pre-specifics

The long awaited CAAD book A Quantum City is finally out, a celebration on cities, technology and intellect. It can be purchased here.

We are all nomads native to the universe.

This is a stage play, a narrative about us on the planet. About how we relate to each other and to the Great Masters among us. Welcome to The City.

The views are wide open and bright. Cities are powerful and challenging. The heights are lofty the abysses are deep. Take a seat!

Here’s the setting: A planet. The generic city. And 100% urbanism. Raise the curtain!

Everything is connected. Everything imparts everything. The self and the other. Good and evil. Adland perfection to bad news provocation. The burning pain of aching souls versus the purity of nature. Catastrophe and salvation circling each other forever in their merry-go-round. A Venetian Carnival: Masks, murder, love, perfidy and beauty.

What should I do, if I am capable of anything but have no idea what to do?

We know the specific strengths of various cities, are aware of their ranking, are able to discuss their density and growth. But what do all cities have in common, what do we know about the ”lowest common denominator“? The ”city as a species“, the ”primal genetic material of the city“: this is the subject of A Quantum City. This colossal work is a love letter to the city and intellectual culture.

A Quantum City invites you to tap into the wealth of indexes belonging to our world. You get introduced to Orlando, a person with no noteworthy qualities, nor any particular properties: a human being who has not yet travelled. And it’s because of this that Orlando is singled out by the gods. He sets sail from Crete towards Athens in 320 BCE, hoping to find evidence of perfection. Throughout the book you follow him on his Odyssey through Western civilisation; though Orlando never quite ends up where she intended to go. And yet, by the time she arrives in the New York of the 1960s, all the decisions that have been made must be called hers. Orlando’s adventure is to challenge the collective origin of intellectual nature. In doing so, Orlando becomes neither an authoritarian functionary, nor a restless activist, nor a comfortable member of a bourgeoisie, but a citizen of the digital age, a Quantum Citizen.

This is not a book as you might expect. It doesn’t offer a theory about cities; rather it speaks of any theory. It is not engaged in solving problems, but it is outraged at the kind of stupidity that cultivates ignorance, at the oppressive and anonymous demand that any solid formulation of a problem should be simple. And above all it takes you onto a journey to (re-)discover The City…

The book is divided into four interrelated chapters and can be read page by page in a discursive manner, however randomly browsing through the book also offers new and multi-faceted interpretations. Great intellectual achievements are compared with obscure and mundane events. A Quantum City offers an inspiring view of the city that is in us and around us.

A Quantum City, Mastering the Generic

Applied Virtuality Book Series, vol. 10

Ludger Hovestadt, Vera Bühlmann (Eds.) with Diana Alvarez-Marin, Miro Roman, Sebastian Michael

824 pages, 6.6 x 2.3 x 9.6 inches, 1.7 pounds

Hardcover

English

Exiled to The Virtual World Or The Inconsistency Of The Real: my work featured in ETHZ CAAD's EigenArchitecture book!

http://www.ambra-verlag.at/eigenarchitecture

About research and education in architecture and information technology

Reinterpretation of George Boole, Richard Dedekind, Hermann Grassmann and Bernhard Riemann arguments for digital literacy

This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied:Å O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

Phaedrus by Plato (360 B.C) 

Il était une fois une ville appelée Lutèce, au IIème siècle après Jésus-Christ. L’empereur romain d’alors décréta que les premiers chrétiens seraient persécutés, et exécutés, sur toute la surface de l’Empire. Or le christianisme apparaît à Lutèce dès le Ier siècle et, un soir, les premiers chrétiens, qui venaient d’élire un évêque du nom de Denis, se rassemblent dans une salle. Ils s’y barricadent dans le cas terrifiant où la légion romaine les interpellerait et les jetterait en prison. Alors qu’ils écoutent pieusement les entretiens de leur évêque Denis, le drame se produit. Les portes et les fenêtres volent en éclat, la légion romaine pénètre la salle et le centurion, qui est monté sur l’estrade, coupe le cou à l’évêque Denis dont la tête roule par terre. Stupéfaction, épouvante et angoisse, mais miracle. L’évêque Denis se penche, prend sa tête à deux mains et la présente à ses ouailles pendant que les légionnaires épouvantés s’enfuient devant ce que nous appelons depuis le miracle de Saint-Denis. 

Voilà l’histoire par laquelle je voulais terminer. Lorsque, le matin, vous vous asseyez devant votre ordinateur, vous avez en face de vous votre tête, comme celle de Saint Denis. En effet, les facultés dont je viens de vous parler se trouvent dans votre tête : la mémoire, l’imagination, la raison, des milliers de logiciels pour accomplir des opérations que vous ne feriez pas sans votre tête. Or votre tête est objectivée ; vous avez perdu la tête. Pour parodier le titre du roman de Musil, j’appellerais volontiers l’homme moderne « l’homme sans faculté ». Vous avez perdu ces facultés, mais elles se trouvent toutes devant vous.

La question décisive qui subsiste encore est la suivante : que vous reste-t-il sur le cou ? Bonnat a placé, dans sa représentation du miracle de Saint-Denis, une lumière transparente légèrement incandescente sur le cou de l’évêque. Je terminerai par un mot catastrophique : les nouvelles technologies nous ont condamnés à devenir intelligents. Puisque nous avons le savoir et les technologies devant nous, nous sommes condamnés à devenir inventifs, intelligents, transparents. L’inventivité est tout ce qu’il nous reste. La nouvelle est catastrophique pour les grognons, mais elle est enthousiasmante pour les nouvelles générations car le travail intellectuel est obligé d’être intelligent et non répétitif comme il a été jusqu’à maintenant. Merci.