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The Imaginary Real World of CyberCitiesAuthor(s): M. Christine BoyerSource: Assemblage, No. 18 (Aug., 1992), pp. 114-127Published by: MIT Press
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M
hristine
o y e r
h e
Imaginary
e a l W o r l d
o
yber i t ies
M. Christine
Boyer
eaches
ity
planning
andurbanism
t the Schoolof Archi-
tecture,
Princeton
University,
ndat the
Irwin . ChaninSchool f
Architecture,
Cooper
Union.She s the author f
Dreaming
heRational
City:
The
Myth
ofAmerican
ity
Planning
893-1945
(1983),
Manhattan
Manners:
rchitecture
andStyle1850-1900 1985),andTheCity
of
Collective
Memory:
ts
Historical
magery
andArchitecturalntertainments
(forthcoming).
Shibuya
electronic
newspost, Tokyo,
Japan,
26
May
1992. Intial
exposure
1/30
second;
print exposure
6
seconds.
Photograph
?
1992
by
Santiago
Perez.
Assemblage
18
?
1992
by
the
Massachusetts
Institute
of
Technology
In
the mental
geography
of
architectural
heorists,
an
affinity
s
often
expressed
between
science-fictionnarratives nd
con-
temporary
ities.' This attraction nvolves
speculating
on how
the
possible
worldsof artificial
intelligence
and
cyberspace
might
affect the material
reality
of
design,
conceptual
models
of
space,
and architectural
r urban ntuitions.
Since the new
informational
network,
he
computer
matrix,
called
cyberspace
is commonlydefined as if it were a huge megalopoliswithout a
center,
both a
city
of
sprawl
and an
urban
jungle,
we
have to
ask,
What do these
analogies
do?2
'What
does
it
mean for Los
Angeles
to
be
simultaneously
ffered as the visualization
of
cyberspace
nd
promoted
as the
prototypicalposturban
me-
tropolis
(or
perhapsmeta-polis,
loose
configuration
of
sixty-
six nodes tied
together
by
an
elaborate
freeway
ystem
where
the foot on the
gas
pedal replaces
he
pedestrian's
tep
on
the
path)?
From the moment
in
1984
that William
Gibson first
announced
in
Neuromancer
hat
cyberspace
ooks ike Los
Angeles
seen at
night
from five thousand
feet
in
the
air,
what
has this
predilection
or
drawing
parallels
between the
virtual
space
of
computer
networksand the
posturban
places
of dis-
orderanddecayreally xpressed?3 his unwieldymixture of
cyberspace
and urban
dystopia
which
I
call
CyberCities
turns the
reality
of
time and
place
into an
imaginary
matrix
of
computer
nets
linking ogether electronically
distant
places
around he
globe
and
communicatingmultilinearly
nd
nonsequentially
with
vast
assemblages
of
information tored
as
electroniccodes.
What does it
signify
hat this
electronic
m-
agerygenerates
a
unique
mental
ordering
hat seems to
parallel
rather
han
represent eality?
What
significant
effects
result
115
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IP
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assemblage
18
from the
fact that the textual
universes
of
postmodern
ac-
counts
conjureup
immaterialand fictionalworlds
hat
disavow
any
link
with material
reality,
any connectivity
with
a shared
community?
t is to
attempt
an answer o these
questions
of
the
imaginary
ealworldof
information,
o search or the
meaning
of
CyberCities
affected
by
the
logics
of
computers
and
cyberspace,
hat
I
offer
this account.
Most science-fiction
descriptions
of
CyberCities
assume or
explicitly
statethat a
profound
mutationhas taken
place
en-
tailing
a
transformation rom
the Machine
City
of modernism
to
the
Informational
City
of
postmodernism.
So it
is
said,
this
transformation
displaces
he Western
space
of
geometry,
of
work,
of the
road,
he
building,
he
machine,
with new forms
of
diagramming,
ar
graphs,
preadsheets,
matrices,
and net-
works
expressive
of "anew etherealizationof
geography"
n
which the
principles
of
ordinarypace
and time are
being
tam-
pered
with
beyond
recognition.'
This
matrix
appears
o
be a
metaspace,
or
hyperspace, uperimposed
above the level
of
reality.
t is a
space
in
which
reality
s
deferred
rom
the
screen
to the
memory
bank,
to the
video
disk,
to
imaginary
etworks.
Or
perhaps
a better
analogy
or the
computer
matrix
of
dis-
rupted
space
and
time is the audio-visual
jumps
and
leaps
the blank
spaces,arbitrary
ound
bites,
and
fragmented mages
-
achieved
by
the
viewerof
cable
television
who,
remote
control
n
hand,
flips
through
an
array
f
television
programs
that nevercoalesces nto a
single
knowableorder.
If a
transformation
rom
the
machine to the
computer
has
taken
place,
even
if
it affects
only
the
imaginary,
we need
to
question
what has been transformed nd
what
these
changes
affect with
respect
to architecture
n
the
city,
for
the
imaginary
and
the artisticare
closelyaligned.
As
one
cyberspace
dvocate,
Michael
Heim,
reminds
us,
artistic
and
technological
ascina-
tion are inked:"With an electronic nfrastructure,he dream
of
perfect
FORMSbecomes
the dreamof inFORMation.
Filtered
through
he
computer
matrix,
all
reality
becomes
patterns
of information
...
Further,
he
erotic-generative
source
of
formal dealismbecomes
subject
to the laws of
infor-
mation
management."'
Consequently,
the
absorption
of archi-
tectural
theory
and
architectural ascination
nto
the
language
of
computers
and
I
am not
referring
ere to CAD
systems
but to
the
theory
of
information cience and all the science-
fiction
imaginaries
t
seems
to
invoke
may
make a
categori-
cal
mistake: or
one
side of the
equation
in
CyberCity
s imma-
terial,
while the other remains
material;
ne
side of
the
analogy
is
about
the constructionof
information
networks,
he
other
about
the
constructionof
space.
Indeed,
this confusion of
categoriesmay
undermine
many
of our
postmodern
architec-
tural
theoriesas
they
are
applied
to architecture
n
the
city.
The
Machine
City
Like the
computer
of
CyberCity
and
the
postmodern,
he
machine of
the
Machine
City
is
ingrained
n
the
way
we
repre-
sent
and
imagine
(or
have
represented
and
imagined)
the
modern
city.
Metaphors
of the Machine
City
linked to
repre-
sentationsof and
reflecting
attitudes toward
modernity
and
the
metropolis
at
the turn of the twentieth
century
come
easily
to
mind.
Calvin
Coolidge
seemed to
encapsulate
he idoliza-
tion of the machine
age
when
he
proclaimed,
"The
man
who
builds a
factory
builds
a
temple.
The man who works here
worships
here."6
The
metropolis
was believed to be an inor-
ganic
and
fabricated
nvironment,
he
product
of
mathematics
and the creationof the
engineer.
Thus we
find,
for
example,
LudwigMeidner n "Directions orPaintingImagesof the
Metropolis"
dvising
he artistof
1914
to
pay
attention to
"tumultuous
treets,
the
elegance
of iron
suspension
bridges,
the
gasometers,..,
the
howling
colorsof the autobuses
and
express
ocomotives,
the
rolling
elephone
wires,
he har-
lequinade
of
the advertisement
pillars."'
And before
long
the
dynamics
of motion
in
the
big city,
as well
as the
visual
juxta-
position
of
disparate
lements
(graphics,
musical
rhythms,
typography,
nd
photography)
used to create
picture poems,
were
captured
by
one
of
the machines
of
the
twentieth cen-
tury:
he movie camera.Laszlo
Moholy-Nagy
xplained
n
his
fourteen-page
ilm
script
for
Dynamics
of
the
Metropolis
f
1921-22
that there were to be shots
of
constructionsites
from
below,fromabove,fromdiagonalviews,fromrevolving ranes,
shots of
the
flashing
etters of
electric
advertisements,
nd
shots filmed
from
racing
automobiles
and
moving
trains,
o
set
up
the
dynamic
empo
of the
city. Although Moholy-Nagy's
script
was
never
produced
as a
film,
it seems
to
have reached
fruition
n
William Ruttmann'sBerlin:
A
Symphony
f
the
City
of 1929.
Now the Machine
City
of
modernism,
ar from
being
only
liberating
and
celebratory,
lso embodieda darker ide:the
116
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Boyer
mechanismsof
discipline
and
the architectural
spaces
of
enclo-
sure that Michel Foucault
has
so
brilliantly
described the
asylum,
the
prison,
he
factory,
he
school,
and the home.
If
subjects
were once controlled
throughdramaturgical
isplays
of
might
and ceremoniesof
exaggerated
orture,
rom
which
could be deduced the
sovereign's
uthority
o
appropriate
wealth, taxes,
goods,
services,
and
life
itself, then,
beginning
n
the
late
eighteenth
century,
his
power
was
transformed nto a
power
to
ensure, maintain,
and
develop
the
life
of a
social
body,
which,
to
this
end,
used
space
and
architecture
as
its
instruments
of
normalization.8
Discipline,
or
the self-construc-
tion of the
individual,
becamethe most efficacious
nstrument
of
powerdeployedby
these
spaces
of
enclosure.Here the acts
of
comparing,contrasting,
and
categorizing
were
organiza-
tional relations
hat
supported
new
disciplinary rocedures;
or
the individualwas
forced
constantly
o stand
in
relation
o the
established
norm,
and this
self-comparison
etermined
the
range
of
deviationsand diversions o be
brought
under control.
Thus
the machinelikenorm established
authority
over an
individualwithout
any
externalreference o a
sovereign's
might.9
Certainly,
we can extend this
analogy
o the Machine
City,
for
disciplinary
ontrol
proceedsby
distributing
bodies/uses
n
space,
allocating
each
individual/function
o a cellular
parti-
tion,
and
creating
an efficient
machine
out
of its
analytical
spatial
arrangement.
n
becoming
a
target
of
disciplinary
on-
trol,
the
city
offered
up
new forms of
knowledge:
ts
disciplin-
ary
methodologies
came to
describean
anatomy
of detail.
An
ideal
architecturalmodel was
conceived
as
well to
house this
disciplinary ystem,
an
architecture hat wouldallowforthe
continuous
operation
of
surveillance.
A
networkof
urbanob-
servatories ent the
space
of
the
city
to
a set of norms
that
both
established
he line
of
horizontaland
comparative
ision
and
surveyed
he
movement
of
eachindividualandeverycellu-
lar
space.
So arose
at the end
of
the
nineteenth
century
he
process
of
city
planning.'0
CyberCities
Gilles
Deleuze has
suggested
recently
hat Foucault's
spaces
of
enclosureare
increasingly
laced
in
crisis."
Thus the
home,
the
factory,
he
school,
the
deindustrialized
city,
and,
certainly,
the
process
of
city planning
are
in
various
tages
of
dissolution,
reflectiveof
the
disciplinary
reakdown hat
CyberCities
en-
tail.
So,
Deleuze
maintains,
disciplinary
ocieties that
have
molded behaviorare
givingway
to numerical ocieties of
modulating
control facilitated
by computer
technology.
From
machines
of
production
hat
require
a
disciplined
abor
orce
and an
efficiently
planned
and
organized ity,
we have
evolved
into a
space
of
flows defined
by
worldwidenetworksof com-
puters.
This
free-floating
membraneof
connectivity
and con-
trol encircles he
globe
in
ultrarapid
ashion,
enabling
a new
economic
order
of
multinational
corporations
o arise.In
these
societies,
control acts like a
sieve whose mesh
transmutes rom
point
to
point,
undulating
and
constantly
at work.The
code,
not the
norm,
becomes the
important
device;
he
password
rather han the watchword
now
provides
or inhibits
access.
In
addition,
the coded
figure
of
multinational
corporations
pulls
an
agoristic
market
mentality
of
competition, rivalry,
nd
contests in its
wake,
conquering hrough
colonization,
special-
ization,
and the
deformableand
transformable ecisionsthat
computer
tracking
allows.
A
market
mentality
of
short-term
advantages
and
high
turnover ates
overtakes
any
long-range
and
continuous
planning
endeavors.
n
computer-led ocieties,
jamming,
viruses,
piracy,
and
corruption
eplace
he machine-
age dangers
of
entropy
and
sabotage.
We
are,
f
we
accept
Deleuze's
description,
at
the
beginning
of
the sociotechno-
logical
revolutionsand
dispersed
ystems
of
domination that
societies of
control
comprise.
Now
clearly,
he
computer
matrix s
just
a
metaphor
or
pat-
terns of
information,
a tool
for
examining
our
contemporary
reality
n
which
electronic
machinery
dominates
our
imagina-
tion. Or is it? For
it seems
increasingly
ifficult to
erase
imagi-
nary
orms
from
our
feelings
about
reality.
As Heim
claims
in
"The
Erotic
Ontology
of
Cyberspace,"
he matrix
holds out a
promiseof connectivity hat realitydenies: the technologiesof
networkinghough
on-line
communication,
electronic
mail,
or
news
groups
offer each
unit at his or
her terminala
way
to
counter
urban
solationand
alienation.
Even
though
"new
communities"are
formed,
Heim does
acknowledge
he dark
side to
networking:
t
operates
hrough
stand-ins
of
ourselves,
representations
n
which
we can lose our
humanity,
or
hide
our
identity,
and thus
it
may inspire
an
amoral ndifference o
human
relations.
"Ason-line
culture
grows
geometrically,"
Heim
allows,
"the
sense
of
community
diminishes."'2
Of
117
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assemblage
18
course,
human
unity
and
community
are totalizations hat lie
among
the
major
conceptual
fault
lines that
CyberCities
dis-
play.
But let us return o the
city;
that
is,
if we can
turn
off the con-
sole and
walk
nto
the
physical
richnessand
energies
of
reality's
world,
f
we
can leave
behind
our
metaphors
of simulated
connectivity
and
the
synthetic
world
of
the
computer
matrix
that has
supposedly upplantedphysical
pace.
It
is curious
that
just
as
CyberCities
narrate he dematerialization f
physi-
cal
space
and
chronological
ime,
within
postmodern
criticism,
"space"
as
become a dominant issue.
Edward
Soja
n
Post-
modern
Geographies
elateshowthe nineteenth
century's
affair
with
progress,
which valued
time over
space,
allowed
space
to
be used
as a
veil drawnover the
surface,
hiding things
from us.
And
David
Harvey
n
The Condition
of
Postmodernity
peaks
of
how
space-timecompressions,
ach
revolution
n
communica-
tion
technology
causing
an annihilation
of
space by
time,
pro-
duced crises
of
representation.
While Fredric
Jameson
notes
in
Postmodernism,r,
The Cultural
Logic
of
Late
Capitalism
hat
the cultural
conditions of
postmodernity
have createdthe need
for
cognitivemaps
to
link
our
ideologicalpositions
with our
imaginations
and hence enable social
transformations
o
take
place."3
nall three
accounts,
the
postmodern
body
is sur-
rounded
by
and bombarded
with incoherent
fragments
of
space
and time.
For
we seem
in
CyberCity
o be
perpetually
reflectedfrom
glass
curtain
wallsand
continuously
n
motion,
whether
driving
he
freeways,
hopping
at
the
mall,
or
pushing
carts
through
supermarket
isles.And it has been
argued
hat
electronic elecommunications
have
so reformulated
ur
per-
ception
of
space
and time that we
experience
a loss
of
spatial
boundaries,
of
spatial
distinctions.
All
spaces
begin
to look
alikeand
implode
into an
undifferentiated
ontinuum,
while
time is reduced
to
obsessive-compulsive
epetitions.
As a re-
sult,we areunable to mapourcontemporaryerrain, o envi-
sion
space
and
representational
orms,
and thus to weave
things together,
to
conclude,
to act.
Increasingly,
n
postmodernist
criticism,
as
spaces
of modernist
enclosureare
placed
n
crisis,
here
has occurred nstead a
massive
restructuring
f
our
perception
of
space
and
time to
the
point
where
we
have
assumed the nonlinear
vision of a
computer
matrix
ull
of
ruptures,
breaks,
and discontinuities.
Might our postmodern
ixation
on
shifting positions
n
space
and time
and
our common
pronouncements
of the
disappear-
ing
or invisible
city
mask
deeper
anxietiesand ambivalent
negations
within the
metropolitan
core?At the same moment
that
computational
connectivity
holds
out the
promise
of
nonhierarchical,multicentered,
open-ended
forms
defining
a
"new
community,"
voices from other times and different
spaces
are
beginning
to
emerge
and disturb he
supposed
unity.
Is the
gesture
of
electronic
connectivity
anything
other
than an
attempt
to contain contested terrains
and to
absorb
excluded
parts, hereby
allowing
he whole to
reorganize
with-
out
challenging
ts fundamental
assumptions?
Lag-Time
Places
In
the late twentieth
century
unknown
and
threatening
errito-
ries ie within the
center,
inside the
boundariesof the
metrop-
olis where
there are
many
ag-times,
temporal
breaks
n
the
imaginary
matrix,
and areasof forced
delay put
on
hold
in
the
process
of
postmodernization.'4
hese
partitions,
cuts,
and
interruptions
n
the
urban
imaginary
llow us to
deny
our
complicity
n
the
making
of
distinctions
between the well-
designednodes of the matrixand the blank n-betweenplaces
of
nobody's
concern.
Disavowed,overlooked,
marginalized,
eft
out of our
accounts,
these
in-between
spaces,
the
inexpress-
ible,
the
incomplete,
the
unattended,
the "etc."and the
"..."
are the
center's
truly
nvisible
places."
To attend
to a few of these
lag-times
and
spatial
gaps
within
our
metropolitan
narrations,
o
note the
margins
and
para-
doxes
of
our
postmodernity,
we have
only
to turn to the
New
York
Times.
5
November 991:
To visitMottHaven
a
neighborhood
f some
fifty
housand
eople
around ast
138th
Street]
and here reMott
Havens
n most
arge
American
ities
hese
days
is
to
discover
world part.Here,povertyutsdeeperhan he ackofmoney, he
lack
of health
are,
heabundance
f
drugs.
This
grayplace
s
largely
bereft
f
many
of thethreadshat
knitother
erypoor
neighborhoods
together:
trong
enant
rganization,owerful
ommunityroups,
charismatic
eadership,
vena safe
playground.
he
strongest
eigh-
borhood
ind s
its
struggle
with
hardship.
We're
ikethe
forgotten
city.'"6
26
April
1992:
Jos6
Delgado ingered
t the
doorstep
f a
decaying
South
Bronx
partment
uilding
ast
week
watchingMayor
DavidN.
Dinkins
romise
millions
f
dollars
n
developmentrojects.
ftera
118
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Boyer
while he
politicians ispersed.
he elevision ameraswere
packed
up.
The
onlookers ribbled
way.
ButMr.
Delgado
emains,
s he
al-
ways
does.
Every
ime
hey
want o
be elected
hey
come
here,'
aid
the
forty-one-year-old
uilding uperintendent.They aythey
are
going
o do
things
o fix the
neighborhood,
ut t's been ike this
since 1972.'
7
These
lag-time
narrations,
nd
there are numerous
others,
reveal
how
the
imaginary
matrix
performs
patial
and
temporal
disjunctions hat enable us to think of citycenters as if they
were
naturally
bipolarplaces
of uneven
development
rather
than effects of a willful
dismemberment hat sites certain
ives
and
places
outside
of,
and
only
sometimes
beside,
the main
events of
contemporary
ities.'"It is
this
splitting
that the
binary
ogic
of the
computer
matrix
allowsus to
achieve with
relativeease. Such an
arrangement,
or
example, provides
Paul
Viriliowith
his
images
of the
disappearing
ity
-
wherechro-
nologicaltopographies
eplace
constructed
geographical
pace,
where mmaterial
electronicbroadcast
emissions
decompose
and
eradicatea sense of
place.
Virilio's
city
has lost its form
except
as a connector
point
or
airport,
as a
membrane
or
com-
puter
terminal;
his
is a
two-dimensionalFlatland
n
which
the
citycanvanish.Obviously,Virilio'spositionis overdetermined
by
the
binary
coding
and
switching ogic
of
computer
technol-
ogy:
the
logical
+/-, 0/1,
on/off
of
electronic
pulses
and,
hence,
the
appearance/disappearance
f
the
city.
But the
point
here is
that this architectural
theory gnores
our
involvement
n
the
shaping
of
space,
in
the
production
of
lag-time
places
and
temporal
disjunctions.
Agoric
Systems
The
logic
of
computers
engenders
more than
binary
modes of
thought.
There is
also within
connectionist
systems
an interest
in the capacityof machines to learn.Computer earningcon-
sists
in
the
shifting
of
internal
linkages
(that
is,
the
production
of
new
representations)
mong
units distributed
throughout
the networkas
they
interactwith
the
world/context
and
adapt
to
patterns
hat it
presents.19
In
the
attempt
to
develop expert
systems,
moreover,
"the
goal
is to
develop
computer-imple-
mented
rule
systems
that can
replicateaspects
of the
reasoning
of
humans who
perform
he function
in
an
expert
fashion."
Such
rules,
usually
obtained
through
nterviews,
are then en-
coded
in
a
computer
program.20
Returning
o the
agoristics
of
Deleuze's societies of
control,
Manuel De Landa
explains
n
War n the
Age
of
Intelligent
Machines hat
the
decentralization
f
intelligent
computer
networksaround
he
globe
introduces
a
problematic
paradox,
since
they spawn"independent
oftware
objects,"
known
as
"demons,"
which
may
lie
beyond
the network's ontrol.
De-
mons
operating
within the
membraneof
global
networks,
De
Landa
proclaims,
already
display
a
tendency
to form
societies
that resemble
nsect
communities
or
economic
markets.
Independent
oftware
bjects
will
soon
begin
o constituteven
more
complex omputational
ocieties
n
which
demons radewith
onean-
other,
bid and
ompete
or
resources,
eedand
pawn rocesses
pon-
taneously
nd o on.
The
biosphere..,
is
pregnant
ith
singularities
that
pontaneouslyive
riseto
processes
f
self-organization.
imi-
larly,
he
portion
f the
'mechanosphere'
onstituted
y
computer
networks,
nce t has
crossed certain
ritical
oint
of
connectivity,
begins
o be inhabited
y
symmetry-breakingingularities,
hich
give
rise o
emergent
roperties
n
the
system.
These
ystems
can
encourage
he
development
f
intelligent
software]
bjects,
ut
here
is
a
sense
n which hese
ystems
hemselveswill
be
intelligent.'2'
In
this
scenario,
he
agoric,
or
marketlike,
omputer
system
takes on a life of its own. We seem
entrapped
within a
giant
machine from
which we can never
escape,
a
fear
exploited
by
the best and
worst of
science
fiction.
Or,
expressive
of
yet
another
postmodern
narrative,
we find
ourselves
n
the nihilis-
tic and
deterministic
errainof
Jean
Baudrillard,
here the
computer
"code s the
unseen,
'ob-scene'
vehicle
by
whichthat
power
[the
power
of
corporations]
moves toward
global
con-
trol,
toward he
profitable
reation
and
regimation
of
ever
more
sign-oriented,
media-bound,
simulated
and
simulationist
cultures."22
uteven a
cursory
ook
at
computer
iterature
remindsme
that
way
back
n 1959
Oliver
Selfridge,
earching
for
a means of
pattern
recognition
or
handwritten
etters of
the alphabet,cameup with a theoreticalmodelhe calledPan-
demonium.
"Cognitive
demons"
acting
in
parallel
without
attention to one
anotherwould
each
eventually
"shout
out"
its
judgment
of
what letter
had
been
presented
o it.
A
"decision
demon"
would
then
identify
the letter
based
on
which
demon
shouted the
loudest. For
each
cognitive
demon
was,
in
its
turn,
responding
o
lower-order
feature
demons"and
the
greater
the
number of
features
represented
by
the
letter,
the
louder
the demon could
shout.
In
other
words,
he
computer
field is
alive
with
attempts
to
develop
network
models of
parallel
119
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assemblage
18
processors
rying
o simulate
cognitive
processes.23
ow what
does this
development
of "smart
computers"
able to learn
from their
environment,
o
planproblem-solving trategies
at
increasingly
aried evels of
complexity,
and even to eliminate
irrelevant etails from considerationas
they
become endowed
with a relentlesscommon sense
I
repeat,
what does this
have to do with the
city
and
architecture?
Mini-MaxStrategies
To
begin
with,
we need
to
acknowledge
hat the
history
of
computers
has,
from ts
inception,
been
deeply
affected
by
militaryobjectives,
and this has tainted
its
logic
and modes
of
operations.
The
paradigmatic
ecisionistic
model is the
Prisoner's
Dilemma,
a
game
articulated
by
John
von Neumann
that
guided
our
militarypolicythroughout
he Cold War
and
still
guides
our
corporate
decision
processes.24 verygraduate
business school offers
a course n the
theory
of
games
not
intended
for leisure-time
sports.
The
purpose
s
rather o teach
competitors
how to minimize
their maximum
osses. Conse-
quently,
a
proconflict/anticooperation
ias is worked
nto the
model. Need we be reminded hat in the Cold War neither the
Soviet
Union nor the
United States ever
made a
gesture
of
unilateral
disarmament?
instead,
osses were
supposedly
minimized
by
supporting
nuclear
build-up.
We can
apply
his
Cold
War rhetoric
of chance and
risk o the
city:
for,
ndeed,
corporate
adversarial
olitics,
the
agoristics
of the
market,
affects the
space
of the
city.
Lookat New York
City
today
and
you
will see von Neumann's
"mini-max"
ogic
at work.
To maximize one's
unilateral
private
gains
at
the
expense
of
the collective
good
appears
o be the
rational
move.
I
need
only
mention
the
twenty
or
so
"business
improvement
districts"
BIDs)
that in the last decade
have
pockmarkedhe citywithprivatizedprotectedzones. These
are commercial
and business
areaswhere
property
wnershave
agreed
o
assess themselves
at a
rate
higher
than the
city's
n
order
o
generate
unds to
improve
heir ocal environment
n
the faceof the
disintegration
f the
whole. BIDs
usually
dis-
perse
their
collective
money
to
private
ecurity
orces,
private
sanitationcollection
companies,
or street
and
sign
beautifica-
tion
programs.25
However
ucrative
heir
assessments
may
be,
it is hard
o conceive
how the
problems
of
drugs,
homelessness,
and
security
can be
treated as issuesof
boundary
maintenance,
for
they permeate
he
city;
minimizing
the maximum risksof
doing
business
in
one area
simply
pushes
the
problems
else-
where.Or another
example
of these
struggles
an be found
in
the recent
complaints
romsome builders hat New York
City
has a
faulty
economic-development
policy.
Since 1976 the
city
has
tried to form incentive
packages hrough
ax breaksand
creditsthat would lure
developers
o the outer
boroughs
or
above
Ninety-sixth
Street
in
Manhattan.As a
consequence,
downtown
Brooklyn
as
experienced
a
surge
of new
develop-
ment.
Now, however,
during
economic
recession,
his
policy
s
being
called
misguided
because it was
pursued
o the detri-
ment of Manhattan the
borough
that must remain he
epicenter
of commerce
if
maximum osses are to be
mini-
mized.26
The
City
of Artifice
Another
aspect
of the
logic
of
computer
mathematics
applied
to the
city
is the art of
spatial
and
temporalordering,
what
we
might
call the creation
of
the
City
of
Artifice.
As
Margorie
Perloff
points
out
in
Radical
Artifice,
our
word
processors
nd
electronic
devices have
taught
us to
snip,
to
sort,
to
cut,
to
edit,
to
rearrange
ur
data,
our
word-processed
exts,
our VCR
tapes,
until
they
have
become constructedartifices.
n
Perloff's
domainof
poetry,
she finds
that
language
has
given
way
to a
medium
that,
to
quote
Charles
Bernstein,
s
"constructed,
rule-governed,
verywhere
ircumscribed
by grammar
nd
syntax,
chosen
vocabulary:
esigned,
manipulated,picked,pro-
grammed,
organized,
and so an
artifice,
artifact
monadic,
solipsistic,
homemade,
manufactured,
mechanized, formulaic,
willful."27
erloffrecountshow
artificeshave
leaped
off the
page
and
moved into the
public
realm:
n
the
poetics
of
greet-
ing
cards,
n
ingenious
advertisements,
n
the
sign
inflection
of
billboards.28uchpowerful mageschallengethe artistto move
beyond
mere
duplication.
Since
images
are now sold
by corpo-
rations,
Perloff
argues,
he
poetic image
has become
problem-
atic
-
as
has the architectural
image
as well.
"Given he
sophisticated
print
media,
computer
graphics,
signpost
and
advertising
ormats
of our
culture,
all
writing
and
certainly
all
poetic
writing
is
inevitably
seen'as well
as 'seen
through'
or
heard."29
To understand he
latter not
as
phonemic
but as
ink
on the
page
is to contest the
status of
language
as a
bearer
of uncontaminated
meaning.3
120
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Boyer
And
so
we
might
say
of the
spaces
of the
city.
In
spite
of all we
may
have
learned romthe semiotics
of
Las
Vegas,
pop
archi-
tecture
of the late sixties and
seventies
merelyduplicated
the
commercial
artifice,
raising
t
to
the
level of
high
art.
If
we
turn
to our cities of the seventies
and
eighties,
is
it
surprising
o
find
their
public spaces
structuredas
if
a
labyrinthine
networkwere
thrownover their surface?
These urbanmatricesbecome an
aggregate
of
atomistic
detail;for,
indeed,
the urbanartifice
valorizes he
local,
the
regional,
he
particular
it becomes an
array
f historicaland
stylistic
details
and Wordsworthian
"spots
of time."
Returning
o New York
City,
I
would recommend
a walk
through
South Street
Seaport,
Battery
Park
City,
Times
Square,
he
large
historicdistrictsof
the
Upper
East
Side,
the
Upper
West
Side,
Greenwich
Village,
and LadiesMile to
ex-
amine the artifice
at work.Here the nodes of
the urbanmatrix
have
become
cutoutsof local
details,
controlled
by
design
codes,
historic-district
regulations,
and contextual
zoning
ordinances.
n
between,
of
course,
plenty
of
spaces
are over-
looked,
left
unimproved,dropped
out of the
transforming
rid
-
those
numerous
lag-time
spaces explored
above. For detail
owes its
privileged
tatus,
as Freud
proclaimed,
o the
primary
process
of
displacement."
WarringAgainst
Totalities
The matrixof urban
space,
clearly
an artificewith allof its
contrivedand
manipulated
details,
positions
tself
in
war
against
the
reality
of
the
city;
t
imposes
itself
as a
gesture
against
totalities,
as a
recognition
hat
harmony
of
life
can
never
be
achieved. Its
commitment is to the
struggle,
o the
resistance,
o us
versus
hem,
and
in
this sense it
is
radically
antiurbanand
highly
postmodern.
Modernism,
by
contrast,
held artifice o be its enemy, searching or
what Ezra
Pound
called
"good
art..,
that
bears rue
witness,.
..
the
art
that
is
most
precise,"
n
opposition
to "badart" hat "is
naccurate
art,
...
art that makes false
reports."32
Modernists ntended
im-
ages,
both
visual
and
verbal,
o
be
precise
and clear
analogies
of
reality;postmodernists,
on
the other
hand,
discredit he use
of
imagery
because
contemporary
ulture s saturatedwith ma-
nipulated,
commercialized
signs designed
and fabricated
by
product
advertisers.33
onfronted with
these
powerful
and
complex images, poetic discourse s challenged, n Perloff's
words,
"todeconstructrather han
to
duplicate
them.
They
prompt
what has become an
ongoing,
ndeed a
necessary
dia-
lectic between
the simulacrumand
its
other,
a dialecticno
longer
between the
image
and the
real,
as
early
modernists
construed
t,
but
between
the word
and
the
image.714
So we findthat on the
edge
of the
twenty-first
entury
our
technological
ascination
with
computers
merges
with
our
artistic
conceptualizations
of multivalent
assemblages
n
which
the individual, he
collectivity,
andthe dataset
play separate
parts.
Yet
how
does the
outside,
the material
world,
penetrate
and infuse the
images
and
representations
f
this
imaginary
assemblage?
How,
in
particular,
s the
community,
the
polis,
the center allowed o
inform our
position?
And
why, precisely,
is our
contemporary
ime so afraid
of
centering
devices,
why
do
we
speak
so
often
of
invisible
cities,
the
disappearing,
deindustrialized,
isfigured,
and
decentered
city?
What is
this
fearful
center
but a
point
of concentration
or
gravity
hat holds
together
a verbal
sequence
and
gives meaning
to utterances?
Centering
s
both
recursive
nd
precursive,
elping
to
give
order
o what
proceeded
and to what
will
follow.3"
t is the
sign
we readas we enter the outskirts
of
everyEuropeanmetropolis,
unerringly ointing
the
way
"to
the center."
n
the Western
world
centering
events or
images
are
understood
symbolically.
Because
they
often mask
the
verypowers
hat center a dis-
course
and
are feared or their
potential
enslavements,
hey
demand
interpretation
nd
decipherment.
Postmodern
critics,
n
particular,
hink that the notion of
unity, totality,
or
"center" s an artifice an
arbitrarily
on-
structed
narrativewhose
implicit relationships
an no
longer
be
accepted
as true or retaina stable
significance.Lyotard
ells
us that "wehave
paid
a
high enough
price
for
the
nostalgia
of
the whole and
one,
for
the reconciliationof the
concept
and
the sensible,
of
transparent ndcommunicableexperience...
Let us
[instead]
wage
waron
totality,
et us be
witness of the
unpresentable,
et
us activate he
difference."36
Eventually,
however,
we must come full circle to
this
decentering
game
of
postmodemrnism
nd
ask,
n
our war
against
all
totalities and
our
contemporary
iscontent,
Just
what
is
it
that
we
affirm?
We
have,
in
turn,
deconstructed
he
promise
of the
Enlighten-
ment,
the
logocentrisms
of
Western
discourse,
he
purposive,
rationalaction
systems
of science
and
technology,
he
process
of
city planning,
Marxism,
and so on. Of
course,
architecture
121
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assemblage
18
and the
city
are
among
postmodernism's
major
structures
of
ambivalence.The
polis
the
Greek
city
was
the center
of
Western communal
ife
based on the
now-faulty
assumption
of a common
purpose
and common
consensus
and
an unmedi-
ated
harmony
and
unity
of all human
life.
In our
postmodern
deconstruction
of
totalizations,
we
think we have reinstated
freedomof choice and
enabled the
voice
of
alterity
o
rise,
but
clearly
at the cost
of
community.37
When
Karl
Scheffler,
a member
of
the Deutscher
Werkbund,
confronted
he
reality
of the
metropolis
n the
early
1900s,
he
saw
that the
city
wasno
longer
a
closed
organism
held
together
by
small-scaled
patriarchal roups
n
which
"every
man could
recognize
he
whole,
and
[thus]
... eachtook
part
n
the
pros-
perity
of a whole
on which
one's own
prosperity
epended."
The
metropolis
was
devoid
of a
"spirit
of
community,"
was a
mere accidental
place
of
residence.3"
he
move to the
city
was,
then,
a
voyage
away
rom home
and toward
he
unknown.
And
once embarked
on this
voyage,
here
wasno
promise
of a safe
return,
or
the
urge
to travel
was
simultaneously gesture
that
abandoned
he
security
of
home.39
Consider
how Kafka
n
1912used thismotif of travel n his firstnovel,DerVerschollen,
(the
missing
ones,
as
in
passengers
missing
at
sea),
written
about
New
York
although
he had
never
been to the
city.
"Traffic"
s Kafka's
metaphor
or the
transitory
atureof
things
experienced
n
the
metropolis
not
just
the
comings
and
goings
of
subway
rains
and automobiles
and
the ebb
and
flow
of
crowdsas
they
follow their
daily
rhythms,
but also
changes
in
fashions
and
architectural
tyles,
and the
fragmentary,
llu-
soryquality
of
perception
tself.
Each
chapter
s
organized
around
a different
mode
of travel
hat
propels
he hero
into a
never-ending
uccession
of new
circumstances.
Complex
traf-
fic patternsof New YorkCitystreetsgivewayto pedestrians
and
automobiles
along
the
highway,
which
are
supplanted
by
vertical
movements
of elevators
and sexual
traffic,
which
fi-
nally
eadinto the
subway
and
toward
he
endless
expanse
of
the
American
continent.
New
YorkandAmerica
are
and-
scapes
without
beginning
or
end,
labyrinths
f
accident,
dis-
order,
and
uncertainty
n which the
images
of the
city
are
continually
destabilized,
dematerialized,
nd
erased,
and-
scapes
from
which the
protagonist
s
constantlyexpelled
and
forced
to
move
on.40
Again
we can draw
parallels
between
the stabilities
of
home,
the familiar
nclosure,
and
the
open-ended
and rootless
me-
tropolis
hat defies
connectivity
and
belonging.
For Kafka's
narrative
opens
as the hero
is banished
from his
family
or
having
fatheredan
illegitimate
child;
he
is exiled to
a world
without a
past
and
without a
center,
"aworld
of
changing
appearances,
nstable
mpressions,
accident,
and death:
a
world
of 'traffic'" hat
will not stand
still and
is oblivious
o his
presence.4
Modernismset
itself the
task of
describing
hese
fragmented
experiences
of the
metropolis,
rying
o
close the
gap
between
the
individualand
his
environment,
o recenter
and reconstruct
he
city
until it formedan
organic
whole. The
city
was a
place
of
immigration
and
estrangement,
yet
simul-
taneously
a
register
hrough
which
passed
a
dynamic
array
f
local
styles,
cultures,
and
languages.
Modernist
artistic
expres-
sion
arose
out of and
through
this
metropolitan
xperience.42
To take
up
a
postmodern
narrative
f
travel,
we need
only
turn
to Italo
Calvino's
nvisibleCities.
"Traveling,"
alvino's
Marco
Polo
reveals,
"you
realize
hat
differencesare ost:
each
city
takesto
resembling
all
cities,
placesexchange
their
form,
order,
distances,a shapelessdustcould
invadethe
continents."43
he
type
of
city
is
uniform,
he detailed
variations
ndless.
Hence
everycity
must be
read
n
quotation
marks,
ts
representation
excessive
and
privileged:
we have
to learnwhat
is not
present
in "the
city"
and what
this absence
might
mean.
InvisibleCit-
ies
is structured
as a
systematic
artifice,
a numerical
et:there
are
fifty-five
cities
in
all,
five cities
allocated
o each
of eleven
different
categories.
The
idea
of
city
is fractured
by
this
serial
artifice,
being
influenced
retroactively
y
the definition
of each
element
in
the
set.As Marco
Polo
claims,
"I
will
put together,
piece
by piece,
the
perfectcity,
made of
fragments
mixed with
the
rest,
of instants
separated
by
intervals
discontinuous
n
space
and
time,
now
scattered,
now
more
condensed,
you
must
not believethe search or it can stop."44
Calvino's
nvisible
Citiesbearsa
similarity
o
travel
n
the
informational
matrix
of
CyberCity,
where
borders
arecrossed
with the
help
of a
hypermedianavigator
who
guides
the trav-
eler
in
riding,
raversing,
rowsing,
playing
he links between
different
exts,
images,
words,
and
graphs,
moving
across
he
grid
of
the electronic
screen,
establishing
new
relationships
n
unpredictable
ways.
Marcos
Novak
describes
raveling
hrough
this
hypertext:
122
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Boyer
Every
paragraph
n
dea,
every
deaan
mage, very
mage
an
ndex,
indices
trungogether long
dimensions
f
my choosing,
nd tra-
vel
through
hem,
ometimeswith
hem,
ometimes cross hem.
produce
ew
sense,nonsense,
ndnuisance
y
combinationnd
variation,
nd
follow
he scent
of
a
quality
hrough
anddunes
f
information. ints
of
an
attributettach hemselveso
my
sensors
and
guide
me
past
he
rrelevant,
nto
he
company
f the
mportant;
or I
choose
o
browse
heunfamiliarnd
umble
hrough
olumes
andvolumes
f
knowledge
till
n
the
making.45
Can this thrillof constantly ravelingon into the unknown
networkof information
without a
centered
focus or
bounded
domainmakeus
critically
awareof how
abstract
he
matrixof
CyberCity
s and how
far from
reality
t lies?
The
relays
of
references,
he inversionof
ordersof
precedence,
he
endless
lists
and enumerationsof
texts all
present
the chaoticeffectsof
randomnessand
indeterminacy
enerating
neither
options
nor
choices.
Being constantly
on
the move
in
order o
escape
the
repressive
machines of
disciplinary
ocieties or
to
exploit
fully
the uncertain
voyages
of
complexities
in
societies
of
control
offers
us
no
foundation
on
which to
stand,
to
criticize,
o re-
member
the
past
and
plan
the
future.
The Rhetoricof
Indeterminacy
So
let us now
analyze
a text that
prompted
his entirediscus-
sion,
Brian
Boigon
and Sanford
Kwinter's
"Manual
or
5
Appli-
ances
in
the
Alphabetical
City:
A
Pedagogical
Text"
published
in
Assemblage
5.
Let us
ask,
What
can these
appliances
do?
Apparently,
he
Alphabetical
City
was a studio
room
in
an
architectural chool
open
around
he
clock,
an ideal
space
in
which,
to
quote
the
authors,
"every
ction
and intervention
...
must be recorded n
a
logbook
that
will
be
present
at all
times."This
studio was a "form
of
publishing,
ocial
ife,
bill-
board,
historical
inscription,
archive";
t
was a
happening,
a
situation,
a drift and
dcrive,
both
a
collective
memory
and
a
"diagram
f
every
leeting
moment."*
The
manual,
of
course,
is the
familiar ool
kit,
the ABC
instructional
book,
for con-
structing
he
Alphabetical
City.
But
far
from
being
radically
disruptive,
his
manual
actually
replicates
disciplinary
ontrol:
a
set of ordersand
commands
prescribed
n
military
ones
-
"you
are
required,"
we
will
be
ruthless
n
our
pedagogical
approach"
reveals
how
embedded
in
decision controls
the
images
of
CyberCity
can be.
The
mere reference o
"peda-
gogy"
as
opposed
to
"performance"
s sufficient to
implicate
these authors n
replicating
he deferential
position
of
student
to
teacher,
even
though they
disavow he
power
of
authority.47
Borrowing
rom
Le
Corbusier,
Boigon
and Kwinter
ransform
his
five
points
of
architecture nto the five
appliances
of
time,
screen,
sleep,
information,
and
site/domain.
Quite
clearly,
these
appliances
reflect
a shift from the Machine
City
of mod-
ernism to the
CyberCity
of
postmodernism,
where
theoretical
architecture,
he authors
note,
becomes
"diagrammatical
acts":radicalmachinesor
appliances
nternalizing
n abstract
mechanism
(a
computer
code or
program)
or
producing
in
unspecified
ways)
political
and social
change.
Memories
of
Le Corbusier's laim
of
"architecture
r
revolution"
simply
bounce
off
of their
text,
although
n
highly
ndeterminate
ways.
Of these radical
appliances,
however,
t
is
probably
"sleep"
hat will turn on itself
allowing
he blank
spaces
of
the
contemporary ity,
the
unknown
lag-time
sites outside
of
the
computer
mesh,
the dream
spaces
of
nightmares
and
re-
pressed
antasies o make
their
appearance
s
slips
of
meaning
and
translation.
Boigon
and
Kwinter
laim
that even
"if
the
contemporary
ity
has
undergone
a
partial
dismantling
of its
(traditional)
patial
unity
as
well
as a radical
deployment
of
what used to be
called
'time,'
this does
not
necessarily mply
that it
'expresses' ny
less
coherently
he
regime silently
working
within
it.... The
Alphabetical
City corresponds
ess to a
formed and
distinct
object
than to
a
specific
regime
of
power,
of
effects)
that
cur-
rently,
or
increasingly,
nhabits
the social
field."48
Now if we
understand he
mutations that
coincide
with
the
shift to
CyberCity,
hese
statements about
regimes
of
disciplinary
control
appear
o
be
misplaced,
or
exceedingly
nihilistic,
when
their social
fields are eft
indeterminate,
never discussedor
presented
with
any
specificity.
The
open-ended
networks
of
the AlphabeticalCityallownomadicthoughtto skidacross he
computer
matrix,
reversing
ierarchical
rderand
closed
repre-
sentationswherever t
may
range.
But
Boigon
and
Kwinter
never
question
who
might
controlthe
programming,
with
what
values,
or to what
ends,
and how
the monadcan be ma-
nipulated
at
his or
her
isolated
computer
terminal.
Nor do
they
ask
what is
being
represented
n the
imaginary
pace
of the
networkremoved
from the
public sphere.
For
their
narcotics
are
indeterminacy
nd
iterability
liding
criticismand
commit-
ment.
123
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assemblage
18
Manifestly,
his manual
desires o
place
itself
among
the avant-
garde
of
architecture,
or
what does this
AlphabeticalCity
do
but
mimic
the
role of
avant-garde
exts
by
generating
more
discourse
around t? Look
at the
epitaph
of the demolished
Alphabetical
City:
it lasted one
thousand
eight
hours,
ts
analy-
sis filled
sixty-one
pages
of
logbook
and
a
ninety-two-page
document,
it
generated
a case of
arson,
several
acts of vandal-
ism,
an
article
n
Assemblage,
nd,
following
his
publicity
campaign,
I
would
add
perhaps
more studio
jobs
forthe two
writers,
his
paper,
some
gossip.
In
other
words,
ike a
good
avant-garde
workof
art it
generated
discourse
o be
distrib-
uted,
bought,
and consumed.
The
point being
that
archi-
tecture
in
the last
two decades
has become
an
important
dis-
cursiveevent
with
weekly,
f
not
daily,
coverage
n
the
print
media,
documentary
ilms on
television,
and
background
d-
vertisements
or
life-style
consumer
tems.
The value
of an
architectural
work
seems to
lie
in
its
ability
o
generate
a dis-
course
around
tself: t is the claim
that we
need
only
care for
our
project
until it has
been
photographed
because
at that
moment
it has been
inserted
nto the
endlesscirculation
of
cultural
signs.
Confusion
over
whether
a theoretical
discourse
is productiveorconstraining,iberatingorcontrolling,s one
of
the
ways
t sustains
tself.
Paul Mannhas
written
n The
Theory-Death
f
the Avant-Garde
hat
discourse
hrives n
negations,
evisions,
esyntheses
nd
resub-
limations:
more
extscan
be
produced,
ore
laims
andcounter-
claims,
more
hesesand
antitheses;
ast
researches
nd
polemics
sponsored
yjust
suchconfusions
s
these.
But
not orever:
his
nde-
terminate
ovement
f
alignments
nd
misalignments,
heuncer-
tainty
f both
Leftand
Right
about
he
proper
nd
plausible
ole
of
art,
s acted ut
n the
avant-garde
ntil
t is
only
theater,
nly
a
repre-
sentation,
nd
henceabsorbed
y
the
problematics
f
representation
as such.49
The avant-garde's ositionis anantiposition,a theoretical
discourse
constrained
o
relateto a dominant
discourse
hat it
rejects
but cannot
transcend.
ts role
is
to articulate
polarities:
between
innovation/tradition,
estruction/creation,
move-
ment/stability.5?
uturist
manifestos
were the
prototypical
antigesture,being
both
for and
against
he
metropolis,
break-
ing
the frameand
being
enframed.
Returning
o the text
of
"The
Alphabetical
City,"
we note
in
Boigon
and
Kwinter's
manifestothe
following:
"Hypothesis:
rchitecture
s the
name
of
a universal
ystem
of
oppression
of
what Foucault
called
the 'human
multiplicity,'
he undifferentiated
mass of human
flesh,
thought,
and
desire).
In
this
sense,
its domain is
the
social
and
psychological
ontrolof the
environment,
ncluding
images,
odors,weather,
sexual
practices,
antasies,
documents,
collective
representations
but
this also
suggests
a
guerrilla
architecture f subversion
nd
resistance).."'"
We do
not have to
go
very
arto know
that we arein the worst
of sciencefictions:
battling against
he
closed worldof
archi-
tecturalstudios,the purismsof highart,the regimesof domi-
nation
within the
disciplinary
paces
of the architectural
school.
As the
authors ells
us,
we must abandon
he architec-
tural
jury
hat
is the
"squadlike pectacle
of
the
review,"
with
its
"fascist-style
djudication echniques."52
n
another
antigesture
of radical
nversion,
"drawing
ecomes an
editing,
selecting,
or
sampling
process,
a
wreaking
havocwith the
pre-
existing,
overcoded,collective,
social
drawing."5'
nd,
of
course,
robotic
and
cynical
design
students
accept
that
there
is
no
returning
home,
no
private
nternal
space
of
retreat,
or
they
are
impelled
into the world
o
engage
with forces
that are
always
drawing
up
a social
diagram
or
messing
with
ours.54
They
havebecome
"itinerantwarriors
ontinually
on
the
move,"
"punkguerrillas"
eplete
with
computer
virusesand
jamming
mechanisms
admitted
"through
back channels"
o
subvertand eliminate.55
Architecture,
we are
told,
"mustbe seen
as a
collector,
servo-
mechanism,
or sensitive
screen,
monitoring
he results
of end-
less and
still-unnamed
xperiments."56
A
piece
of architecture
...
may
be defined
not
by
how it
appears
but
by
practices:
those that
it
partakes
f and
those that
take
place
within
it."57
Let me
deal
with the effects
of
these indeterminacies
hat
plague Boigon
andKwinter's
ext,
for
it is the
intent of
their
studio
to
open
architecture
o
adjacencies,
o
pollutants
and
impure
practices,
o affect
transformations
within the
institu-
tions of architectureand the city.
Far from
being
radically
ew,
however,
hese
are the
encoun-
ters
and
coadaptations
of
forms,
the
maps
and
diagrams
ug-
gested
by
Foucault,
or the
machine
phylum
of
Deleuze,
where
disconnected
elements
upon reaching
a critical
hreshold
are
expected
to
cooperate
o
produce
order
out of
chaos.
They
are
reminiscent
of
El
Lissitzky's
Proun
Room,
which he
believed
would
have a
profound
effect
on
architecture.
Lissitzky
defined
the
Proun
as "the station
where one
changes
from
painting
o
124
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Boyer
architecture.""58
n
his
view,
the Prounenwere
experiments
n
architectural
design:
documents,
indices of the world o
come,
and theoreticalmodels for the
revolutionary eality
hat
needed to be built.9 Closer to
our
time,
these
assemblages
are
perhaps
reminiscentof the exhibitions
proposed
by
members
of
the
IndependentGroup
n
England
"Parallel f Life and
Art,"
organized
by
Peter
Smithson,
Alison
Smithson,
Eduardo
Paolozzi,
and
Nigel
Henderson
n
1953,
and
"Man,
Machine
and
Motion,"organizedby
RichardHamilton
in 1955
-
a
nonhierarchical
approach
o
imagery,mostlyphotographs,
hat
attempted
to
wring
a new
way
of
seeing things
out of unusual
juxtapositions.
As
Moholy-Nagy
noted
in
Vision in
Motion,
photomontage
of the 1920s wanted to set
up
a "concentrated
gymnastic
of the
eye
and brain o
speed up
the visual
digestion
and increase
he
range
of associative
relationships."60
These loose
arrangements
f associative
materials,
based
on
notions that
contiguities
breed
connections,
are also
prevalent
in
computer
networks hat model
cognitive
processes.6'
Since
computers
have been the
most
important
nstrument o en-
able a
new
cartography
o arise
n
weather
forecasting,
n
the
study
of
DNA,
in
the
mapping
of atomic surfacesand
sub-
atomic
particles,
and,
especially,
n
the visual
exploration
of
chaos
theory,
then
why
not
hope
this
juxtaposition
of masses
of visual nformationand
high-tech
appliances
will
produce
a
new
map
for the
city
and
architecture,
map
that
will
describe
nonrandom
order
suddenly
appearing
n
the midst of
seeming
disorder?But the
analogies
wear hin
-
for
arrays
f informa-
tion are not the same as
knowledge.
nformation s
merely
data,
devoid of an abstract
processing
rameworkhat can
make
comparisons,
draw
connections,
recognize
exemplars,
and know how to
accomplish,
o
perform,
certain
things.
The
science-fictionworld
of smart
computers
aking
over
executive
control
has
yet
to arriveat the architectural
chool.
And
this is
why,
in
the
end,
I
question
the
meaning
of the
Alphabetical
City:
its
open-ended
rhetoric
maskswhat it liter-
ally
means. Does it refer
o
Jean-Luc
Godard's1965
movie
Alphaville,
n
whicha
megalomaniacal
omputer,Alpha
60,
embodied the
triumph
of instrumental
reasoning
and
dehu-
manized
control
systems?
But this is
hardlyreality oday,
when
the
guerrilla
actics of
PC
hackerscan
easily
subvert
such
mainframecontrols.
Might
it refer nstead to
"Alphabyte
Cities,"
magistic
video elements that are
recombinedand
rearticulated
electronically
s
if
they
were etters
in
the
alpha-
bet? Or does it refer o the finite and fixed
alphabetical
ordering
hat eliminates
hierarchy
nd
significance
n the
ar-
rangement
of words
n
a
dictionary
or entries
n
an
encyclope-
dia?
Clearly,
he use of
"Alphabetical
City"
presents
a
paradox,
for has not Derrida
argued
hat
"alphabetic
writing.
. .
is
a
restrictivedefinition that ties the broad
range
of
marks,
patial
articulations,
estures,
and other
inscriptions
at work
n
human
culturestoo
closely
to the
representation
f
speech,
the
oral/
aural
word"?62
herefore,
have not
Boigon
and
Kwinter,
ar
from
liberating
us to achieve new
levels of
perception
and new
orders or the
city,
slotted us back into the
imposed
discourse
and
analysis mplied by
alphabetical
writing?
To return o the
analogies
hat
computer
matrices
imply,
I
am
remindedof
Stephen Tyler's
remark hat "the
matrixmakes
the
shape
that has
shaped
Western
thought
since
the
begin-
ning
of
writing."''6
e it
in
the
markof the cultivatoror
the
grid
of the
city
or the matrix hat
alphabetical
anguage
mplies,
it
is the
Western face
imposed
on
the land. Here we
might
also
note,
albeit
briefly,
another
paradox
hat
Boigon
and
Kwinter's
text
interjects:hey
have
transformed he
primary enerative
device of modernist
urbanism the
planimposed
on the land
-
into the
generative
body,
"a
manifold
endlessly
generating
structure
that
is,
desire)
on the
run."64
ndeed,
postmod-
ernism has seen an
entire
restructuring
f the
body/machine
relationship,
efiguring
he
subject
with
the advent of the
hybrid part
animal,
part
machine
cyborg
citizen
who
dwellsin a
postgendered
"technological
olis."65
We need
to read
Boigon
and
Kwinter's
inscription
and
the
entire
postmodern
discourseand
cultivationof the
"clean
body"