May 23rd 2018

Cyber-polis, Media-polis, Data-polis, Porno-polis, Techno-polis

Is the future metropolis a network of interactive nodes and constellations? Will it be populated by mechanical self-configuring modular life forms, or will it be as J.G. Ballard reveals: ‘boring… a vast, conforming suburb of the soul’?


The notion of a physical or conceptual ‘city wall’ has all but disappeared with the arrival of remote relationships, transactions, and cross-cultural collaborations. The evolution of the existing city now customised by hyper-connectivity, responsive ‘smart’ structures and a sharing society, will result in an artificially intelligent ‘Cybercity brain’. By providing new digital infrastructures and promoting the city as a living lab we will foster an entirely new human interacting experience, one that needs to be designed through secure, private and effective systems.

Does the future hold a more dystopian view with big brother watching, and the internet of things manipulating our every decision through boundless and targeted media? Will the media-dominated eye herald new privacy developments nightmare?

The control and use of information have always been the key to power, so will our future cities be intelligent data systems that slowly enslave humans through comparative computation, large data analysis and by distorting the perception of our world? Or will we be slaves to the darknet Porno-Polis, which will have redefined and framed human interactions only to the virtual world where the architecture of space will be irrelevant, because operated and manipulated by computing algorithms, digital currencies, and imaginary parallel universes?

Is the techno-polis the real future or can we create a new disruptive model or ecosystem that will foster once again human determinism? We need to re-appropriate the city in collaboration with robots, reconciling, therefore, both urban and domestic spaces rather than just offering them up to advancing automated technologies.

MCA DARK SIDE Discussion 1

 

Participants

In no specific order:

Alessandra Cianchetta, Patrik Schumacher, Kim Herforth Nielsen, Gerard Reinmuth, Chris Bosse, Areti Markopoulou, Philip Gumuchdjian, Bruno Juričić, Alisa Andrasek, Vere van Gool, Carme Pinós, Nina Rappaport, Pedro Gadanho, Liam Young, Sille Pihlak, Gilles Retsin, Stefanos Roimpas, and many others.