This current period of time is of great interest to me and serves as a great set of reference conditions to rethink traditional views of utopia, dystopia, and the future in general.

Architects have traditionally been fed a healthy diet of Bladerunner mixed with a healthy dose of JG Ballard. We’re always building upon the countless visions seen in film and literature to propose new ideas in the architectural sphere. However, I’m getting a bit tired of these overused science fiction cliche`s (don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Sci-Fi and consume it heartily, its just that I’m curious to see something other than the usual imagery).

The economy is a great start to providing a benchmark to these predictions. My fascination of the Occupy movement is mostly what prompted this set of ponderings. Most dystopian fiction paints the future as bleak, but hyper-techno; advanced, yet repressed by an all-seeing government/corporation. Now with record unemployment, jobless youths, class struggle and government/capitalist corruption, how will the traditional view of the future change?

One of the great milestone Sci-Fi novels (which will soon become a motion picture) is Neuromancer, by William Gibson. I love this book, not because of the plot, but because of the countless details described in the imagery that seem very real. The character’s advanced vocabulary of unfamiliar terminology go unexplained but are accepted by the reader to insert their own idea of what exactly it is. For example, its filled with descriptions of nano-technology within the human body- something I feel that is really going to be the future of humankind- and not necessarily advanced cityscapes with floating cars and robotic assistants. Another great Sci-Fi novel is Rainbow’s End by Vernor Vinge- it suggests advanced overlays on the same banal world rather than any significant physical changes (with the aid of advanced contact lenses and clothes) enabling abilities such as telepathic text messaging, and a blurred virtual/physical environment.

The point I find most interesting in these novels is not a radically different world than what we currently experience everyday- more of a radically different human condition augmented by technology and virtual connectivity to endless information, places and peers. Architecture and urbanism, by contrast, seems now to remain basically unchanged (maybe with slight advances in formal novelty, material innovation and spatial interest) and even stagnant in the current economy.

So what are we supposed to do? Collaborate with micro-biologists, doctors, biomedical engineers and futurists? Develop new overlaps with the design, biological and engineering professions? Using the shattered economic crises to motivate a better, fitter change?

These are some questions I would like to pursue in future works, stay tuned.

Haven’t been writing much lately, but am working on a new collective project with a colleague. Please stay tuned for more details about the upcoming launch.

Thank you for keeping up with my work thus far.
Jason

regime |riˈ zh ēm; rā-| (also régime)

noun

1 a government, esp. an authoritarian one.

2 a system or planned way of doing things, esp. one imposed from above

• a coordinated program for the promotion or restoration of health; a regimen

• the conditions under which a scientific or industrial process occurs.
 
 
Its hard to ignore what is happening all around us now in the twenty-first century. Maybe easy to accept, fear, or oppose, but impossible to ignore.

Everything that has built up the top-down controlled system– the accepted way of doing things is being actively questioned and overturned. Everything, from our governments, economics, social interactions, science, philosophy, ethics, and everyday life as we know it is currently being turned on its side, stamped upon, reversed, tested, re-tested and applied.

For this entry, I want to focus on the remarkable events happening in Occupy Wall Street that have sparked “microstates” exploding all over the world. I’ve been reading a few articles on the matter (see “the economist” links below for the best written ones)¹. I’m using OWS as an example because it can be seen as an effective paradigm shift for other transformations currently in action.

To be honest, I was initially very critical about this movement. Although liberal for the most part, I do have a few red veins that side with conservative economic policies– why should there be a protest of our capitalist system (and the individuals controlling the system) when there are no demands and no organized tactics? Doesn’t this sound like another mindless, pointless liberal gesture to “stick it to the man?” Why should those who are protesting (most of which are unemployed students with overpriced degrees who chose a major with a relatively low earning potential) express such opposition against those who chose the route to financial success?

Upon further investigation, I realized this was not any ordinary protest (like the tea party who sides more with emotional irrational fear and anger), but can be seen as a demonstration of a very effective paradigm shift. OWS is a very similar model to what Guattari describes in 3 Ecologies– specifically the social ecology; a spontaneous, leaderless, heterogenous, organization united by very specific interests to demonstrate a specific effective transformation in the environment.²

What OWS is essentially doing by not demanding anything is demonstrating an alternative to the existing economic regime, and that is what makes it so interesting. It is a micro-state; a fractal model demonstrating its ideal system as outlined on the main NYC General Assembly Website: “New York City General Assemblies are an open, participatory and horizontally organized process through which we are building the capacity to constitute ourselves in public as autonomous collective forces within and against the constant crises of our times.” (http://www.nycga.net/about/)

Although this slightly anarchic/socialist model is riddled with problematic scenarios when applied to a larger model (decision making eventually sliding from the collective whole to the more extroverted and impetuous, while the others in disagreement leave, creating an open opportunity for re-stratification within anarchy) it is a reflection of what is happening all around us with the empowerment of networking and information. If it can happen in Cairo, it can happen anywhere.

These recent events are bringing a lot to consideration: it undermines the Machiavellian “the ends justify the means” attitude prevalent in getting things done for the collective whole. It contradicts the existing economic notion of the “Selfish, evil human” (pardon my momentary lapse of economic history to remember who proposed this) and the Freudian “subconscious pleasure principle.” (For an in-depth overview of all these ideas that are under scrutiny and change, I urge you to read “The Empathic Civilization” by Jeremy Rifkin.)

Looking at all this from an architectural perspective, I can see how these events and attitudes blowing around in the shifting winds of high speed information sharing are totally relevant to the discipline. If the stringent hold on the architectural industry by top-down control was loosened ever-so-slightly, imagine the possibilities for limitless public expression. A new regime created by the collective networked multitudes as opposed to the privileged few. What if the traditional system of architectural development was turned upside-down as an alternative version of what could happen, much like the OWS movement? What if a fractal demonstration was created somehow, physically or virtually as a method to critique the way the entire industry is controlled and run? What if we can go back to being architects instead of just building-makers?

one day my friends, one day we shall rise.
 
 
(I wrote this last week, and plan to add to it. I’ve been hanging out at Occupy London in St. Pauls and it is amazing to observe the pop-up tent city there. Stay tuned for more.)

1.http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-3

http://chronicle.com/article/Intellectual-Roots-of-Wall/129428

2. Guattari, F. 3 Ecologies. (Page number coming later when i get the book again)

Also, check out the Occupied Times (printed within the tent city! amazing publication, loved reading it)

Now that the masters program is finished, and exhibition/publication/competition distractions are over, its time to head into new directions- currently researching on new topics to engage with while simultaneously figuring out my life.

My website is also updated and now carries the same name as my blog: www.jimmaraju.com
All written research will still be here, and my tumblr will become more of a dumping ground for my references and influences rather than contain personal work.

till later

I’m currently working out how to re-imagine a vast landscape to be cultivated over the entire oilfield. Previously in my crit, I described the cultivators as being these “mad machines to be driven around by nostalgic visitors yearning for a high on petroleum machinery while also seeding the landscape…”. My tutors described this notion as “rather hedonistic” and I agree looking back, it is a bit crass when compared to the overall poetic idea of a deliberate ruination alongside a re-seeded landscape.

example of a cultivator: a device constructed from disassembled cars, pumpjacks and other leftover bits of infrastructure to negotiate the relationships between oil produced from algae(powering seeding mechanisms) and crude oil from the ground(powering the engine). When the crude oil runs out on the site, the cultivators essentially die and continue to seed using the ongoing algae oil produced on site. These cultivators become dead follies.

I’ve been working on how to create an intentional crafted landscape using these cultivators- the trick is to preserve a level of indeterminacy that gives the landscape evolution its magic while also not losing control of it with these crazy machines driven by mad off-roaders. One reference I’ve found useful is James Corner’s “Taking Measure’s Across the American Landscape”- a publication filled with aerial photographs alongside rich illustrations of Corner’s investigations with both natural and synthetic landscapes- he effectively juxtaposes the richness found in the environment against the stark standards set by USGS maps. This led me to a really interesting blog post on “pruned” called hacking the american agricultural landscape. This post describes the new path of agricultural development: By integrating remote sensing, GPS, RFID tags, satellite imaging and other relatively new technologies empowered by the virtual web, landscapes can be cultivated to a higher degree of precision. Instead of farmers developing a huge expensive irrigation network, nomadic self powered robots guided by sensors can accurately identify and water the crops that need it more than others. The landscape can therefore change and be maintained via a more intelligent, evolving swarm system based on precise virtual control rather than a huge centralized inefficient manual system used currently. This also has huge implications on fertilizing and pesticides- instead of dousing a homogeneous field unit with harmful chemicals, certain problem crops can be precisely identified and treated on a micro level causing less damage to the overall ecology.The very definition of the 21st century farmer is transformed into more of a cyberpunk controlling and choreographing GPS systems rather than a rural individual in overalls driving a tractor.

This is all fascinating stuff, but how can this be applied to this specific project? How can these cultivators be guided on remote technology to print out a new landscape based on virtual parameters? How can the atmospheric beauty of this landscape be extended into the cosmic and virtual realm?

Highly recommend the documentary “Gasland” if you haven’t seen it already…

This film is about the terrifying atrocities happening in our own backyards: the extraction of natural gas via the process of “fracking.” Natural gas companies use this method of injecting chemicals into the ground in order to extract natural gas compounds- however these chemicals find their way into groundwater sources affecting those near gas extraction zones. Throughout the film, people demonstrate the seepage of gas into their drinking water by lighting it on fire.

Really really scary stuff happening all over the United States (which is a huge natural gas resource, watch the film for all the details).

The reason why I posted this is because there are fracking units on the site I’m working with:

I’m currently working on disassembling the industrial infrastructure- in a reverse Ikea manual fashion in order to re-appropriate them in different methods. These fracking units (like the oil pumpjacks, transmission lines and utility poles) represent this industrial dominance over the landscape. Disassembling and performing a detournment on their symbolism can bring a newfound perspective to these structures…