Social Media and Technology

Since we are interested in all things cultural, we thought it would be funny to get a twitter account... linking to this blog.

Technology should be mastered so we can achieve greatness. But it should not be programmable to the point where we lose a human touch. The RZA is sympathetic to this idea in his memoir (in fact it inspired those words and is probably verbatim) and architects such as Peter Eisenman have spoken about control and being controlled by the computer.

In the music industry there is an attempt to find the perfect song combination. BPM, key, melody and instrumentation of past hits can be analyzed and averaged into one big average song. But it is perfect right? No, it is just average. Software advances have allowed beat-making to become fool proof. Auto-tune is an advancement of the vocoder and takes away the former requisite vocal nuances of performing and singing. It may work for Daft Punk, but Daft Punk is on the cusp of popular music and an entirely separate cause.

Advances in software do have positive ramifications: more people can create music, instrument-less people have access to digital instruments which carry the same essence as their physical counterparts, music becomes shared more frequently and music becomes fun for many more people. I have been fooled by garageband songs. But I was only fooled post-experience, after I was initially blown away. If one is able to orchestrate a compelling tune via fruityloops or other software of choice, it exemplifies the potential that person has. And it may also inspire others.

Similarly, architecture has historically embraced technology in many ways. Ductile and lightweight steel revolutionized building forms during modernization. Mechanical systems can be analyzed before a shovel hits the ground to produce efficient, energy saving results. The arch was a technological advancement in my eyes. Let us not forget concrete and now parametric software.

Technology became an issue in architecture when it started to dehumanize working, social and living environments. I suppose the idea of a 'cold' architecture is formed out of uninspiring, repetitious and insensuous materials. In the 21st century, technology is an issue when building form overrides energy concerns or the quality of the enclosed and surrounding environments. An easy example would be the suburban garage. It is highly functional... you drive and park. In the morning you drive out. Your motor vehicle is protected from the elements. Unfortunately the garage is often too much of a focus that the repetition on a residential block creates an effect similar to the meatpacking district in New York (back when it was a meatpacking district). It is a highly impersonal aesthetic and relegates all social activity to the backyard, outside of neighbours view.

I really liked suburban garages when I was younger and played street hockey. It becomes an arena, or hockey's equivalent to the batting cage. To some it is a half-court. I have never seen anyone play tennis against one...

Architecture and software is a more theoretical issue (garages are practical.) Building Information Modeling (BIM) allows virtual project management on the computer screen. Drawing 4 lines on the x-plane easily becomes 4 walls in 3-dimensions after some clicks, and by accessing one drop-down menu those 'walls' become Flemish-bond single-wythe cavity walls spec'd to perfection. Adding a roof is only a 6-click process and multiple views are exported with ease. It has the 'architecture' process figured out like I've figured out procrastination.

But where is the spirit? Where is the mystery, the complexity once sought in the mind and expressed in line by hand? Being in school and seeing this process used as an excuse for 'design' is flabbergasting. BIM is all about production, not praxis. Because I believe even praxis takes humanity into account-you know, the idea that someone may actually inhabit these spaces. And I am not arguing for an architecture 'of the hand' drawn in graphite on cotton paper, built without electricity (a la McKay-Lyons). I am asking my peers to consider being masters of the systems they use. With BIM this means expanding beyond traditional notions of enclosure with walls and windows. It means form-finding founded on scale and habit rather than pattern. Aesthetics should be inclusive and not applied.

Regarding the positives of BIM: it allows the accelerated conception of cartesian spaces and if properly used, can make inventory and schedules really thoughtless (in a headache-less way). There are some parametric applications and the expedition of sections, 3D views and 2D drawings is desirable for large buildings.

Architects and students should be one step ahead. Their education should question what is beyond standardization and how this controlled software can embrace difference and anomaly. I believe it is the freeform applications that are really at the foreground of digital architectural discourse. I am referring to software that allows visualization and construction of extra-cartesian spaces imaginable yet impossible to model in the physical world. I have a dream... oh, wait-all architects should have dreams. It is dreaming (embraced as a mode of production) that should inform design decisions and not pure quantitative production. Modeling dreams will undoubtedly lead to more inventive architecture.

Back in 1995 computers were the shit. Lycos, Altavista, dial-up, Pentium 1 75mhz. Word had spread that this digital revolution would open up the world, make it transparent and allow people to become smarter, more informed, cross-pollinated and able to find answers to complex questions a lot faster than before. This would ultimately lead to more intelligent products, decisions and habits, right? I think to some extent (maybe 50%). It should have allowed us to question the ordinarily boring, to get beyond old habits and reestablish our identity on Earth as even more creative and insightful. For the better of course, with the Earth in mind. To this I say: BIM is nothing more than a summation of old habits, nothing creative, nothing insightful. It reorganizes the dated practice of "walls go here" and "windows go here" and is so rigorously modern that I am surprised there is not a built in Miesian or Corbusian proportioning system!