Posthuman Fun Palace
Histories and Technologies Timothy Evans Unit 15 Thesis 2017 Posthuman Fun Palace
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“WE ARE FREE TO SPLASH AROUND IN THE FUNHOUSE OF FORMS” A. CODRESCU
It is the aim of this booklet to define the posthuman form and environment within the Fun Palace, through the understanding of past events on the timeline and future predictions within science and science fiction.
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“WE ARE FREE TO SPLASH AROUND IN THE FUNHOUSE OF FORMS” A. CODRESCU
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CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 2. HISTORIC THEORY DEVELOPMENT PART A: THE POSTHUMAN THEORY DEVELOPMENT TO 2016 PART B: PREDICTING THE POSTHUMAN THEORY AS OF 2066
3. THE BODY PART A: EVOLVING THEORIES OF ENTITY FORM PART B: METHODS OF TRANSFORMATION
4. THE MIND PART A: EVOLVING THEORY OF HUMAN/ ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRATION PART B: THINKING LIKE A HUMAN PART C: THINKING LIKE A POSTHUMAN
5. THE SPACES PART A: UNDERSTANDING FORM IN PRICE’S FUN PALACE PART B: DEFINING THE SPACES AND ENVIRONMENT
6. THE TIMELINE PART A: DEFINING THE POSTHUMAN SUBJECT PART B: CYBERNETIC ARCHITECTURE PART C: THEORIES OF THE ENVIRONMENT PART D: ENVIRONMENTAL INTERFACES IN SCIENCE FICTION PART E: EVOLVING THEORIES OF HUMAN/ENVIRONMENT INTEGRATION
7. CONCLUSION
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1964 Cedric Price
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
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A INTRODUCTION
Through the histories, theories, technologies, technicalities, social and political concerns of becoming posthuman along with the rich involvement of science fiction, we can develop a detailed brief on the need of a methodology towards developing ourselves into a posthuman. The need for this guide now is of vital importance, given the rapid adoption of media coverage on the topic through both science fiction and actual scientific achievements like the neural lace, synthetic limb replacement and mixed reality architectures. This paper uses historical and recent theories along with science fiction stories to create a speculative prediction of the technologies and theories in place within the Fun Palace. The data collected here will be used to create a critical and grounded personal exploration of the park in the following companion guide.
The Timeline: The final part of this technical companion includes a breakdown to the Posthuman Timeline. Due to the complexity of the original and the lack of technological advancement to make this fully interactive, this section will simplify the majority of connections shown on the timeline diagram. It will highlight the categories, content and logical links.
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2015 Interactive Architecture Lab - Project Ant Ballet
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HISTORIC THEORY DEVELOPMENT Histories and Technologies
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A THE POSTHUMAN THEORY DEVELOPMENT TO 2016 In order to create the speculative companion guide of the Fun Palace, I will selectively demonstrate a predicted route of progression between now and 2066 through the exploration of past and predicted posthuman theories and stories. Posthuman theory is not generally written about using the terminology I use in this guide, just like the goals of an evolving human, the names and genres have transformed over time. The idea of evolving our bodies and environment to make life easier or more interesting can be said to date back to the transition from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, where the development of stone tools enhanced our ability to craft and adapt nature around our needs. “Toolmaking creates an environment conducive to increased social interactions, as it facilitates increased provisioning and protection,” Ko, K.H. (2016). This intelligence can be seen developing exponentially since that point, and the studies of Ray Kurzweil would suggest this growth factor will not slow as we progress into the future. He suggests that our development of technology will reach a “technological singularity” where both we will transcend biology and machines will develop a superintelligence that rivals humanity. The definition of a posthuman is rapidly different over the last 50 years as it appears in different media and categories. It also draws very different conclusions on the result of post-humanism by opposed futurists-
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Francis Fukuyama, in Our Posthuman Future (2002) discussed the “dehumanising” result that would come from biotechnological amelioration, against Kurzweil’s book, The Singularity is near (2005) which considers the positive result of merging technology with human cognition. Both of these sides as Ariane Lourie Harrison puts it, “blend as we come to understand what post humanism offers for an architectural theorization of the environment” (2013). Although they both offer different perceptions of our future, they both interrogate the relationship between humans and our environment, by considering both the technological and the psychological factors.
2013 Jason Hopkins - Supermodel, Size Zero
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B THE POSTHUMAN THEORY AS OF 2066 The post-singularity era is predicted to break down all ways of life when the threshold is passed in 2045. With the rapidly expanding robotics and strong AI sector, gold currency will no longer be a valuable asset and will not be accepted in the mechanised world. However without this burden on humans and posthumans the role of jobs is expected to be very different. The old hard graft jobs will no longer be carried out by us and therefore we will focus our time towards jobs that enhance our consciousness interpretation. Art and knowledge turn into the new currency. As predicted by Ivan Chtcheglov in Formulary for a New Urbanism (1953) “The architecture of tomorrow will be a means of modifying present conceptions of time and space. It will be both a means of knowledge and a means of action.” This is the goal of the fun palace, to experiment with the true interaction between ourselves and our architecture. However how do we know what style to follow, what informs the design of this interrelationship between user and architecture? With Post-humanism set to make us and our environment as efficient as possible the Fun Palace requires an element of ‘fun’ – A New Dada. Dada is needed as a corrective for maximising posthuman entertainment and desire in the increasingly efficient world. Following both the First World War and the Second World War, artists and architects filled the abandoned factories to develop new artistic forms, one of these offshoots became the foundation of Dadaism, although as a form Dada is highly contradictive the founding rules or what dada may consider anti-rules, creates a framework architecture that allows each and every one of us to use
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and evolve into a highly personal expression. This is the role of the fun palace, as with Cedric Price’ Fun Palace, the posthuman fun palace provides the framework to promote user self-expression. As with every revolution, the current use of buildings will no longer be required or maintained, the rapid expanse of densely populated residential forests may become bare and half furnished. Communities will no longer be positioned based on wage, it is likely that districts will become largely diverse based upon peoples interests and morals. This will also mean that the available technologies to manipulate the body, would see districts adopting new homogenous body forms.
1953 Ivan Chtcheglov in Formulary for a New Urbanism
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3.0 THE BODY
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A EVOLVING THEORIES OF ENTITY FORM Human embodiment is a topic that remains in constant change as we progress through a technological explosion. Although a number of science fiction and hard science researchers are sharing an increasing number of posthuman bodies that feed off of the basic human form, there are a growing number of illustrations and technologies that are ready to embrace new body designs. It is clear that our current built-environment is suited specifically the 95th percentile of the human form, however with the ability to adapt future cities radically as suggested by the timeline, new body figures can be designed in line with new environments. The first analysis of the human form in 1490 was Leonado’s Vitruvian Man to demonstrate the standard body proportions using a circle and square as a demonstration of fusing artistic and scientific objectives. This is then developed by Le Corbusier in 1945 with his Modular man who originally created this to unify different scales, imperial and metric, and was then used as a universal diagram to design architecture and mechanics around. The first demonstration of a machinic body can be considered to be La Mettrie’s L’homme machine in 1748. Since the introduction of the cybernetic theories, more illustrations of bodily forms have been created, utilizing the work of Norbert Weiner to create a networked body. The term cyborg (from cybernetic organism) was coined by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline in 1960 when they presented the first attempt to create one. It was a rat fitted with an osmotic pump, created as part of the preparations for travelling to the moon. The idea was to equilibrate
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a human body for space as a step towards adapting a human to any environment they desire. That act of combining machines with animals would allow for a greater ability to adapt the organic system for harsh environments that it would not otherwise be able to adapt for. This work has set the groundwork for the goal of post humanism with, “human-animal exchanges, networks, bodily enhancement and designed environments� Harrison (2013: 5).
Left: 1490 Leonado Da Vinci - Vitruvian Man Right: 1945 Le Corbusier - Modular man
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B METHODS OF THE TRANSFORMATION One path is to develop your own body and then design your environment around yourself. This is the method that humans and animals have always used until now, where the ability to change the body has been limited by additions of clothing, tattoos or artificial limbs/prosthetics. Many people have developed ways to demonstrate the proportions of our bodies which can then help to inform the ratio’s we use in design. Taking the first analysis of the human form in 1490 was Leonado’s Vitruvian Man to demonstrate the standard body proportions using a circle and square as a demonstration of fusing artistic and scientific objectives. This is then developed by Le Corbusier in 1945 with his Modular man who originally created this to unify different scales, imperial and metric, and was then used as a universal diagram to design architecture and mechanics around. For those who are currently between the transitions of human and posthuman, there have been many developing ideas on improving the human form starting in 1748 with La Mettrie’s L’Homme Machine which articulated a machinic body and later on followed by the first networked body by Norbert Weiner (1948), which is essential for collaborative research and design in the Fun Palace. See Cognitive thought: Human Environment Integration for more on the networked body. Until now networking has needed to be done via a peer to peer or human to human contact, entering the Fun Palace opens up a mesh connection between all objects and entities, allowing for full control and feedback over thoughts and negotiations. Mesh connections fall in line with the third wave of cybernetic theory, and remove the idea of a single relay between
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yourself and the environment, every part of system becomes its own node within the network both influencing and being influenced by all other parts of the network. As Donna Haraway defined in her Cyborg Manifesto (1985), “a cyborg is is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality”. A journey through the Fun Palace will augment your body in a modular form as you interact with the environment, should you enjoy the water, the route you take will gradually submerge you further and further into the water starting with the extension of your feet into large slip resistant fins, followed by hydrophobic skin tattoo’s to synthetic limb replacement to allow easy transitions through water with a reduced drag coefficient.
2016 Charles Lieber - Neural Lace
One of the technical requirements for controlling the Fun Palace with your body is to upgrade yourself with a Neural Lace. The term was originally introduced by the novelist Ian M Banks and the device was later developed and popularised by tech savvy Elon Musk. The small brain implant is a mesh like device that is surgically installed by specialists and then allowed to be enveloped by your brain which creates neural connections between neurons and a digital processor. Your body is then able connect
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to the internet and control it like a muscle within your body. Musk popularised this device in January 2017 with an article promoting the use of the device he was developing to ensure we retain control over AI’s, otherwise they may control us like pets. Learning to control this device takes time but will allow you to manipulate the nanobots within the park to construct objects and architectures. One of the big leaps into post-humanism is the interchangeability of sexuality. As advertised by the retail shop Transformation since 1984 “Before/After - This could be you! No matter what your age or shape”. The posthuman adaptation is gender neutral, however you have the choice to express yourself through any physical manifestation. Hayles tells us we are already posthuman but through her work asks the question of “what sort of posthuman are we tuning into?” Shaviro (2002: 3). It is essential to use the process of Dada to experience everything within the Fun Palace in the way that Bjork and director Chris Cunningham do in the music Video “All is full of love”. Use it as a soundtrack to experimenting with modular expansion, in the way they open up the potentials of virtual reality and cyborg-being, by creating your own science fiction narrative. However this video is very streamline and minimal in visual aesthetic, a Dada will not dwell on excessive wastage, but embellish the art of performance. One of their innovative works was ‘Brutism’, “an infernal mix of mechanical noises and human voices making up loud nonsense words, heavy on consonant like z and r and s repeated zzzzz, rrrr, sssss, until both performers and audience experienced rhythmic trance.” Codrescu (2009:33). Although many would argue about the different times you became post-human, the last stage may be considered
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the time you fully remove the human element. A cognitive upload into completely adaptable and evolving synthetic form is a guaranteed posthuman, it is at this time we remove all currently known limitations of our mind, creativity and expandability. You can take on any form and provide any requirement of brain processing power to creatively interact within the Fun Palace. Removing our human shell and entering a form capable of unconstrained cognitive power is questioned by many people, morally and ethically, like Francis Fukuyama (2002) who highlights the “dehumanising� effect of biotechnological advancement. The Fun Palace, unlike reality, does not conform to any dystopic ideals and so this need not be considered. Complete cognitive transference into a fully synthetic form is a one way trip and will not allow for the habitation of your mind within a human form again, although once part of the network stepping backwards in technological form will not be worth considering.
1996 Stalarc - Ping Body
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4.0 THE MIND
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A EVOLVING THEORY OF HUMAN/ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRATION The unification of human and technology has always been considered to be a necessary step across various different topics and this has therefore resulted in an expansive dialect, with theories being developed over time in line with technological advances and developing science fiction narratives. In this section I will attempt to expand upon the work of N. Katherine Hales and Ariane L. Harrison on their categorisation of cybernetic theory between 1945 and today. Cybernetic theory is very relevant to post-humanism because of its ties between an object or a body and its surroundings, i.e. the environment. This is crucial for this guide to begin developing the interaction between our posthuman and the city. The waves of cybernetic theory have been broken into three stages and are grouped by their description of environmental feedback. The first person to form this wave/movement considered the notion of environmental feedback within cybernetics was Norbert Wiener in 1948. He was a mathematician who published the book Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. This book can be considered the first major step towards posthumanism in the city because of its critical analysis of the flows of data between animal cognition and mechanical substrate, to form a network. It is the idea of creating a network that is of most interest to us, as we are aware that intelligence and the key to expanding knowledge relies primarily on network infrastructure that contains these flows. When Wiener started this theory on the network of flows he also planted a seed to create a network of disciplines that
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adopted and grew cybernetics. The key principles of cybernetics is feedback, information and model. Feedback is a general principle “making possible the explanation of a series of phenomena taking place in various dynamic systems” (Department of Cybernetics). This can be considered the result of a system carrying out its task, presenting the information gained or extrapolated in the process. The information can be considered the role of cybernetics, it is the knowledge that represents an important entity that changes our lives bringing us closer and closer to the efficiency of a posthuman. The methodical study of multiple different systems led to the understanding that these can display similar behaviours and “the behaviour of one system can be studied by means of another, more easily implemented system under completely different time and space conditions” (Department of Cybernetics). Wiener, along with mathematician and engineer Claude Shannon, who wrote the fundamental principles on information theory, promoted a signal/noise or signaller/ receiver concept of information. This shows the first wave of cybernetics, focusing on two separate entities the one sending information and the one receiving it. These two objects are considered as a separate “dematerialised view of information, one that regarded consciousness itself as a pattern independent of the material world,” Harrison (2013: 6). This reductionist outlook as a network became a starting point for environmental feedback and manipulation, where Hayles’ work posits how this lead towards the transference of human consciousness into an external system. This transcendent view was promoted by the work of Kurzweil and Nick Bostrum. The second wave which appeared around the
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late 1960’s developed “a more complex, autopoetic informational system,” Harrison (2013: 6). Francisco Varela, Humberto Maturana and Gregory Bateson, expanded on the previous system to include an observer within the self-reflexive network. “the concept of autopoesis – that an organism simultaneously maintains an openness to energetic and environmental stimuli and a formal enclosure within its environment – views information in its specific material context” Harrison (2013: 6). The theory is only a slight evolution from the previous stage, however it takes on an embodied view to interacting between a user and the environment. This wave is based on the detailed look into the way a frogs eye communicates with a frogs brain. It is important for this guide because of the discovery made on the actual perception of reality and the transformation of human to posthuman. The study of an autopoetic system showed that it is likely the human brain “does not so much discern preexisting systems as create them through the very act of observation”, Hales (1999: 131). It went through many iterations into the inclusion of reflexivity, a bidirectional relationship between cause and effect, where both entities have an effect on each other. Maturana within this considered cognition as a biological phenomenon. The third wave which appeared in 1980 and stretches until around 2010, came about from the introduction of self-organisation which sprung into emergence. With the increased use of programmed artificial intelligence within games, characters where coded to evolve their capacity to evolve. Some academics have argued that this in itself is life. Primarily developed by Hayles, Rodney Brooks and Eugene Thacker, this wave is about the physical nature of networks, with “machinic and organic matrixes in the fields of
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artificial intelligence, biotechnology and nanotechnology” Harrison (2013: 7). The newest wave which drops the cybernetics to be considered as simply “The fourth Wave” Is being researched by Molly Steenson, focuses on logic and self-reflexivity. She explains it as not so much of a theory but a toolset to understand the current human and technological structures in the system. It considers what happens when the system redefines itself within the large context and how the system will immerge into its environment. Although this order has yet to be extensively understood its distributed nature provides a detailed description of the operations of the Fun Palace. It considers the discrete observer’s boundaries as problematic because a single agent is unable to see enough of the system from a single point. It is possible to use the first order to be a single observer but you would not be able to conceive all of what the system ‘knows’. One of the ways to understand the system would be to consider a music ensemble, formed of a network of players, collaborating to entertain themselves and a larger audience. The ensemble collectively carry out a number of musical actions and solos but individually react to the audience’s responses and cheering. It operates as a system in its context and as a system that is part of the context. This therefore allows the Fun Palace to become a meta-system feeding from self-awareness, self-healing and self-directing, whilst containing posthumans with the same abilities.
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B THINKING LIKE A HUMAN
Based on the technologies discussed within the included timeline and technical section, the road to becoming posthuman is entirely customisable and the speed and level of adaptation is entirely up to the user. The two extremities would be either gradually transforming our organic bodies piece by piece like a growing tattoo, or full immersion from biological substrate to synthetic metabrain. It is at this stage that generally separates the current theories on the posthuman, although the designed form is vastly different, what is generally discussed is the role of human consciousness in transitioning into the next form of evolution. Peter Baofu looks into what he calls the ‘mental argument’ within the theoretical debate on architecture (2012). This focuses on the biological and psychological manners of architecture, with the first side being intelligence-based design, “for a close relationship between mind and matter in a built environment” (Baofu, 2012:14). It explains how the human mind forms direct neurological assessments of architectural elements like structure, patterns, surfaces and textures. According to the theory our human mind requires a neuro-engagement to the physical world amongst all people to have a healthy sense of well-being. This is currently considered within the field of architecture and urbanisation. However with the intense focus on neurological engagement it has been criticised for excluding a consideration on other human characteristics like emotion, imagination and reason. This can be considered a binary way of looking at the interaction, like the first wave of cybernetic theory, although
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for this thesis it does pose an argument for a trait within human nature, that may not necessarily be available in non-human human forms. The second is biophilia hypothesis, for the human love of living systems, as coined by Erich Fromm in 1965 and developed into a hypothesis in 1985 by Edward Wilson. It discussed how there is a distinct biological connection and bond between living animals. This allows us to thrive in environments with a mixed ratio of life forms present, making the distinction between curated habitats that we live in and isolated cube. In relation to architecture this term refers to the use of natural planting/ventilation to blue the boundary between building and landscape. The only conflict this theory raises is that the hypothesis has yet to be proved and it has problems for those who don’t believe in evolutionary theory, and the love of other living systems is a “product of biological evolution� F Facchini (2010: 297). In thinking like a human we discover a few traits within intelligence design theory and the biophillia hypothesis that makes the distinction between human and nonhuman actors. These points which suggest that the human mind requires fulfilment from the physical world would lead towards opposed futurist theories from people like Fukuyama, where there will always be a difference between base human cognition and post-human/non-human cognition. This raises more psychological questions with how our consciousness will link with our design environment.
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5.0 THE SPACES
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A UNDERSTANDING FORM IN PRICE’S FUN PALACE It is important to realise that the form of Price’s Fun Palace was not meant to be the attraction to the park. It was designed only as a framework to provide an environment in which to create forms, isolated from the framework itself. There is however the argument that this framework did indeed have its own aesthetic to it. “The Fun Palace was not a building in any conventional sense, but was instead a socially interactive machine, highly adaptable to the shifting cultural and social conditions of its time and place.” Stanley Matthews (2005:73). Price used the fun palace to develop a unique collection of discourses and theories within cybernetics, Situationism, theatre, information technology and game theory. Which generated a “new kind of improvisational architecture to negotiate the constantly shifting cultural landscape of the postwar years” Mathews (2005:73). It was Joan Littlewood’s new idea and design for an avantgarde theatre which provided the framework for Price to expand on with her interactive and evolving, performative theatre. The spaces were designed to enhance individual fulfilment through the use of a crane and modular sections, this is the same as the posthuman Fun Palace, although in a post-scarcity landscape the role of Dada is used to create fulfilment. This would rely on the same framework, as Dada has always been a performative and visual based experience and ideology, although the primary difference is the introduction of collaboration of the users architectures.
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1968 Cybernetic Serendipity
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B DEFINING THE SPACES AND ENVIRONMENT Architecture within the Fun Palace is fabricated instantly via nanobots able to reconstitute matter into any form within the park. These nanobots are controlled directly by the user and are distributed across the park, Synthetic humans have a direct data connection to the mesh network with distributes commands to individual bots. Modular humans require a neural lace connection to join the mesh network, as verbal and visual connection are unable to sustain sufficient data transference. As Harrison explains “postwar artists and architects, often in collaboration, adopted cybernetics, semiotics, and communication theories to justify their attempts to animate physical constructions and buildings.” (2013: 11). The term Anthropocene is a term created by Eugene Stoermer and Paul Crutzen which describes the present geological era where climate change has been largely affected by humans. This term is commonly addressed with posthuman theories because of the increasing reliance of nature on technology. There are already a number of destinations inspired by Ivan Chtcheglov’s Formulary for a New Urbanism (1953):
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Showerbath of the Patriarchs
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Meat Cutting Machines
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Notre Dame Zoo
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Hotel of Strangers
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Golden Touch Sawmill
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The Hotel of the Epoch.
1968 Gordon Pask - Colloque of Mobiles
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