The Metaverse Plays Itself Kevin Gao
THE METAVERSE PLAYS ITSELF. temporal city (ΔT)3
kevin gao tutors ian nazareth david schwarzman
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Contents 01
final proposition
02
reflection
03
what is the city & time
04
mining the city
05
conflation, interpretation, & amplification
06
change over time
07
variations regenerating the cbd, 24-hour peak
08
urban rules, elasticity, dotted lines
09
lead-up to mid sem
10
mid sem proposition
11
return brief
12
lead-up to final
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The Prompt_ Welcome to the metaverse.
How do virtual spaces mirror the world? And how do they distort, change, and reflect back on that reality? The project aims to describe experiential and behavioural conditions of the present, that has been affected by the hauntological states of past and future. The urban realm is situated to which we inhabit digital space. Given their ability to draw people into new worlds, the metaverse offer the ability to dynamically reframe the city within its virtual systems. Detaching from a facsimile of the city and peering beyond The futility of analog architecture in a virtual space, makes it such that all things physical are purely to serve on a representational level. Thus the project emphasizes on the urban iconography fruiting into a virtual space.
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Neologisms
Hauntology_
Haunt + Ontology
Impasse of culture, tethered by reliving past anticipation of the future.
Hyperstition_
Hype + Superstition
Fictional becoming factual.
Junkspace_ The residue mankind leaves on the planet.
Eschatology_ The end of architecture, defined as the permeant absence of conscious thought of architecture.
Social contagion_ The spread of ideas, interconnected via social networks, determined by group structure and system rules.
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Final Proposition Video/ https://youtu.be/_K4aFY4ONWA
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SEQUE
Given their ability to draw people into new dynamically reframe the city within its virtu the city and pe
The futility of analog architecture in a vir physical are purely to serve on a represent on the urban iconography fruit
The digitised project aims to describe ex the present, that has been affected by the
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w worlds, the metaverse offer the ability to ual systems. Detaching from a facsimile of eering beyond
rtual space, makes it such that all things tational level. Thus the project emphasizes ting into a virtual environment.
xperiential and behavioural conditions of e hauntological states of past and future.
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SEQUE
The urban realm is situated to which we urban fragments with block 55 of the CBD everyda
These fragments are then digitally samp city, the origin point is a clock to
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inhabit cyberspace. Contextualising with D. The catalogue ranges from buildings to ay items.
pled, aggregated. Much like the physical ower of the General Post Office.
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RULESETS
SUBDIVISION
REPRESENTATIONAL FRAGMENTS CBD BLOCK COMPONENTS Digital copies of the real world are scattered across cyberspace Scale of fragment varies from object, element, building, block, entire cities Contextual scale for the project remain in block 55 of Melbourne CBD
SPECIAL COMPONENTS General Post Office (GPO) - marked as origin point for every aggregation
Animated simulation
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CONTAGION
NS
FRAGMENTS
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SUBDIVISION
CONTAGION
HYPER-SPECIALISED SUBDIVISION SUBDIVISION To organise complex structures, spaces subdivide and become multi-functional, and thus capable of surviving a variety of situations
SUBDIVISION RULES If area is over utilised subdivide on every
n=1
n+1
n=4 Animated simulation
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NS
FRAGMENTS
n=2
n=5
n=3
n=6
Subdivision Iterations
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001 | Data infrastructure
002 | Culture cave
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Description: Megastructure as effect of the anthropocene Structures designed to support human but lack human presence
Description: How do spaces reflect back on soc issues and their representation in vi Formed out of anachronist subcultu accelerated by social contagions
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The process of subdivision creates a hyperspecial
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003 | Lost futures ¨7 null
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ciety, irtual spaces. ures
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Description: Artifacts left behind, but aren’t subdued to decay, as nothing in the digital world is ever gone. Potentiality within lost futures, which can be revived and haunt present behaviors.
NCE 02 ized array that is reorganized into three ecologies.
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Each ecology represents a virtual conditi simultaneously sharing the same location constant switch betwe
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ion that exists in a separate reality, whilst . As we slip in and out of different realities, een online and offline.
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These digital artefacts, represents a history of virtual archite fidelity. Adding a meta-layer, which the forms become a rep
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cture, from its primitive low-poly forms, to the gradual hi-res presentation of itself by mirroring the tech that produces it.
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SEQUE
The abrupt cancellation of our physical w bound in distances or time conventions, ra collectivized into
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world means measurements are no longer ather it is measured personal information, impersonal data.
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SUBDIVISION
CONTAGION
SOCIAL CONTAGIONS DELAY TACTIC Mass spreading of ideas would lead to an information cascade. To counteract information infor cascade, delay systems are implemented between connections, connec giving time to react to uncertainties. 'HOD\ FRQGLWLRQV ZLWKLQ HFRORJLHV 'HOD\ FRQGLWLRQ 001 subcultural cavern [minimal] infrastructure [standard] 002 data infrastr [permanent] 003 lost future rruin
CONTAGION RULES Apply delay if data transmission rate reaches above average
50%
standard rule Animated simu simulation
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delay tact
NS
tic
FRAGMENTS
exposure to contagion ratio exceeds 33.3%
complex contagion pass
contagion ratio below 33.3%
complex contagion impasse
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SUBDIVISION
REPRESENTATIONAL FRAGMENTS INFRASTRUCTURE COMPONENTS The shared digital space has very much effect on the anthropocene, its importance are enough to house its own catalogue of representations These components are the base blocks of data infrastructure ecology (001)
SPECIAL COMPONENTS Fibre optic cables, sever rack, functional hardware
Buildings become server stacks, power nodes, super-conductors, soft-machine buzz floods the city
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CONTAGION
NS
FRAGMENTS
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SUBDIVISION
CONTAGION
AGGREGATED OUTCOMES DATA INFRASTRUCTURE Digital copies of the real world are scattered across cyberspace Scale of fragment varies from object, element, building, block, entire cities Contextual scale for the project remain in block 55 of Melbourne CBD
SPECIAL COMPONENTS
#6F6E65
General Post Office (GPO) - marked as origin point for every aggregation
#736978
Animated simulation
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FRAGMENTS
NS
#74776F
#7468726565
#666F7572
#736576656E
#6569676874
#6E696E65
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The data centric, attention driven econom Analysis of the data are micro-situational complex particle ocean. As an attempt t
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my, exchanges in space, swapping codes. at perceiving human behavioral data, in o have certainty in the present moment.
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As we endlessly traverse the vast content your own algorithmic self reflects the wis
Media falls in and out of relevance a Creative input has morphed into the pro thought is manufactured in th
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t of personalized media. The formation of shes and desires with subtle distortions.
at incomprehensibly fast time scales oduction of online content. Any original he sphere of culture industry.
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Entertainment, politics and art are all lodg The Junkspace coined by Rem Koolhaas escalators, air conditioning, sprinkler, it i masking anything th
Overstimulated with acceleration, ironica mot
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ged together in a single stream of content. s, deploys the infrastructure of seamless is always within a self-contained interior, hat isn’t Junkspace.
ally paralyses the user from having any tion.
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Out of all things, this timeless ecology no signs of decay, of age, or latticed vin volume, a pure digital artifact in a
Converse to its nature as a digital and the the vastness of time as oppose
Ironic that as many monuments aim to exp themselves bec
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made me consider the nature of time. nes. No, this was an ageless, depthless a desert in which it didn’t belong.
erefore ageless object, it seemed to evoke ed to its dynamic counterparts.
pose the forgotten parts of the world, they come forgotten
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Empty structure, vacant hard drives, hopeless wondering them. What n The Temporal City
ever lived cannot die, these containers, becomes a vessel of lost ideas. (ΔT)3
SEQUEN
A city revolves around hyperstition crea activity to realize past fictions of the futur one becomes indiscernib
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ates a culture which engages ritualistic re, slowly bleeding into the real world as le from fiction and factual
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The parade is a series of maquette that objects, the designed artifacts containin people that pr
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t celebrates the cultural consumption of ng more vibrancy and agency than the roduced them.
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SEQUEN Virtual inhabitants experience space as There is no home, for the home
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nomads, lost in the multiplicity of it all. page is merely a designed shell
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Timeline of digital ecologies
culture
infrastructure
lost future
start
Perhaps biological life will be viewed as a quaint starting point, against the long persistence of objects. If hauntology is the relation of ghosts from past and future effecting the present. Then the scope should be expanded upon the beginning to end of digital architecture. If viewing architecture as existing purely on thought, then it stops at The Temporal City
the end of any thought. Whet end is achieve replacement o decisions, or t of human exist will come to a all comes to a halt, our existe captured in the of our behavio the largest one anthropocene
While we have over our dimin
PRESERVATION EPOCH
y conscious her the ed through of conscious he fatalism tence. There point which grinding ence will be e remnant oral imprints, e being the .
end of architecture
we’re responsible to assign what gets left behind after our departure, is it the triumph and virtue of human co-operation that built complex systems or is it the influence of these systems that made us fragmented and incoherent, perhaps it’s all of them.
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02
Reflection
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“Anti-capitalism at the level of a film’s mess does nothing in itself to disrupt the superhegemony of capital. Anti-capitalism – or a least anti-corporatism – is utterly standard Hollywood films: consider something like A instance.
This is the objective irony of capital: nothin better than anti-capitalism. Or, even more b late capitalism’s culture is anti-capitalist.” 3UHRFFXS\LQJ 0DUN )LVKHU
Is t
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sage
at within Avatar, for
ng sells bleakly,
the message of a cautionary tale, a message at all? (ΔT)3
Film as device, a retrospective
Film ultimately excites us, as it have the ability to draw people i to fictional worlds of cinematography, made out of light, motion and sound. In order to critique the media and culture industry, I found myself being hypercritical to convey the messages. Fictio and now the metaverse, seduces viewers to endlessly consume through highly immersive and compelling environments. But it the very same immersion and aesthetical language I embed int my own work, whether it is intuition for filmic sake, or intentiona a satirical device.
Role of dystopia_
By describing these inhumane and grim conditions, perhaps ge us to think about what it is to be human, and I don’t think that’s something that can be taught by others, let alone an architectu studio project. Which ultimately knowing what it is to be human personal journey
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e_
nto n I on e is to al as
ets s re n is a
Intentional or accidental_ From the crit feedback, the project appeared to be curated and intentional, is that truly a product of my own authorship, or have I happened to stumble upon precedents, that are well curated and intentional? There are moments where I was oversiphoning my vision, my reference board filled with art, pop culture, subculture artefacts, film composition studies. My attempt to borrow and connect all these precedents puts me in a place where I’m not creating anything intentionally, just redistributing work and thought of others into my own voice. Ultimately it is the engagement of existing ideas that is worthwhile of itself. As absorbing the art and the writing of others assisted my process of uncovering the cultural conditions.
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Reference Board_ filled with precedents, art, cinematic compositions, cultural artefacts
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Expanded Reflection_ The work process since mid-semester had been fragments of ideas, whilst themes are bridged over by weekly, works produced each week can be their independent project. Thus, the body of work becomes larger than a single perspective, which is seemingly impossible to capture the project in a sentence, without being overly broad or universal. My experience, views has multiple versions in the course of the project, depending on the readings and material looked at each week. I progressed through the studio in a series of revelations, which I ended up with way too many directions, overflooded with the different possible
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outcomes the project can be shaped into. At the same time, having different readings that intertwines and cancel each other out, creates fascinating conditions, similar to the real city. Reflecting upon works done in my previous studios, the filmic quality has always been an leverage to me, out shadowing other more conventional mediums of conveying architecture. Perhaps by the end of this studio, I will need to come up with a decision, of where my path is heading. One hand there is all of the nuances of architecture left unexplored that is more physical, practical and tactile, which are required
to realise architectural concepts. The other path, is where I currently hold more proficiency over, that is cinematic, and experiential. However there is still a long journey left of personal development in my filmmaking, my aesthetics, to get to where I aspire to. Both paths has an infinite skill ceiling, but you only start moving once you’ve settle down on the path to take. To that degree, it relates to my exploration of labour specialisation during the studio, the paths we carve out, only restricts our fields of expertise, in hopes of grasping a place you belong or entitled to.
the enjoyment of making. For which the process holds just as much value as the outcome. And is evident in the playful nature in some of the scenes, despite the bleak undertone of the project. The critique of the culture and technology, really becomes a critique of myself, I am equally enveloped into obsession with consumption as anyone else. The matter isn’t just about how manipulative the system is, but also the ability in self-control, and be conscious on what it is we are consuming, left to the individual’s own agency.
One thing I am certain of is
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What is the City? What is time? Video/ https://youtu.be/vyX3rWT6afM
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The City Is..._ The city has a paradigm of two states, void and noise. The two conditions phase in and out of existence, or occurring simultaneously, created and experienced amongst individuals, and dividuals. Shifting from the macro to the micro scale, you will find that cities are a cluster of noise, which has clusters of voids, that have clusters of noise. Homes are no longer just homes. For most it is the only space people contain themselves in, hence it has become the most versatile of spaces. Infrastructure are only used by logistics or by those transitioning from one home to another. The Video
https://youtu.be/vyX3rWT6afM
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City of Void_ Space without objectives, time without a timer. Spanning from the birth of the city to its demise, these areas of uncharted territory can be found next to the most populated places, yet unheard of. Voids within the vastness of the city marks as a potential for growth, hence losing its insignificance, however new voids will be formed out of past relics, from shopping malls to school campuses. Its startling to not be told what to do in the world we have created specifically to give us things to do. Temporality exists at the suspension between past and future, people are situated within crumbling and forgotten landscapes, and equally as enveloped in the growing and densely contested areas of the city.
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City of Solitude_ The age of information shifted our ways of socializing from the physical to the digital realm. It introduced the world to a new wave of loneliness. And the desire for alleviating the emptiness. Hence, leading us back to the sea of noise. The city has developed into an urban environment devoid of human presence. The utilitarian forms appear lifeless yet intended to house millions of lives. Never are two lights next to each other, never can you get the sense of an actual connection. Just the strange solidarity of being two specks each alone in a void. We may or may not be alone, but we’re certainly alone, together.
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Control Society
Societies of control don’t force people to do anything, they sole the information offered by its citizens, often through their own vo
Where the industrialized society maintain order through spatial enclosure, concentrating the masses into institutions, factories a barracks. The society of control differs by having a lack of enclo instead the regime permeates to the entirety of society. A lack o signifier between workplace and home makes it harder to distin work and personal life, such that one never leaves the workplac are committed as an employee even in your personal life, espec social media
If one was to transgress the standards of some institution, it is v easy to then limit their freedom, place prohibitions and punish f distance. Besides limiting their services, corporation also has in over the flow of information, specific media and adverts are tailo algorithms based on viewing history. Such a system is near imp to rebel against, as authority is dispersed through state, private commercialised organizations. As such one’s awareness of bein control can be easily undermined, or at least confused.
The notion of individual means one that cannot be divided, that longer the case as we are constantly divided and categorised in demographics, marketing samples, survey results. It is these ag of data that institution view us.
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References, clips, readings Tokyo Noise KWWSV \RXWX EH JD =ZIV6 F$
Salaryman 6 - Overwork in Japan KWWSV \RXWX EH RW:O =X 0U
Opening Sequence - Enter the Void KWWSV \RXWX EH 3*WXP79+5F4
Drone Romance | In The Robot Skies by Liam Young KWWSV \RXWX EH F;I<\N * +V
Notice from Ei Wada KWWSV \RXWX EH ,GUV L HY
Dissolving Realities Vietnam #3 - Real Time Point Cloud Shader in Unity 3D KWWSV \RXWX EH N 86Y U 4
Alone Together by Aristotle Roufanis KWWSV DULVWRWOH SKRWRJUDSK\
IN-SHADOW - A Modern Odyssey KWWSV ZZZ \RXWXEH FRP ZDWFK"Y M 69HL6 ,
BEHOLDER. Official Short Film (2019) KWWSV ZZZ \RXWXEH FRP ZDWFK"Y 0%YL\U 'RN
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Societies of Control (Panoptic Society) KWWSV ZZZ H LU LQIR DUH ZH OLYLQJ LQ D SRVW SDQRSWLF VRFLHW\
The Extreme Self - D. Coupland, H.U. Obrist, S. Basar KWWSV ZZZ GD]HGGLJLWDO FRP OLIH FXOWXUH DUWLFOH H[WUHPH VHOI DJH douglas-coupland-shumon-basar-hans-ulrich-obrist-interview
:KDW DUH VRFLHWLHV RI FRQWURO" -RQDV ÿHLND KWWSV ZZZ \RXWXEH FRP ZDWFK"Y %BL B:X\T$<
Artificial Loneliness - Jacob Geller KWWSV ZZZ \RXWXEH FRP ZDWFK"Y K8Z7K X6,/J
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Mining the City Animation/ https://youtu.be/wZWhkvGL3Vo
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2007
2008 Sudden surge of dwelings between 2007-2008 This could be either error of data input, API error, or grasshopper script error. The Temporal City
Even data has its limits, we must factor in degrees of uncertainty or margin of error Until mid-1900s scientists believe that discoveries are made by observing their surroundings and making logical conclusion, a process called empiricism, then they realised that acquiring knowledge was a more imaginative process to cut through the fog, scientists have to make guesses on top of what they know and tests these guesses. So imagination when paired with scrutiny is central to the discovery of process Uncertainty obstructs our view, but also frees us to construct possible answers From “A Skeptical Look at Climate Science” by Neil Halloran KWWSV \RXWX EH 5 )$$I. B0
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Craig Taylor - Mapzilla
3UHFHGHQW 5HVHDUFK 'DWD $UW Transit in Motion is a culmination of a lot of different analysis and visual styles all relating to public transport patterns in 2020
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Residential proximity to retail
Education spaces proximity
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Recreational spaces proximity
Office spaces proximity
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Clusters - Closest point
COMBINED The Temporal City
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Pedestrain Data Vis Progress Screenshots
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05
Conflation, Interpretation Animation/ https://youtu.be/dof809Zz01o Group Partner/ William Ly
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& Amplification
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06
Change over Time
Group Partner/ William Ly
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07
Variations Regenerating the CBD Animation/ https://youtu.be/RdBv00dPcIA Group Partner/ William Ly
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Masamune Shirow, Ghost in the Shell, 1991-96
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Narrative Certainty - Uncertainty We use both certain and uncertain items to speculate scenarios in both the foreseeable and distant futures. This can be seen as risk management, to mitigate the possible threats from unknown unknowns. Risk assessment can be understood through ecology, where diversity is a necessity to maintain the survivability by having multiple variations of a species, all built to survive under certain conditions. In evolutionary terms, variations are generated through mutation and passed on through genetics. Hence, we need to model an array of proposals, to survive a vast array of uncertainties. Emerging Complexity The world is becoming increasingly complex, nature evolved from single cell to multicellular organisms. While the degree of chaos is steadily increasing due to entropy, complex systems still have the tendency to produce spontaneous order. Individual - societal relation The world is becoming increasingly complex As the system becomes complex, the individual becomes more divided, specialized and simplified. The individual becomes not as a machine, but a mere appendage of a machine Engels
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n=1
n=4
n
n=
Subdivisio
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n=3
n=6
on Iterations
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Complexity arrives at subdivision to become multi-functional, and thus capable of surviving a variety of catastrophic situations.
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Subivision and lay
yering visualisation
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07.1
Diurnal or the 24-Hour P
Readings/ D.W. Meinig, The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same S Group Partner/ William Ly
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Peak
Scene
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Urban Rules
Group Partner/ William Ly
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24 Hour Elasticity Animation/ https://youtu.be/fJR3rdYgEuQ Group Partner/ William Ly
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ELASTICITY - datascape This animation explores the intervention of online space to the physical, which aims to formalize and materialize virtual abstractions. Effect of invasion, distortion of space, visualising the virtual sphere of influence Apartment blocks shrink and expands, as the user switches between private and public network.
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Dotted Lines
Group Partner/ William Ly
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reference
Block Aggregation &RPSRQHQWV
Cardboard Packaging forms found in packaging pieces, as a means of representing organising Thestructure Temporal City
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primitive form
displacement
voxelisation
grid mesh
aggregation The Temporal City
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Block 33 - SW View
count 500 seed 50
count 500 seed 02
count 500 seed 50 Block 33 - NE View
count 500 seed 02 The Temporal City
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count 500 seed 03
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09
Lead up to Proposition 5HIHUHQFHV Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism
Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depressio Shumon Basar, The Long Present
-RQDV ÿHLND Hauntology, Lost Futures and 80s Nosta
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on, Hauntology and Lost Futures
algia
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Planning through titlec WEEK 1 TOPICS 01 City of noise 02 City of void 03 City of solitude 04 Control society
0,' 6(0 7,7/( &$5'6 01 The future is uncertain 02 The future has been canceled 03 The future is disintegrating
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ards
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2
The future has been canceled
HAUNTOLOGY - LOST FUTUR
HauntGhostly, absent yet r
Ontology The study of being
A term coined by derider, we n we can only make sense of it anticipating the future. We are anticipation from the past. Thu nostalgia consumption and re long gone hope for the future,
In Mark Fisher’s terms it had b been cancelled
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RES, MARK FISHER
eal
y
never experience the full present, by looking back in the past and e in a constant state of reliving the us, spawning a culture industry of etrofuturist aesthetics. Evoking a , which never arrived,
been a lost future, the future has
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The future is disintigreating Hyperspecialisation found within internet subculture Subculture are a means of constructing a coherent self
$HVWKHWLFV RETROFUTURISM_ a symptom of past nostalgia and recent trauma we are in a constant state of hauntological futurism, nothing is truly original NON-DECAYING_ The digital lamination prevents it from ever decaying, thus it is more incentivized to relive past cultural experiences, when little effort is made to restore it.
Everything became a reflection to already established ideas, as without the context they reflect, critique, or subvert, they have no reason to exist
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primitive form
primary components
Aggregatio
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logistical framework
objects
on Process
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Thee Te Th Temp Temporal mp por oral al City Citityy C
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Aggregation Components
packaging infrastructure capitial
consumption queue (storage)
datascape fragments
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item 01 (87% match rate)
Top-down E-commerce logistical system Rulesets_ On-demand shelves must retain 40% existing for services
item 02 (78% match rate)
item 03 (48% match rate)
weight cap of delivered packages must not exceed 400lbs Standard user only gets to decline orders 6 times a day
item 04 (98% match rate)
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Serendipitous collisions of elements typically not associated with one another The crossing of contexts, moving things into new infrastructure.
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Proposition Mid semester project/ Video/ https://youtu.be/xrTMDtmjZWk
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11
Return Brief
5HDGLQJV Beatriz Colomina, Are We Human? Notes on an Archa Jean Baudrillard, The System of Objects
The Temporal City
aeology of Design
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Mid Semester Feedback
Questions What is my (moral) viewpoint? By describing the emotional and psychological conditions experienced from current social and technological environments, there’s certain cynicism found in my work, which may appear to be a critque of the present, although the focus is still in making observations, however obscured the lens were. Fetishization of past futurism, should it be described or avoided? My main point in addressing hauntology and lost futures, is the depiction of our obsession with retrofuturism, found in the aesthetics. Ironically, that fetishization had been caught up in my work process, as I was obsessed at working in the details of each retro-artifacts. Other points from feedback - Digital Ghost (digital twin) - The need for digital architecture - Physical occupation of data centres - Role of dystopia, is it as a cautionary tale?
...The simula The Temporal City
Things to stay: A system that encounters both top-down and bottom up approach Cultural hauntology, past and subcultural artifacts
Things to introduce: Digital ghost Social Contagions, Network theory Serendipity - accidental discoveries Delay tactic
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project leaves its role as a ation and becomes a monument (ΔT)3
3UHFHGHQW 1LFN\ &D madness of crowds, As part of the explo the spread of ideas ‘social contagions’.
Happiness, coopera
These observationa heterogeneous and
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ration on social behaviour and hyperstition, between individuals can be described as
ation levels, voting patterns are all contagious
al theory would suggest the formation of homogeneous cultures and subcultures.
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AI Reconstruction - Digital ghost Perhaps our greatest fear is not the fatality of existence, but our existence becoming forgotten through the passing of time. In that case, the act of preserving something in its pristine, frozen in time condition, seems arbitrary to the existential side of wanting to be remembered, solely as something that had occurred in the world. The permanent way of preserving artifacts is to replicate it in the form of the digital ghost. The problem arises in the energy use of storing these ghosts. A remedy is to compress down the resolution of stored memories in a lo-fi state, when it is once again needed for the ghost to resurface, upscaling technologies will be used to bring it to its complete self, though its acuracy are at the hands of present human and AI interpretation
The Temporal City
Should this technology be used to refurbish past established culture?
Or should it construct something entirely unrecognizable with familiar parts?
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Readings
2EMHFW DUWHIDFW FRPSOH[ Beatriz Colomina - Are we Human? Design isn’t to help the individual, but to change the individual.
What makes the human ‘human’ is our interdependency with art human is suspended in a complex and continuous back and for itself and artifacts, a flickering that ultimately dissolves the distin them. Designed artifacts have as much agency as the animal th produced them.
Baudrillard - The System of Objects
Reality where the object triumphs of the subject The idea of structuralism, object’s meaning only exists in relatio another, instead of its own value. The objects doesn’t have to be themselves, but are there simply to form an hierarchy of objects sense of status
To that extreme, one’s identity is constructed simply with the ob own, and their inner identity becomes minuscule
The Temporal City
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n to one e useful of s that establish a jects that they
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Social Contagion Rulesets
Delay Tactic implementing delay system between connections, it will create time to react to uncertainties
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Simple Contagion
Complex Contagion
ideas can only be transferred to neighbouring nodes
ideas can only be transfer if connection exceeds threshold
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The Temporal City
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12
Lead up to Final
The Temporal City
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CLUE distribution retail 59% office 3% parking 13% The Temporal City
Block 55 buildings general post office (GPO) myer melbourne david jones
Adjacent blocks bourke st mall emporium melbourn new GPO
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Aggregation component catalogue - B55
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API Datascape Revisit
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Digital Ghost
Placing the site onto datascape
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Network Infrastructure representation of framework carrying social contagions
The Temporal City
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12.1
Non-fungible Chunks
The Temporal City
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World Generator New forms are generated out of established p with a unique block combination and hash. As that is stored are the fragments. The chunks a hash becomes more valuable than the actual
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pieces, these forms are managed as “chunks”. Each chunk is non-fungible s the actual chunks are too large to store on blockchain, the only thing are then retrieved by their assigned hash, from the bit library. Thus, the chunk
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The Temporal City
5. CCRU - Swarmmachines The situationists
Neither individuals nor groups. Neither remembered nor expected. Photonic Hypercapital digitizes eschatology. Lost futures are formatted for webbased artificial memory trading. All exclusive definition is banked at light-speed. Trading places, swapping codes, endless replications of microsituational engineering
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Historical artefacts are mummified, the syst conventional time into silicon blips of accel eradicates the significance of historical carb
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The Temporal al City Citit y
In cyberspace, do we experience space as nomads? ‘Telecommercialised nomadic multiplicity aborts nascent Euro-unity. There’s no such thing as a single market.’ - CCRU Possessed personal information transmutes into GLVSRVVHVVHG LPSHUVRQDO GDWD VDPSOHG VWUHWFKHG and layered into freeware.
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Hyperstition - fictions that make themselves actual
Stories are all trying to infect their own reality and a certain point it all begins to bleed into the real world What was once fictional is given within a supposed factual, fiction and fact are mixed in such a way, that one becomes indiscernible from the other. The future then does not hold their old definitions. It only announced for the potentiality to become whatever they are believed to be.
Mutating or alternating an existing reality...
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Work in progress aggregation The Temporal City
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12.2
Defining Ecologies
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Ecologies of Realities
001 | Data infrastructure
002 | Culture
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Description: megastructure as effect of the anthropocene Structures designed to support human but lack human presence
Description: How do spaces reflect ba Issues and their represen Formed out of anachroni accelerated by social con
Buildings become server stacks, power nodes, thrumming super-conductors, soft-machine buzz floods city - 001. There is no inherent narrative built into the datascape. There isn’t any process of worldbuilding, acquiring lore, or plot exposition. Hence, the narrative is left to us to reference personally. While the framework points to vast processes of recursion, contagion, and delay, it does so while providing a journey which connects to the user directly, personally, emotionally. It allows them to inhabit the spaces of its world, and so, to invest in them.
The Temporal City
“All of a sudden the citysc towering buildings, the m noises and the cars, ever to turn into a mineral stru or a mountain. And we fo and finite city.” - Romain E Cygne, developing Havre
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Description: Artifacts left behind, but aren’t subdued to decay, as nothing in the digital world is ever gone. Potentiality within lost futures, which can be revived and haunt present behaviors.
cape of Shinjuku, its million people inside, the rything lost its city status cture: more like a cave ound ourselves in a small Enselme, Le Chant du e
“Out of all things, this ageless object made me consider the nature of time. no signs of decay, of age, of ancient battles or latticed vines. A pure digital artifact in a desert in which it didn’t belong. Converse to its nature as a digital and therefore timeless object, it seemed to evoke the vastness of time in a meaningful way.” - Gareth Martin, Eternal Artifacts
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001 The Temporal City
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Infinite possibilities, finite results
With any procedural system, you are bound to repetition, regardless of having lies within the components. By sensing repetition, it becomes the breaking po
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g randomized inputs. The output is still constrained to the initial forms, that oint of a system that poses itself as capable of generating infinite possibilities
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12.3
Sameness Readings/ Sean Han Tani, “Tokyo Lo-fi” | Heterotopias 002 Rem Koolhaas, “Junkspace”
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One has travelled, but the repetition makes it feel like no distance has been covered. This can be a tiresome experience. As a mirroring agent, the virtual world has limited memory, which aren’t able to capture the full diversity of the real. With a digital reality so obsessively tied to immersion, strategies are adopted to mitigate repetition within a limited system, but some use sameness to explore divergent effects
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Sameness of Objects
With the right placement, a simple object can be reused throughout an area, improving the theming and atmosphere of a space without incurring a massive cost. This is a technique that permeates in videogames, intended to support th illusion of reality.
Sameness of Spaces
The second type of repetition is room-scale, architectural spaces. The recurren rooms. Even if they are filled with different objects, the walls painted in opposin the scale and layout of these rooms betrays their differences as they are all bas same blueprint.
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12.4
Sequence storyboard
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Sequence 01
Firstly foregro project, in bo
Terms to defi - Hauntologic - Hyperstition - Eschatolog - Cyberspace
The scale of start to finish
Scale x1 - Digital copy GPO, Myer s
Scale x2 - Aggregation particles, mu form a matrix emerge
Scale x3 - Resulting ec megastructu visualization
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1 Framing the digital space as a city
ounding the context behind the oth conceptually and spatially
ine cal futurism n y e nomadism
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y of block 55, various degrees of detail, shopping centre, adjecent buildings
n of existing buildings as fragmented ultiple replication of the same copy, to x of digital domains, ecologies start to
cologies creates a hyper-specialised re, referring the subdivision from earlier
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data infrastructure
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Sequence 01B ecology introduction Brief overview of 3 main ecologies The Temporal City
Lost future ruins
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Sequence 02 Grounded Context Photo projection of Bourke st Mall. Scene pans out in revealing its place in the vast digital archival framework
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Sequence 02
Series of inter outdated artif in an ever-cha
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2B Lost Future
rior scenes, containing facts that never decays anging world
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Reframing mid semester work as a representation of neuroplasticity The Temporal City
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Sequence 03 Inhabitants These shots reveals the inner complexity, and plasticity of individuals as a product of the city The fragmented identity actively re-constructs itself in a complex and internally contradictory set of social relations
unkspace circulation, nomadic experience
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Scenes from Paprika, Satoshi Kon, 2006 The Temporal City
Sequence 04 Parade (FRORJ\ 6XEFXOWXUDO FRQGLWLRQV A city revolves around hypersitition creates a culture which engages ritualistic activity to realise past ideas of the future, even if it doesn’t adhere to issues of the present The parade is a series of maquette that aims to explain consumer cultural conditions explored since mid semester The human is suspended in a complex and continuous back and forth between itself and artifacts, a flickering that ultimately dissolves the distinction between them. Designed artifacts have as much agency as the animal that seemingly produced them. Oscillating between extreme hedonistic behaviour and depression. That is the junk space experience
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Sequence 01C Data visualisations (FRORJ\ 'DWD LQIUDVWUXFWXUH Collection of data vis, that takes the marco-scaled approach at percieving human behavioral data, SHGHVWULDQ DFWLYLW\ FHUWDLQ XQFHUWDLQW\
These will be expanded upon with additional diagrams of social contagions, delay tactics
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Sketch of final collage The Temporal City
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The Temporal City Ian Nazareth | David Schwarzman RMIT Architecture Semester 2 2021 https://www.temporal.city/