can be linked to general trends in the philosophy of post-structuralism and phenomenology, which highly values virtual experience. Post-structuralism is also connected to the idea of defragmentation of solids and surfaces, and in Novak’s case, also defragmentation and despatialisation of physical consistency of architectural systems.
Novak pushes the boundaries of architecture towards the fields of communication, science, music, and poetry, rather than grounding it in its current static forms.
2.2. Architecture of Intelligence. Connected Architecture
Novak argues that reality is in constant motion, that it is liquid; therefore architecture should be liquid as well. Derrick de Kerckhove, on the other hand, is looking for relationships between elements in this liquid space. He believes that identifying these relationships should be one of the main tasks of architecture and architects in cyberspace. He calls architects working in the cyberspace ‘cybertects.’
Derrick de Kerckhove, McLuhan’s student, is a media theorist at the University of Toronto. He is also the author of the concept of architecture of intelligence and architecture of connectivity (connected architecture).
Connected Architecture is the architecture of relationships between three spaces in which man functions: between the space of mind, space of physical world, and the network space (cyberspace). Kerckhove says that there is a profound need for the identification of certain compounds and the relationship between these three spaces, including those compounds that have a significant impact on architecture.
Architecture of intelligent connections, according Kerckhove, is an architecture that supports physical and nonphysical connections of bodies and minds. It is based on the assumption that there is such a phenomenon as connected minds and their connections are supported by technologies that enable them to collaborate on common goals within the specified time. The challenge for architecture is to explore these types of network structures, which are the most effective and efficient solutions for the connected minds. It is what Kerckhove calls the ‘architecture of intelligence’:
The opportunity for the architects is not merely to improve the drafts or elevations, or even benefit from the CAD system, but to rethink the real. How do architects greet this opportunity?
The architecture of intelligence is the architecture of connectivity. To the extent that architecture deals with building places for people in face-to-face presence, connected architecture deals with structuring connections, designing forms and patterns of telepresence and collaboration in the networks between such places.
(…) While the formal architecture is a response to the expansion of space in perspective, connected architecture, is the response to the ‘electronic implosion of space, time and architecture’. [11]
As a result we get convergence of design of information space with that of real space through the mediation of computer technology:
Kerckhove believes that connected architecture must address three areas of expertise: ‘thresholds and connections between real and virtual spaces; the construction of usable virtual environments in cyberspace and the architecture of connected mental space to the extent that connective cognition now requires the use of cyberspace to be shared in new ways.’
The primary goals of connected architecture, similar to those of Vitruvian architecture, should be to construct useful, reliable and attractive social and cognitive environments. [12]
Connected architecture is characterized by the following properties: ‘Dematerialization, Demobilization, Mass customization, Intelligent Operation, Soft Transformation.’ Cyberspace architecture must have the ability to store, archive, retrieve, analyze, update, modify.
Kerckhove indicates an important function of architecture as connected architecture in today's process of creating existential spaces, communities, and even entire social structures:
We are now in the transition period where, as Le Corbusier did in 1924, we need to rethink not just the city, but the whole world. One of our primary concerns should be to find strategies to include a sense of the global within the local community. There is some urgency to this as the global strife is imploding upon everyone and connected architecture can do something about it. The cybertactural extension of the built environment allows cybertects to consider truly global architecture for the first time in human history. [13]
Virtual architecture has the potential to become the first truly global architecture in history, due to the global nature of the network and unification of the language of cyberspace. To make this happen, the architecture in cyberspace must be interactive and accessible. So the user has influence on it, and he feels that he is an integral part of the electronic network environment. Kerckhove points out: ‘Wherever I am with my palmtop and my cell phone, there is the world.'
2.3. City of Bits
William Mitchell in his book City of Bits carefully analyzes the emerging architecture of virtual environments. He discusses not only the architecture of the virtual spaces in the sense that Novak speaks of, but also Extended Architecture, its structures and functions in today's electronic society. Mitchell argues that the ‘emerging civic structures and spatial arrangements of the digital are profoundly affecting our access to economic opportunities and public services, the character and content of the public discourse, the forms of cultural activity, the action of power, and the experiments that give shape and texture to our daily routines.’ So we have to learn to control the environment of cyberspace, learn to shape our fate.
Mitchell paraphrases Churchill's famous statement: ‘we make our buildings and our buildings make us’ - "now, we make our networks and our networks make us.' [14]
Architecture plays a representational role by providing buildings with their public faces. The Vitruvian idea of decorum (using forms appropriate to the status and purpose of the building) shall also be applied in cyberspace. The hierarchy of control and value, structures of institutions, should reflect any 'built' environment, each urban plan, even the urban plan of cyberspace, says Mitchell. In cyberspace, public images (representations) are replaced by computer-generated graphics - images. They, according to Mitchell, are the modern facades of the institutions. They organize the hierarchy and give importance to space. The task for the virtual architecture is to create the face of buildings, facades in the network, where the symbolism of the image will be used again. This opens up entirely new ways of operating the symbolism in architecture. Finally, says Mitchell, buildings will become computer interfaces and computer interfaces will become buildings. Features of programs and interfaces will become as important as plans for buildings and construction materials.
Mitchell is the author of the concept of the City of Bits, which according to him will be the largest global city of the future. The city is located in the bitsphere, which, referring to McLuhan’s ideas, is the actual place for the global village. The City of Bits will become the capital of the twenty-first century.
This will be the city unrooted to any definite spot on the surface of the Earth, shaped by connectivity and bandwidth constraints rather than by accessibility and land values. Its places will be constructed virtually by software instead of physically from stones and timbers and they will be connected by logical linkages rather than by doors, passages and streets. [15]
Within these places social contacts will be made, economic transactions will be carried out, cultural life will unfold, surveillance will be enacted, and power will be exerted. [16]
Computer networks will become such fundamental phenomena to urban life as systems of streets. As a result, familiar urban design issues are up for radical reformulation. The task of the new urbanism, says Mitchell, will not focus on ‘configuring buildings, streets, and public spaces to meet the needs and aspirations of the civitas, but one of writing computer code and deploying software objects to create virtual places and electronic interconnections between them.’ Therefore, the design must not only determine the future character of urban planning, but also its social nature.
In the City of Bits, architectural concepts are about to change completely meanings. The boundaries of cyberspace are understood in different ways, not as physical boundaries, but rather as access barriers. Shelter also has a different meaning; it is more a refuge of privacy, lack of access. It should be understood not as physical shelter for the body, but as a safe storage place for personal data. Building privacy and limiting access will become one of the technologies of the future virtual architecture.
Our network connections are becoming as important as our bodily locations.
Mitchell in City of Bits examines the question of virtual architecture from its functional and constructional side. He introduces new architectural terms and indicates the future functions for virtual architecture.
[1] Grosz E., Architecture from the Outside, Essays on Virtual and Real Space, MIT Press, 2001, p. 68
[2] Novak M., Liquid Architectures in Cyberspace, [Benedikt M., Cyberspace First Steps], 1995
[3] Novak M., op.cit.
[4] Marcos Novak, Alessandro Ludovico interview with Marcos Novak, http://www.neural.it/english/marcosnovak.htm
[5] Novak M., op.cit.
[6] Ibidem
[7] Ibidem
[8] Ibidem
[9] Novak M., Transmitting Architecture, [Architectural Design, Architects in Cyberspace, red. Spiller N., 1995]
[10] Novak M., op. cit.
[11] Kerckhove D., The Architecture of Intelligence (The Information Technology Revolution in Architecture), Birkhäuser Basel, 2001
[12] Kerckhove D., op. cit.
[13] Kerckhove D., op. cit.
[14] Mitchell W., City of Bits, MIT Press, Boston 1996, p. 49
[15] Mitchell W., op. cit.
[16] Ibidem
AGNIESZKA SZÓSTAKOWSKA
4. SKETCHES FROM VIRTUAL SPACE - III CYBERARCHITECTURE
1. Abstract
2. Thesis
3. Sketches – Methodology
1.1. Phantomology and Immersion
1.2. The Virtuality and the Myth
2.2. Existential Space
2.3. The Space of the Mind
3.1. What is Cyberspace?
3.1.1. Electricity and Multimedia
3.1.2. Extended sensorium
3.2. Where is cyberspace?
3.2.1. Self-organization (User-Driven Environment)
1.1. The substance of cyberspace
1.2. To sculpt cyberspace
1.2.1. Formation of the interface
1.2.2. Shaping the message
1.3. Structure of cyberspace
1.3.1. The order of space
1.3.2. Spatial coordinates
1.3.3. Right Hemisphere Structures
1.3.4. Lef t Hemisphere Structures
3.1. Examples of cybermetry
3.1.1. Titman’s Zoom Geometry
3.1.2. Leyton’s New Formalism
3.2. An alternative understanding of dimension - a cyberspatial dimension
3.2.1. Metadata
3.2.2. Semantic Dimensions. Semantic Spaces
3.3. Cybermetries without geometry
4. STRUCTURES OF CYBERSPACE
4.1. Kenton Musgrave’s concept
4.2. Michael Benedikt’s concept
1.1. Architectural (r) evolution
1.2. Architectural (re) definition
3.1. Designing the Process
3.1.2. Genome. The processes of nature
3.1.3. The code of cyberspace
3.2. Creating images. The new symbolism of cyberspace
3.2.1. Places
3.3. New design methods. Creating the Worlds
3.3.1. Defamiliarization
3.4. Function and forms of cyberarchitecture
Acknowledgments:
This research project would not have been possible without the kind support of many people. I would like to express my gratitude towards my supervisor, prof. Barbara Borkowska – Larysz and all individuals from the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow who helped me with it. My special thanks and appreciations go also to people who helped with the English translation: Charlotte Snyder, Brendan Kennedy and Gus Russo. I am also highly indebted to Edna Emmet and Gus Russo for everything. Many warm thanks go to my wonderful friends for their support: Wiola Mazurek, Robbye and Kevin Apperson, Gail Langstroth, Mark Towles and Sherri Romm Towles. Finally, my deepest thanks go to my family: my parents Ela and Marek and my sister Ania, who encouraged me during the process and especially to my wonderful husband Lucas Lechowski, for his great music and inspiration.
Thank you!
Agnieszka Szóstakowska
CyberEmpathy SPECIAL EDITION 1 / 2011: Sketches from Virtual Reality
CYBERARCHITECTURE
AGNIESZKA SZÓSTAKOWSKA
4. SKETCHES FROM VIRTUAL SPACE - III CYBERARCHITECTURE
„Nothing could be more important
than the effort
taken to understand where our
world is going,
and if we should resist, or
whether, accepting the
move, actively participate in it.”
(Stanisław Lem)
Bibliographic description to this article:
4. Sketches from Virtual Space - III Cyberarchitecture /A. Szóstakowska. CyberEmpathy: Visual Communication and
New Media in Art, Science, Humanities, Design and Technology SPECIAL EDITION 1 /2011.
Cybersky. ISSN 2299-906X. Kokazone.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web
PhD Dissertation 2011
Jan Matejko Academy
of Fine Arts, Krakow
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