007_ Final Project

Here is a link to my final project:

Choices

006_ Reaction to Denis Cosgrove's "Carto-City"

Cosgrove describes a brief history of cartography as a method of control, socially and geographically. Map making has evolved as a "synthetic rather than analytic; its goal is celebration rather than analysis or critique." The idea of maps AS space/place is now inseparable from the physical streets, lots, offices, storage, social zones(or "culturally valuable") and commercial. The places we now live in are tied to images and text initially generated as abstract representations, morphing 'real spaces' into standardizations (lines, grids, machine-generated). Such instances as Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg's 1580 Civitates Orbis Terrarum, which attempted to "illustrate every major city in the world according to a standard...allowing the atlas owner to survey the civilized globe of urban places within the privacy of a study or reading room." This shift is more than a physical-to-image or place-to-map, but also redefines our perception of mobility, transportation and an overall feeling of being grounded (physically, emotionally, spiritually). Furthermore, the use of cartography as a science, one of respectability and Truth, reveals the map as a tool for understanding place and space, and pushes oneself further from the place itself. Obviously, Situationists recognized this and created an urban-wander to recognize the design of cities on our lives and bodies, but also the map's intention as urban Knowledge goes beyond tourism (for good or bad) and into a fight for efficient daily navigation (aka paths of least resistance). If cartography points towards a structure or understanding of place, then our mastery of it should help speed and progress the nature of things, right?

005_

Project 2

004_

Mini-flash project

003_ Reaction to Steve Johnson's "The Desktop"

Johnson begins by comparing the desktop to architecture and urban planning, in that "each design decision echoes and amplifies a set of values, an assumption about the larger society that frames it." In early interface computing such as Xerox's Smalltalk or the later Apple Macintosh, the interface to the computer was seen as a medium of navigation. Therefore, the desktop began to develop into a space for personalization or expression of the self rather than a logistical tool of "information". This shift represents the capability or capacity for what the desktop COULD do rather than what it SHOULD do for the user. In Johnson's words, "[computers] were also capable of adopting new identities and performing new tasks that have no real-world equivalent whatsoever." Consequently, when socialization of the machine began to occur it was scene as a medium of expression in between user to user contact. I would argue that, as this "new" language or mode of communication was born, it created not only new interaction, but a non-space where users would use the medium of a computer rather than of linguistics. With this shift, spatial elements of social interaction are muted, therefore creating not only a new typed language, but also a different way to "look" or "know" someone. If the visual identity of human to human relies on "H3||0" rather than "Hello" the way in which we gather sensory knowledge of other humans can open into a space (or non-space) where "reality" becomes the medium into a new dimension of interaction. In a sense, the computer as this communicative medium is a "high tech" version of dreams or spatial imagination in which we already have access to but cannot necessarily control as easily as a machine. Therefore, when the desktop interface becomes a "lifestyle choice" it evokes a personality of the self, allowing the user to control a new or at least, different identity than possible in "real" physical space.

002_

Here is Project 1.

001_ Reaction to Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think"

"The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it." I believe that Vannevar's objective claim is that data and information will be come easily available as time progresses, and this system will allow for social advancement, in the most general sense. Machines will allow access to rapid research and productivity beyond the physical capabilities of humans. With this investment of more "true" information, quality and quantity of questions/answers will be addressed, not only by scientists but by common users of these devices. Vannevar claims, "thus us builds a trail of his interests through the maze of materials available to him." These progressive paths will become clear, fast, and reliable as a source of establishing more direct routes to the previously unsolved and unanswered questions asked by scientists, academics and (in general) humans. The little, small, cheap machines guiding us will be hidden within large computational systems and fictitious technologies. All of this information, Vannevar claims, will hold a large social and ethical responsibility because these advancements have the potential to create and conversely, to destroy violence, racism, oppression, cancer, nuclear warfare, etc. Therefore, the user "built a civilization so complex that he needs to... push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory."