Ludic cities real and virtual
Utopias and Distopias
What is space? What is place?
The term ‘space’ is more abstract in itself than the term ‘place’ – Marc Auge (1995)
It applied in much the same way to mean:
– An area
– A distance between things
– A temporal expanse
– A physical volume
– A psychological measure
Think of the variety of ways tin which we apply the term
e.g. airspace, territorial space, advertising space, judicial space, mental space
As such it is very plastic term, in the context of architectionics and environments, space describes:
A set of relations between things, relations that organise space into place.
In other words space becomes place when certain relations reach a state of ‘fixity’ (though this is not necessarily permanent)
Introduction to an anthropology of Supermodernity (1995)
“If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place”
Non-place is:
Non-historical, non-relational, not concerned with identity
In other words non-place is a kind of simulated place with non of the connections to the past,culture, to the use and relations of previous places.
Marc Auge – Non-places and super modernity (Globalisation)
Supermodernity (Globalisation) produces non-place, we live in a increasingly homogenised spatial world, the spaces we occupy on a daily basis are defined by ‘sameness’ and ‘virtuality’ (in-between-ness)
“A person entering the space of non-place is relieved of his usual determinants. he becomes no more than what he does r experiences in the role of passenger, customer, or driver ….”
“The space of non-place creates neither singular identity nor relations; only solitude, and similitude.”
Non-Place is: The shopping mall Highways and by-ways
Non-place – architecture as Simulation?
The argument that imagined space are “simulated’ or ‘virtual”, and physical spaces are not, is too simplistic.
Today there are a whole range of technological machineries of software and hardware devoted to modelling architectural spaces and cities.
Software makes use of algorithms, behavioural modelling, and sophisticated visual representations of both real and projected urban spaces.
Increasingly architecture and spatial design is a practice that conflates the spaces of the ‘real’ and the ‘virtual’.
Chris Salter – Dualterm (2007)
DualTerm explores our contemporary experience of the global airport. Visitors to torrents pearson airport’s terminal interact with a series of plasma screen monitors.
On the left most monitor, a computer generated 3-D model of the terminal passage runs inside the online virtual world Second Life
As the real, physically present visitor manoeuvres the on screen avatar through the 3D terminal model, the encounter a space which is increasingly estranged from the actual physical terminal building.
As they begin to navigate the model the actual visitor thus learns that the real
Dualterm explores the non-place of the airport, the new, transient locales that we increasingly find ourselves in.
Spending more of our lives inside the simulated environments of airports, we inhabit environments that are simultaneously a site of stifling dullness an overwhelming stimulation.
In the ‘game’ this non-place has itself become a place; a destination in and of itself that we inhabit and are asked to experience in which the real and simulated seamlessly merge
Quentin Stevens – The Ludic City:
Exploring the potential of Public Spaces (2007)
What is Ludic?
‘Showing spontaneous and undirected playfulness’
Play is an important but largely neglected aspect of people’s experience of urban society and urban space.
It involves controversial expenditures of time and energy, ‘unfunctional’, economically inefficient, impartial and social unredemptive activities which are often unanticipated by designers…
Play reveals the potentials that public spaces offer.
Quentin Stevens – The ludic City (2007) What is play?
Stevens fines play in the following ways:
– Play involves actions which are non-instrumental.
– There are boundary conditions and rules which separate play from everyday.
– Play involves specific types of activities through which people test and expand limits.
– Play in the city very often involves encounters with strangers.
Typologies of play (play can test and expand limits:
Competition
Chance
Simulation
Vertigo
It is easy to see how these ideas and relevant to discussions of digital spaces
Aram Bartholl – Dust (2011)
‘Dust’ is a 1:! scale replica of one the most played computer game maps in the world.
Bartholl’s idea was to build a life sized 3D model of the ‘du_dust’ of the first person shooter game ‘Counter Strike’ as a permanent ‘building’ from concrete.
Spatial recognition is crucial aspect of computer games and remembrance is an important part of any ‘success’ in game play.
Just as in our ‘real’ lives a place, house or space inscribes itself in our spatial
memory, Bartholl’s work reminds is that our physiological, psychological and emotional connection o’ real’ and ‘virtual places other becomes super-impose.
What is Utopia?
An imagined place pr state pf things in which everything is perfect:
Mid 16th century; based on greek ou ‘not’ + tops ‘place’: the word was first used in the book Utopia (1516) by thomas more
Literally ‘no-place’:
In this sense utopias avertible spaces throighwhich we can project our ideal reality, they are a speific tool within which we projected ourselves and our ideas.
Thomas MOre – Utopia (1516 Latin)
Possibly the first such experiment More’s fictional account is of an imagine complex, self contained world set on a island.
More imagined a whole new world for his utopians. He defined systems of punishment, social hierarchy, agricultural and education, as well as customers for marriage, dress, and death.
More’s Utopia existed ‘outside time’ and was like all utopias set apart from the real world as a virtual simpulations.
Le Corbusier – Ville Radieuse ( The Radiant City (1935)
The radiant city was Corbuiser’s ideal for a utopia which would respond to the worlds rapid development of that time.
Broader City (1932)
Broadacre city is a concept for suburban living presented by Frank Lloyd Witght in his 1932 book: The Disappearing City.
Braodacre is a planning statement and a socio-political scheme there easy american family has an acre of land.
Superflex – Kariskrona2 (1999)
A Virtual Utopian Experiment?
The project aimed at creating a digital version of the Swedish city Karlskrona.
As citizens meet and interact virtually things will change, buildings will redefine their function, social hierarchies will alter, laws will be reconstituted and renewed, these virtual change could be viewed on a screen in the ‘real’ city centre.
Kariskrona2 operated as a “free space” , in the sense of not having to obey the legal economic or social rules of the ‘real’ Kariskrona
Simulating Distopia
Johnathan Gales – Franciful Megalomania (2011)
Conflating real and imagines spatialities Gales’ dystopian city that is simultaneously under construction and being demolished.
The simulation presents us with the city where master plans (utopian ideals)
develop faster than they can ever be realised, creating instead a dystopia.