Category Archives: URBAN MEDIA INFRASTRUCTURE

Tears of Joy

The forerunner of the writing can be considered numerous paintings and engravings that have survived from the Late Paleolithic period from roughly 35,000 to 15,000 years before the beginning of time. The birth of the actual writing took place in Sumer, ancient Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq, about 3,200 years before the beginning of our era.(1)

In the 21st century, we are returning to the origins of written language, the world of symbols and signs. For the first time, in 2015, a picture was chosen as the word of the year in the Oxford Dictionary – a face laughing with tears in his eyes, called ´Tears of joy´. (2)

Our increasing use of smart devices and media has led to the simplification of language, the decline of literacy, and the replacement of traditional written language with partly different character and symbol systems, memes, and emojis. Iconic characters have begun to be used in writing alongside the old symbolic character set. They differ from iconic writing systems in that they have no sound value. (1) The popularity of audiobooks, the replacement of words by emojis and the increase in video call into question the importance of traditional literacy.

However, there is already talk of a post-text period, although it is difficult to think of replacing a scientific text, for example. Literacy will still be needed. Replacing long texts with a single meme image leads to an ambiguous visuality that requires different reading skills than a traditional text. Instead of literacy, we are talking about multi-literacy. At the same time, people’s literacy is declining.

-Bible as emojis

Do you recognize the verses below?

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy might.” The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. There is no commandment greater than these. ” The Double Commandment of Love, Mark. 12: 30

There are about half a million adults in Finland who do not have sufficient literacy skills to cope in today’s society (3) The decline in literacy leads to inequality in society. The danger is the polarization of society and the intensification of extremism.

The impact of political memes has been relatively little studied. Memes can be harmless entertainment that invigorates everyday life, but also a gateway to harmful extremism. Meme simplifies the worldview. Memes and humor are the most effective forms of influencing in social media. There is no direct evidence of planned political influence. However, that does not mean that it will not happen. In the future, trolling can be done with artificial intelligence and algorithms and can be controlled by states, among others. (4) The speed of communication and the lack of source criticism easily lead to the spread of belief information and the fragmentation of the field of knowledge. The content of search engines and the Internet is over-relied on, and at the same time search engine companies have infinite power over the dissemination of information. The governance of search engine companies is a huge political controversy.

On the other hand, the problem is the decline in human brain capacity globally. Professor Gerald Grabtree puts it this way: “I would even bet that if the average citizen from Athens now came to us thousands of years ago, he would be the smartest and most intellectually capable of our party. He would have a good memory, wide-ranging ideas and sharp perspectives on important things. ” The rationale for the hypothesis is that man no longer needs his intellectual abilities to survive in modern modern society. And when intelligence is no longer needed, the genes that support it begin to decay as a legacy for future generations. (5)

Evan Horowitz also writes in an article published by NBC: Humanity is becoming more stupid. That is not an estimate. That is a global fact. IQ results have begun to deteriorate in some of the leading countries, (2). One explanation for this, according to Horowitz, has been that food no longer receives as many nutrients due to global warming. The information society has also been blamed for the flood of information, which is seen as undermining people’s ability to concentrate. It can also undermine humanity’s ability to respond to massive problems such as climate change and the challenges posed by artificial intelligence. (6)

(1) Kuvakirjoituksen jälleensyntymä – tunneikonit kirjoitetussa puhekielisessä keskustelussa ^__^ / / Pro gradu -tutkielma Suomen kieli Turun yliopisto Toukokuu 2006, Ilmari Vauras / https://www.jammi.net/tunneikonit/ilmari_vauras_pro_gradu.pdf

(2) https://www.is.fi/digitoday/art-2000001037217.html

(3) Meemien tulkitseminenkin vaatii lukutaitoa – Mitä käy niille, jotka eivät opi lukemaan?/Salla Rajala, 27.9.2019

https://moreenimedia.uta.fi/2019/09/27/mita-kay-niille-jotka-eivat-opi-lukemaan/

(4) Viihdettä vai aivopesua? Meemit vaikuttavat ajatuksiisi, etkä välttämättä edes huomaa sitä

, 20.9.2019, https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-10941826

(5) https://www.iltalehti.fi/terveys/a/2012111316323790?fbclid=IwAR1dY8mmOTaSmcWCxnqsvjX5v7s0NpDAUjrX_Ab4ipB3rdzU33Oi34z4VQI

(6) Ihmiskunta muuttuu tyhmemmäksi. ”Se ei ole arvio”.

SIINA EKBERG | 23.05.2019 | 23:55- päivitetty 23.05.2019 | 19:10

/https://www.verkkouutiset.fi/ihmiset-tyhmenevat-ja-silla-voi-olla-kohtalokkaat-seuraukset/#6628a248

Thanks for the inspiration to Alicia Romero Fernandez 🙂

Pictures:

1. https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuolenp%C3%A4%C3%A4kirjoitus

2. https://www.is.fi/digitoday/art-2000001037217.html

3.https://www.wycliffe.fi/emojit/

-Bible as emojis

Do you recognize the verses below?

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy might.” The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. There is no commandment greater than these. ” The Double Commandment of Love, Mark. 12: 30

4. picture manipulation: Tuula Vehanen

The Kitsch of Wi-fi Culture

Neatness
One of the principles of the aesthetics of contemporary houses and offices is the hiding of wires. We cannot stand the sight of such technical ugliness: an unpleasant black spot in the plastic clear neatness. [1] The inhabitants of these houses or the workers of these offices live surrounded by all the objects they need in order to survive in nowadays society. Since they manage to do anything through well-designed interfaces put on stylish plastic covers, they never have to think about cables, magnetic fields, chips, and pipelines. And for this very reason, technicalities are carelessly perceived as unessential and can be out of sight. After all, using Mies van der Rohe’s words, “less is more”.

Kitsch
However, the hiding of the media infrastructure that pervades our environments is a false and short-sighted liberation. Quoting from Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, “kitsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and figurative sense of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.” [2] Indeed, there will be always a moment when those magical objects stop working and need some maintenance or repairing. As Bruno Latour argues, we become aware of the information infrastructure when the device does not function and we are forced to tear that veil of Maya, facing the materiality of the problem. [3]

Aqueducts
If we give a quick glance through history, the refusal of the aesthetics of infrastructure seems more a recent fact. Roman aqueducts are considered beautiful, but nobody will be happy to live nearby a water tower or a trellis. Houses and villages were built along the streets and at the trivia, but nowadays few people would like to have a room with a view on a motorway, a railway or an airport. Watermills and windmills make us dream of idyllic landscapes; power plants devalue the prices of houses of the neighborhood. Print houses and newsies were at the very core of Renaissance cities; whereas data centers and antennas are located aside.

– Roman aqueduct, Segovia, Spain

Pompidou
If mainstream architecture and design can be considered kitsch in Kundera’s terms, it must be said that not all the professionals of these fields behave in the same way. Indeed, there are many examples of deliberately exhibited technicalities in architecture, such as Centre Pompidou by Renzo Piano [4] (defined as a “love at second sight” by the National Geographic) or the Tōkyō Tower by Tachū Naitō [5]. Aren’t those examples of infrastructural honesty, provoking all the non-engineers that the materiality of information is not complicated, but complex and fascinating? Aren’t they revealing us that this is what our society is made of and that we should understand?

– Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

– Tōkyō Tower, Tōkyō, Japan

Zen
The novel by US philosopher Robert Maynard Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is about that. Differently from a Romantic approach, Illuministic beauty lays on the rational comprehension of and unmediated astonishment for the relations between parts of a multiplicity. Through knowledge, the observer can appreciate the object on a more profound level, whereas “romantic” people are condemned to a life of incomprehension and irritation. [6]

Fetish
Indeed, the average human is illiterate about the materiality of media infrastructure: he prefers to ignore such irrelevant details and gets annoyed when he has to deal with this matters. In his “romantic” perspective, the media he interacts with are magical objects that work due to some reasons beyond the possibilities of his comprehension. He feels much more secure in the plastic-covered illusion that there is nothing more to understand but the interface on the surface.

We do not want to see cables and wires because we do not want to see our ignorance.

Notes

[1] Lisa Parks and Nicole Starosielski, Introduction, in Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures, University of Illinois Press (2015)

[2] Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 68 Publishers (1984)

[3] Bruno Latour, Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts, in Shaping Technology-Building Society. Studies in Sociotechnical Change, Wiebe Bijker and John Law, MIT Press (1992)

[4] Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (1977)

[5] Tachū Naitō, Tōkyō Tower, Tōkyō, Japan (1958)

[6] Robert Maynard Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, William Morrow and Company (1974)

Fe Simeoni
–
fesimeoni.it Ig

The Medium (Infrastructure) is the Message

Infrastructures have been in multiple forms even before the term was ever used, and that the concept itself has ever since became super broad – coming from printing to highways- but for this matter, it is important to mention that now more than ever many present themselves as being “discursive” base constructions but in reality, they are quite physical and rely on the poor awareness of its physicality and its implications to keep as they are.

It is also important to note that infrastructures come with capacities of distorting political realms and therefore affecting physical borders, people’s realities and navigation, and capability to be part of their society, we can think of the first postal service in Rome up to the delimitation of data usage in some countries. Not only the presence of these infrastructures in our daily life and their underparts, such as daily life devices, model our accessibility, communication reach, but our possibilities of motion and displacement around certain areas. Also being users of these devices, and therefore infrastructures, we become essential pieces of their functionality.

In the case of daily devices, such as smartphones, which are power-tools that have the illusion of progress and freedom but come with a certain non-monetary cost attached, when we become dependant on them we first agree to conditions we aren’t even aware of, and are tie to policies we are not familiar with. We delegate more and more mundane also primal tasks and become dependant on many functions, we can not rely on our own without them and also need the extension functions they provide, like the capacity of being simultaneously at more than one place or having access to information otherwise inaccessible, therefore we are vicious consumers of data, apps, more devices, most likely always persecuting the latest models for better and efficient results.

The real cost behind this is not only individual and doesn’t rely only upon the terms of agreement we as users sign on every service we decide to acquire, the real cost, unfortunately, relies on the physicality of these discursive based infrastructures that depend on land, natural resource, energy and by incrementing the consumption the political power increments and the mediums and ways are not necessarily the most conscious but most likely always the most profitable and by not being mindful consumers or users of these infrastructures, which are definitely hard to avoid and almost unrealistic to imagine ourselves out of them, we contribute to this power chain.

Francesca Bogani Amadori

INFRAGRAPHY Vol. IV. Fall 2020 [Published]

Infragraphy is a compilation of critical student artworks and short essays dealing with the materialities of media technologies and their environmental implications. The volume presents artworks and texts from the course ‘Media and the Environment’ in the Fall of 2020 at the Department of Media, Aalto University. The course is a series of scholarly readings about and around the themes of media including media’s relations and impacts on the so-called Anthropocene, thermocultures of media, ecologies of fabrication, media and plastics, Internet of Things, Planned Obsolescence, e-waste, and media’s energetic landscapes. A key approach of the course is to introduce artistic methods and practices that could address emerging media materialities. The student artistic outputs are presented in a final exhibition.

Download PDF:http://blogs.aalto.fi/mediainfrastructures/files/2020/12/Infragraphy_Fall2020.pdf

This fourth volume of Infragraphy compiles a series of artworks and companion essays as a response to the contemporary discourse of political economy of media and related environmental implications. The volume begins with Lassi Häkkinen’s Screen of Death that plunges us through the computer interface and web browser to a distant cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His accompanying essay meditates on the disjunction between the digital, mining and labor, as a way to reflect on extractive practices. Phuong Nguyen’s De-Terraforming Impacts of Humans on Earth takes us on a virtual tour of damaged landscapes as a result of the digital starting from the environs of Silicon Valley, Bayan Obo mining district in China, to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Cloud Materialities by Qianyu (Sienna) Fang sets up a game-like low-tech alternative computer interface to examine critical themes related to the various materialities of digital media. Oskar Koli’s provocative kinetic sculpture installation makes us ponder on deep time, automation, and fossil fuels. The installation sets up the recursive stroke of a programmed and automated feather that brushes off grains from a piece of coal. Koli insists on calling it ‘Untitled’ since the viewer could very well have a multitude of interpretations.

Addressing environmental damage, Anze Bratus uses pollution datasets along with urban images from around the world to create generative soundscapes. His installation Acoustics of Pollution highlights how pollution levels as a result of a legacy of industrial activities and fossil fuels exponentially increase and damage the environment. Studies on Invisibilityby Tuula Vehanen examines urban radiation, especially with regard to 5G networks in Helsinki. Vehanen’s photography attempts to render radio frequency visible and provokes us to consider the impacts of exposure to humans and ecosystems. By poetry and painting, Dominik Fleischmann’s Restless Bodies reflects on technology and purity. His work makes us think of where technological necessity of perfection and extraction might eventually lead us. Finally, Mirya Nezvitskaya presents a performance installation Collecting Your Waste that combines her research in materiality, posthumanist philosophy, performance and artistic practice. Her work challenges us on many levels by threading together colonization, extraction, plastic waste and performance.

Samir Bhowmik
9 December 2020
Helsinki

Virtual Exhibition: https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/the-anthrobscene-media-and-the-environment-course-exhibition

The Anthrobscene / Fall 2020 Exhibition 1 – 14 December 2020

VIRTUAL OPENING: https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/the-anthrobscene-media-and-the-environment-course-exhibition

VIDEO INSTALLATIONS: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL1NnkuEXIQact4yLVliVvtSlYFnQiwZM

Landscapes, infrascapes, greenscapes

The landscape and what our image of the landscape is like is due to a long tradition that includes traditional landscape painting, traditions of aesthetics, place of residence and a landscape catalog conveyed by the media. A landscape is often thought to be beautiful when it does not directly show the human handprint. “In Finland, it is customary to talk about ‘untouched nature’. Few proverbs are so untrue and downright false, ”writes Ismo Tuormaa [1] Pure or untouched nature as a concept is misleading. According to research, old, natural or nature-like forests make up well below 5 per cent of Finland’s forest area. It may take a hundred years to a thousand years to return to a perfect natural state, depending on the tree species in the forest. In the United States, for example, it has been estimated that the restoration of felled deciduous forests to virgin forests will usually take one or two complete tree generations, ie 150 to 500 years. [2]

Åland archipelago

Infrascapes

Urban landscapes rest on built infrastructure. The infrastructure is visible and invisible at the same time. As long as it works, it is not thought of. And yet the urban landscape is very strongly shaped by infrastructure. Media exists increasingly as the true landscape forming force. [3] Infrastructures as pipes, power plants, highways, sewers, pylons carrying the high voltage, cables, transmission Towers, data centers, wasteland and power lines are central to shaping our cityscape. Ports and power plants are monuments of our time. There is a certain beauty in manufactured landscapes, says Samir Bhowmik.

The disadvantages of the built infrastructure are pollution, radiation and the removal of living space from other organisms, as well as the energy, natural resources and the resulting pollution used to create the infrastructure.

Activists say officials are overlooking the fact that more than half the air pollution in Jakarta is caused by factors other than vehicle emissions, including several coal-fired power plants.

According to research, the urban environment affects our well-being in many ways, for example by increasing stress, raising blood pressure and disturbing concentration, while nature calms down. Positive effects on, among other things, heart rate, blood pressure and muscle tension can be seen after just a few minutes spent in nature.

According to biophilia theory, innate attachment to all living things is the foundation through which we have been able to achieve sustainable forms of life in general. Literally, “biophilia” means love of life and living systems. [4]

Man has made a decisive contribution to the reduction of species diversity. In order for nature to sustain life, its diversity must be safeguarded. Indeed, species interactions play a key role in diversity. No species thrives or functions in isolation, but in conjunction with other species

Roughly speaking, it can be said that we have found and named about 20 percent of the Earth’s species. This means that species that we do not yet know and that could be potentially useful are constantly disappearing from the world. We may lose species that could have been the origin of a new drug or a new food source. While the situation seems inconsolable in many ways, researchers firmly believe there is still hope. One reason for optimism is that, compared to previous generations, we have much more information and tools to solve problems. [5]

Greenscapes

Green infrastructure is a design approach whose key principles include a holistic approach, cross-sectoral systems thinking, the pursuit of multiple benefits (ecosystem services, but also public health and economic benefits, for example) and a long-term strategic perspective on urban habitat management.

A dense urban structure is beneficial for mitigation measures, but the urban environment is vulnerable to the changes brought about by climate change. Mitigation and adaptation should therefore be seen as parallel goals that must both be taken into account in the development of the urban environment. It should be possible to take the next step past mitigation measures towards adaptation. Resilience is a new key concept in sustainable development. [6]

In England, a London Green Grid has been created which seems to be a very interesting and comprehensive green infrastructure program. The main goals for green infrastructure planning in London are climate change mitigation and adaptation. In this context, flooding and heat island are seen as key threats. Other key goals include increasing green infrastructure in the metropolitan area, for example by planting 10,000 new trees in the metropolitan area. In Finnish cities, compaction and thus the shrinking of the green sector in cities is still ongoing. [7]

Various innovations have been and are being developed to build a greener infrastructure. The most radical green infrastructure solution is Bosco Verticale in Italy. Bosco Verticale is a residential building consisting of two buildings, in which dizzying tree plantings and other vegetation have been planted in the building. Recycled water and energy produced by solar panels are used for irrigation.

The Bosco Verticale (“Vertical Forest”) in Milan has hundreds of trees and more than 2,000 plants embedded into its façade

Nature-based solutions currently seem to be the key word for EU environmental funding. [8] Biomimetics is an activity that seeks to understand innovations produced by nature and then transfer them to human activities. Identified benefits include e.g. energy efficiency, utilization of photosynthesis, durable and lightweight structures, and resilient solutions for different situations. [9]

Since 2007, the Baubotanik research team at the University of Stuttgart has been developing structures that combine living trees and steel structures. The idea is therefore to develop and test living load-bearing structures. [10] Baubotanik describes a construction method in which structures are created by the interaction of a technical joint and plant growth. For this purpose, living and non-living building blocks are interconnected so that they grow together to form a plant-technical composite structure: The individual plants merge to form a new, larger overall organism and the technical elements grow into the plant structure. For this approach, the term building botany was established in 2007 at the Institute of Fundamentals of Modern Architecture (IGMA) at the University of Stuttgart.

The Baubotanik research team is developing structures based on living trees.

Living root bridges in Northeast India are grown, functional structures from the antenna roots of the Indian rubber tree (ficus elastica). The khasi and jainti peoples of southern Meghalaya have developed various techniques to take advantage of the growth stages of the rubber tree. Increased bridges connect houses, fields, villages and markets. [10]

Green roofs and green walls are essential building blocks of green infrastructure in a densely built big city. Productive roofs will be the thing of the future. One of the test roofs also had a combined green roof and solar panels. This solution also has its own name “biosolar roof”. [7]

Oslo is a good example of the innovative nature of small town landscaping. Green walls and roofs have expanded into grass fields with tram rails, natural meadows in the urban area and biogas-heated benches. Oslo won the European Green Capital 2019 designation.

CityTree Project

A green city like Helsinki is admired elsewhere. The challenges in greening cities and building green infrastructure are in a really dense urban structure at a completely different level compared to Finnish cities, many of the implemented projects are expensive and still remain in the degree of green frosting. It is much easier to take green infrastructure into account during design and construction. [7]

Perhaps green infrastructure can act as a bridge between industrial infrastructure and the natural environment.

reference:

Samir Bhowmik and Jussi Parikka, “Infrascapes for Media Archaeographers,” Archaeographies: Aspects of Radical Media Archaeology, eds. Moritz Hiller and Stefan Höltgen, Berlin: Schwabe Verlage, 2019: 183-194.

photos:

2. Image: Joe Mud,CC BY-SA 2.0, via IFPRI Flicker

3. The Bosco Verticale (“Vertical Forest”) in Milan has hundreds of trees and more than 2,000 plants embedded into its facade, Courtesy of Luca Nebuloni/Flickr

4. Courtesy of Paolo Rosselli/Stefano Boeri Architetti

5. The Baubotanik research team is developing structures based on living trees.(http://www.baubotanik.org/en/)

6. https://www.ar.tum.de/en/gtla/research/living-root-bridges/

7. Monica Thorud Olsen, retrieved 08/24/2018

1] https://suomenluonto.fi/uutiset/koskemattoman-luonnon-myytti/

[2] /https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarniomets%C3%A4

[3] Infrascapes for Media Archaeographers /Samir Bhowmik & Jussi Parikka

[4] https://www.vihreaveraja.fi/@Bin/220277/luonnon+vaikutukset+hyvinvointiin.pdf

[5] https://www.auroralehti.fi/lajien-tuho/

[6]/ https://blogs.aalto.fi/virma/2015/03/25/ilmastonmuutos-hillinnasta-eteenpain-kohti-sopeutumista/

[7] /https://blogs.aalto.fi/virma/2015/08/04/vihreaa-infraa-lontoolaisittain/

[8] / https://blogs.aalto.fi/virma/2015/11/29/bosco-verticale-ja-baubotanik-marraskuisia-unelmia-wienissa/

[9] /https://www.muoviyhdistys.fi/2019/12/13/kummajaiset-biomimiikka-ja-strateginen-innovaatio/

[10] / https://blogs.aalto.fi/virma/2015/11/29/bosco-verticale-ja-baubotanik-marraskuisia-unelmia-wienissa/

[11] /https://www.ar.tum.de/gtla/forschung/baubotanik/

Archaeology of Media Infrastructures – Spring 2020

Course Summary: The course provides a framework of archaeological exploration of media infrastructures. It allows students to think beyond a single media device and design for broader media ecologies. Tracing the emergence of contemporary media infrastructures from early instances in human and media history, it examines both hard infrastructure (architecture, mechanical and computing systems) and soft infrastructure (software, APIs and operating systems). What are the breaks, the discontinuities and ruptures in media-infrastructural history? What has been remediated, in what form, in what characteristics? The course prepares students for the follow-up course: ‘Media and the Environment’ in Fall 2020.

Wednesdays 13.15 – 15.00 / Starting 5.2.2020 / until 1.4.2020

The course is filed under Media Art and Culture / https://into.aalto.fi/display/enmlab/2020-2022+Advanced+studies

Infragraphy Volume 1, Spring 2019

This first volume of Infragraphy is a compilation of critical student writings and photo essays about media, infrastructure and the environment. These texts are outcomes from the “Archaeology of Media Infrastructures” Master of Arts course in the Spring of 2019 at the Department of Media, Aalto University Finland. The course examined media infrastructures including the concept of deep time, the materialities of the Internet, Artificial Intelligence, digital labor, water, energy, and critical infrastructure.

Download PDF: Infragraphy_Vol1_Spring2019

Undersea internet cables seen through art

Artist that came to mind while thinking of media infrastructure: EVAN ROTH – Landscape with a ruin

Images taken from the webpage: http://www.evan-roth.com/work/landscape-with-a-ruin/

(Photo by Vinciane Lebrun-Verguethen, courtesy of the Mona Bismarck American Center)

Roth’s art piece comments on the undersea internet cables. I found his webpage maybe a year ago and Samir Bhowmik’s own work on these cables made me remember this.

This is my post commenting on the first lecture, delayed because of technical issues 😉

Deep time and Gossip

While reading the chapter on “Deep time of Media infrastructure” by Shannon Mattern, I started thinking of other texts I’ve read about how civilisation started. The traditional western way of telling history is that “civilised manners” such as advanced hierarchies and communities built of hundreds of people, were born out of agriculture and settlements. Abandoning the original way of life, Homo sapiens in several places in the world suddenly went from hundreds of thousands of years of being nomads, to settling down and starting agriculture.

However, newer research shows that people who led nomadic or half-nomadic lifestyles, could have very complex group dynamics and belief systems. Instead it might have been the other way around – humans slowly developed more and more complex societies and ways of manipulating or taking control over large groups of people, and this in turn led to the ability of developing agriculture, which in its turn led to permanent settlements.

When I was reading Harari’s book “Sapiens”, it really struck me again that the notion that humanity became complex creatures once we settled down and stopped being nomads, is completely false. The only thing that we can know for sure is that these cities and infrastructures that we have today, would not have been possible without settling down.

On the other hand – what infrastructures did and does nomadic people have, that we do not? And even more striking – has the way that we intuitively develop infrastructure over the millennia, even after the vast majority of the world’s population aren’t nomads anymore – been influenced by the way we inherently are nomads as a species?

Harari brings up something else that he sees as crucial for peaceful coexistence in large groups: Gossip. He claims that all apes are intensely interested in social information and that Homo sapiens’ way of speaking developed from gossip. Since we weren’t large and effective predators, cooperation was the key to survival even early on. It’s much more important to know who’s sleeping with who, who hates who, who is honest and who is a trickster, than in what direction the lions are.

This mean of communication – spread from person to person throughout large groups of people – must have influenced the way media infrastructure developed right from the start. Even though the word “gossip” has a bad connotation in today’s society, it’s still taking up a vast amount of space, energy and time in our lives. Gossip is often something that women are considered doing, perhaps because women traditionally have taken care of the home sphere and the relationships of the family. But if this is the force that actually holds us together as a species – why do we then despise it so much?

A large portion of today’s media is taken up by pure gossip, whether there is truth behind it or not. Most of the stories are impossible for us to fact check ourselves. News articles, social media posts and blog posts tell us the latest weird thing Trump did, what the Kardashians are up to and that Jay-z has cheated on Beyoncé again. Most of us don’t know these people personally and have no direct link to them. We have to trust the source or find other sources. This is the strength and the weakness of human societies today. Shannon Mattern again:

Overlooking the way gossip and other ways of communicating has shaped media infrastructure, is perhaps one of the reasons we’re in such a hot mess today. It’s called “social” media for a reason – its primary task is not to offer the truth, but for humans to be social, to gossip. If we took this inherent human trait into account – how would we want to change the infrastructures of media then? And how can we develop trustful ways of tracing the source of information?

Mediated and Unmediated Cities

The ways in which cities and other living environments are mediated are quite known and researched. If there is a mediated city, surely there exists an unmediated counterpart?

In various contexts, an unmediated city is seen as a city that is not mapped and thus unpredictable. Such an uncharted area is perhaps generally seen as not subject to human intervention, but even abandoned or unlawful constructs could be seen as unmediated ones – given that they have not been mapped and brought into broader knowledge. In many cases throughout the history, the construction of new complexes has either been overlooked by the government due to a political crisis, or the construction has been halted due to financial problems.

Examples of such constructs could include the now-demolished Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong (inspiration for many dystopian books and films), or Torre de David in Caracas, Venezuela (damaged in 2018 earthquakes). Both of these constructs or complexes could be considered unmediated as they were unmapped, uncharted, unfinished. But they were mediated by their inhabitants, who are told to have formed closely-knit communities in order to overcome the threats from outside the complexes. The inhabitants took matters into their own hands and modified the complex according to their own wishes.

The remnants of Pripyat (Ukraine) could also been seen as unmediated: of human origin, but all objects and belongings have been scattered around the ruins as people fled the vicinity of Chernobyl reactor, and being scattered further by the forces of nature, animals and the occasional scavenger. No one has intentionally arranged the decaying objects – they are where they were left, and no one is looking after them. (Side note: there is also a great documentary about people who still live in the area.) A mediated city is different: trash are picked up, graffitis and tags get removed, broken sidewalks are repaired by workers assigned to tend to them.

Is the internet mediated or unmediated? In the 1960’s Marshall McLuhan theorized the introduction of new forms of communication would form a global village, not only revolutionizing the way people communicate, but also extend its effect into all areas of human life. According to McLuhan, time would cease and and space would vanish entirely, reuniting people with their primordial nature and tribal emotions. McLuhan argued we would enter a period of post-history, as the past and present would become intertwined and be simultaneously present.

Elissavet Georgiadou pointed out in 2002 that the internet was (and still is) populated by the elite. Ultimately, the reasons behind the digital divide are poverty as well as political and cultural control. “The development of the Internet is interrelated to geographical and social inequalities”, Georgiadou wrote.

Has current technology as well as everyday media usage managed to create the global village McLuhan wrote about? Is the internet more mediated now that it was 10 or 20 years ago? How to mediate such a global village, when inhabitants of a city have little to no way of having an effect on their surroundings? What kind of media infrastructures could unmediated areas offer?

(Photo: Kowloon Walled City in 1989. Ian Lambot, Wikipedia)

Hydropolis & Cybercity

On Infrastructures, Media Spectacles and Archeology: A Hypertext