Subject: GENERAL: Actual and Virtual Reality in Space.
=============================================
>YOUR POSTING HAS BEEN FORWARDED TO DESIGN-L.
=============================================
>I'm not sure what the original context of this thread is but here's my
>2cts anyway.
>>
>> Cities as physical monuments are dying, a whole new topography is
>forming where
>> political and social boundaries will be independant (transcendant) of
>physical
>> ones. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but at present is not
>aligned with
>> the regionalism posited as a necessary part of any "sustainable" future.
>If you are refering to concepts that relate to virtual communities, I
>feel that unless the human interface between man and environment goes
>beyond what it is today which is essentially gestural, I is hard to
>imagine that physical monuments will become obsolete anytime soon. The
>human evolutionary conditioning in space perception cannot react within a
>span of a generation.
>> I totally agree with what you are arguing. The new frontier of
>electronic
>> interface and interactive television offer us a new reality, the
>virtual one.
>> Today the scale of man in the city is becoming increasingly
>'fractured'. Man
>> cannot be considered the measure of all things as was the case for five
>centuries.
>My position on this is that man will always be central to our perception
>of space and architecture. Historical precedent suggests that regardless
>of technological advancement, the primary measurement of a unit is the
>human body. Entire sets of measurements and proportions, in as many
>cultures, have been based on the hands, feet, etc. This is just not just
>a renaissance approach. Already evident is the portryal of information in
>computer visualization applications as architecture which can be seen as
>based on the human body.
>> The world is no longer bound to geographic locations. Through the
>interface of
>> computers man achieves an abstracted omnipresence in the global
>internet.
>>
>> Urban space is losing its geographic reality with the advent of a
>technological
>> space-time field in the form of 'telecommunications' whose extensions
>are
>> transmitted and recieved with omnipresent awe. It seems that today
>information
>> is no longer woven into a constructed fabric, but into, as Paul Virilio
>writes,
>> "the sequences of an imperceptible planning of time in which the
>man-machine
>> replaces the facades of buildings and the surfaces of the ground on
>which they
>> stand" ( from `The overexposed City`)
>>
>> Space, architecturally, is now not only a geographic locality and a
>measurement
>> but also a projection into the network of information. Through this
>notion the
>> concept of time is transmitted as a spacial parameter.
>>
>> In the present condition of possible omnipresence our bodies no longer
>relate
>> to the world which was once time beyond us. Our perceptual apparatus
>has been
>> tecnically saturated and we no longer relate to our physical
>surroundings as we
>> once did. Now whether conciously or not we have become fluid, or in
>constant motion.
>Although omnipresence seems to be a cool idea, I'm not sure that it is
>easily comprehendable. If you have tried playing more than one chess game
>simultaneously, you'll understand what I'm getting at. This is why more
>and more interfaces tend to emphasize intelligence augmentation rather
>than knowledge saturation. Most of us are only 2 1/2 D capable. We often
>need to rely on the renaissance concept of projection in order to
>percieve 3D. Generally speaking, any 3D modelling package, with one or
>two exceptions, uses a 2 1/2 D approach. Because of this, a majority of
>natural occurences within physical architecture cannot be duplicated in
>any Virtual environment. Not yet anyway. The current tele-communication
>methods cannot replace the societal links physical architecture provides
>for the same reason we do not consider telephones virtual reality
>apparutuses.
>Anthony Tan
>Penn State.
>---------------------------------
>fide et labore....
=============================================
>YOUR POSTING HAS BEEN FORWARDED TO DESIGN-L.
=============================================
>I'm not sure what the original context of this thread is but here's my
>2cts anyway.
>>
>> Cities as physical monuments are dying, a whole new topography is
>forming where
>> political and social boundaries will be independant (transcendant) of
>physical
>> ones. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but at present is not
>aligned with
>> the regionalism posited as a necessary part of any "sustainable" future.
>If you are refering to concepts that relate to virtual communities, I
>feel that unless the human interface between man and environment goes
>beyond what it is today which is essentially gestural, I is hard to
>imagine that physical monuments will become obsolete anytime soon. The
>human evolutionary conditioning in space perception cannot react within a
>span of a generation.
>> I totally agree with what you are arguing. The new frontier of
>electronic
>> interface and interactive television offer us a new reality, the
>virtual one.
>> Today the scale of man in the city is becoming increasingly
>'fractured'. Man
>> cannot be considered the measure of all things as was the case for five
>centuries.
>My position on this is that man will always be central to our perception
>of space and architecture. Historical precedent suggests that regardless
>of technological advancement, the primary measurement of a unit is the
>human body. Entire sets of measurements and proportions, in as many
>cultures, have been based on the hands, feet, etc. This is just not just
>a renaissance approach. Already evident is the portryal of information in
>computer visualization applications as architecture which can be seen as
>based on the human body.
>> The world is no longer bound to geographic locations. Through the
>interface of
>> computers man achieves an abstracted omnipresence in the global
>internet.
>>
>> Urban space is losing its geographic reality with the advent of a
>technological
>> space-time field in the form of 'telecommunications' whose extensions
>are
>> transmitted and recieved with omnipresent awe. It seems that today
>information
>> is no longer woven into a constructed fabric, but into, as Paul Virilio
>writes,
>> "the sequences of an imperceptible planning of time in which the
>man-machine
>> replaces the facades of buildings and the surfaces of the ground on
>which they
>> stand" ( from `The overexposed City`)
>>
>> Space, architecturally, is now not only a geographic locality and a
>measurement
>> but also a projection into the network of information. Through this
>notion the
>> concept of time is transmitted as a spacial parameter.
>>
>> In the present condition of possible omnipresence our bodies no longer
>relate
>> to the world which was once time beyond us. Our perceptual apparatus
>has been
>> tecnically saturated and we no longer relate to our physical
>surroundings as we
>> once did. Now whether conciously or not we have become fluid, or in
>constant motion.
>Although omnipresence seems to be a cool idea, I'm not sure that it is
>easily comprehendable. If you have tried playing more than one chess game
>simultaneously, you'll understand what I'm getting at. This is why more
>and more interfaces tend to emphasize intelligence augmentation rather
>than knowledge saturation. Most of us are only 2 1/2 D capable. We often
>need to rely on the renaissance concept of projection in order to
>percieve 3D. Generally speaking, any 3D modelling package, with one or
>two exceptions, uses a 2 1/2 D approach. Because of this, a majority of
>natural occurences within physical architecture cannot be duplicated in
>any Virtual environment. Not yet anyway. The current tele-communication
>methods cannot replace the societal links physical architecture provides
>for the same reason we do not consider telephones virtual reality
>apparutuses.
>Anthony Tan
>Penn State.
>---------------------------------
>fide et labore....