Architecture is usually understood as the science, or art, of designing buildings with a view to constructing them, but among its current definitions one also finds concepts such as “network architecture”, and the structural interaction, behaviour or design of a computer system or programme, down to the attributes of particular components of the system. Seen in this light, I would suggest, one could easily conceive of Facebook as a kind of cyber-architecture, where “cyber” denotes the virtual reality-environment — as opposed to the actual, or concrete reality-environment — in which it exists.
In the light of what I recently argued concerning the potential for “social control” created by the publicness of a plethora of personal information posted on Facebook — and other social networking sites like MySpace — it makes sense to comprehend such sites in terms of their “architectural” properties as defined above. All the more so, considering that architecture is the art of modulating space into place, and the kind of world opened up by computers via the entrance into the cyber-realm peculiar to it is conceived of as “virtual space”, within which all kinds of virtual places exist side by side, sometimes leading into and overlapping one another in uncanny, hyperlinked ways. In this respect the web resembles a gigantic, rhizomatically interconnected domain, somewhat like Bluebeard’s Castle, where some people have entered more rooms than others (sometimes with grave consequences), and the rooms keep on multiplying.
What strikes me about Facebook and MySpace is that, what Foucault observes in Discipline and punish regarding a certain kind of architecture that emerged in the course of the history of modernity, neatly captures, metaphorically, the overall societal function of the wide array of disciplinary techniques that has developed since then, from which one cannot exempt these virtual places:
“A whole problematic then develops: that of an architecture that is no longer built simply to be seen [as with the ostentation of palaces], or to observe the external space (cf. the geometry of fortresses), but to permit an internal, articulated and detailed control — to render visible those who are inside it; in more general terms, an architecture that would operate to transform individuals: to act on those it shelters, to provide a hold on their conduct, to carry the effects of power right to them, to make it possible to know them, to alter them. Stones can make people docile and knowable.”
I would like to add: Not only stones, but virtual visibility, too. Facebook and MySpace represent the cyber-counterpart of such architecture, and ultimately participates in its panoptical, disciplinary function. Evidently, judging by the cases referred to by Jeffrey Rosen in his New York Times-article on Facebook and MySpace (referred to by Mistral in my previous post), people are learning the hard lesson, that using, or “virtually inhabiting” these cyberspaces, unavoidably places them in the glare of virtual surveillance, with the same kind of consequences as those that prisoners in a panoptical prison experience when they engage in inadmissible activities in full view of warders.
An innocently intended photograph, or letter, published on one’s personal site on Facebook or MySpace, provides the means for (perhaps unexpected) censure or persecution by government agencies, educational, medical, or a host of professional authorities. Seen in this light, these communicational technologies comprise an extension of the disciplinary practices identified by Foucault, with the surprising twist, that participants in these social, communicational exchanges do not do so under duress, but voluntarily, with the supposed intention of sharing their personal experiences with others of their choosing. As already indicated, however, these “others” probably include individuals and representatives of agencies never counted in the circle of “friends” selected by users.
There is another side to this, too, however, although it cannot be separated from the panoptical side, and it, too, has to do with architecture. Historians of architecture usually distinguish between “non-pedigreed” (or “vernacular”) and “pedigreed architecture”, and Karsten Harries has drawn attention to the fact that most architectural histories turn out to be those of “architecture” such as sacred architecture (churches, temples), state architecture (houses of Parliament, town halls, law courts, libraries), other instances of public architecture (theatres and museums), corporate buildings (Mies’s Seagram Building, for instance) and the exceptional ones among private residences (like those designed by Frank Lloyd Wright).
It is not difficult to see in this list the implicit historical privileging of different kinds of society: sacred buildings (which predominated in architectural history until the 18th-century European Enlightenment) signify premodern, religion-oriented societies; the predominance of public, state buildings correspond with the nation state-oriented modern epoch, and today, the predominance of corporate buildings is symptomatic of the economically-oriented, postmodern society.
There is one big difference between the first two kinds of society and the last: Harries points out that, when sacred buildings like temples and churches predominated, and also when the public buildings signifying the centrality of the state preponderated, these architectural works were linked with a sense of community. In Harries’s words (in ‘The ethical function of architecture’):
“The ethical function of architecture is inevitably also a public function. Sacred and public architecture provides the community with a center or centers. Individuals gain their sense of place in a history, in a community, by relating their dwelling to that center.”
It is significant that “centre” is here understood in both a spatial and a cosmological sense — the church or temple occupied a politically important geographic place in the city, and also signified a symbolically crucial “place” or beacon in the religious or cosmological beliefs of these people (that is, regarding their spiritual “place” in the universe). This is why it was significant in promoting a sense of community. In the postmodern world, where economic considerations dominate, this sense of community is not entirely absent, but exists only in a fragmentary manner, and although, as Joel Bakan has observed, corporations structure our lives today, corporate culture does not promote a sense of community beyond the fragile one that adheres to brand or product loyalty.
But where does Facebook fit into all of this? It has to do with the fragmented, non-centred structure of postmodern society, from which, by all accounts, many (especially young) people feel alienated. Sherry Turkle (in Life on the screen) discusses several instances of young people who, not being able to secure a fulfilling job, having to settle for something arbitrary in the end (just to have an income), increasingly find personal and social fulfilment on the internet, in MUDs and social networking groups — surprisingly, even to the extent that they report “political involvement” (of a virtual kind) in online community organisations, while simultaneously professing complete lack of interest in “real world” politics.
Similar signs of virtual community-feeling are evident in online game-spaces, especially that of World of Warcraft, which boasts millions of users worldwide. Several surveys have found that players get so involved in this gaming cyberscape that they neglect their concrete lives to the point of losing their families, homes and incomes. But the message is the same as that transmitted by indications of the many hours that some Facebook users spend on the site: in the absence of the sense of community signified by the architectural-historical role of churches and public buildings, and because corporate architecture lacks the capacity to impart such a sense (like that in Houston, Texas, which Harries describes as signalling a “sense of nonplace”), many people are in the process of looking for the lost community online, on social networking sites and in the virtual spaces of online games. Such sites therefore seem, in this respect, to function like architecture has historically, and one may wonder what this augurs for the future of human communities.
I arrive at varsity around 10 o’clock daily. it takes me around 5 minutes to walk from my car to my desk in the fifth year studio. on arrival, I greet my peers and begin to empty the contents of my bag. first out is my laptop, my faithful stead. I flip it open and press the big round button the side. It glows lime green, i get a warm tingle down my spine. so far so good. i connect up to the network and my first port of call is facebook. nothings changed, no new messages in my inbox, no posts on my wall, no new friend requests, nothing. that’s alright, I’ll just skim through other peoples profiles and see what’s going on in their lives.
Facebook has become a platform for people to share their lives to their friends,family and complete strangers. it has become a modern-day agora, a public place where people go to watch, interact and interpret humans in order to compare their lives with our own personal experiences. It’s people watching on a whole new level and is this a bad thing. The status function on facebook is a tool that people use to update their current emotions. this is a phrase or quote that comes after a persons profile name. Sometimes I come accross the oddest status updates like ‘herman boysens is hungry’ or ‘angela maikin is sad’. some of these updates are silly and most of them
are best left unsaid, but every now and then, you come accross one that is an obvious attempt by someone seeking help, affection, love or just friendship. My point is that facebook is a tool where people can express their feelings without having to be judged on a personal level. it,s alot easier to express your emotions when you’re behind a screen than when you’re in the physical company of a person. Having said this, I believe facebook can be used to point out a problem before it becomes to late, whether its someone suffering from depression or abuse from a relative. Yes we are being watched. We’ve known this for some time. But if you nothing to hide, then perhaps their is a positive side to being watched.
Architecture facilitates life, in an excessive, synergetic, feels right Goldilocks effect kind of way; this it to say, it facilitates life in a LIFE kind of way. Just reducing the chances of death and suffering is not that. Architecture is awesomeness and chill at the same time.
The primary requirement for Architecture is quality space. This is not the result of any aesthetic theory; it is what happens when life is performed/experienced in space-time. So it has arguably more to do with the subject that the object, not that the two need be un-merged. This is easily understood with regard to the porn/erotica dialectic, the same image, performed in the minds of different people will result in differing results. A case example would come from the film ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ (2003) by Peter Webber, where the image in question is adored by some, and controversial, even obscene to others.
The digestibility of the Space-Time by an individual could then be taken to establish the case of ‘architecture’ or ‘not’. This is not taste, taste is the result of applied preconceptions of what ‘you think you like’ not what feels good. It is often the case that many people cannot tell the difference. This is seen in cases where people claim to enjoy something that obviously does not agree with them, or the other way around.
What I am trying to say, is that this goes deeper than conventionally assumed subjective difference, or what one may call semantics. Semantics involves opinion, which is generally logical, which is to say, it has ‘reasons’. Reasons, or more specifically our attachment to them, have a horrible way of preventing experience more than facilitating it, and experience is a necessary ingredient of quality space. Experiencing one’s own thought is no more experience than thinking about happiness makes you happy. Even a suicidal person can think of happiness, which may make it worse, because it underlies what they don’t have.
Calling FB cyber architecture is an interesting alignment, in that; it can facilitate life and the possibility of transcending experiences are there. Where it may fall short is in its ability to highlight the sacredness of experiencing life. There is just something about the way it is conventionally performed which is pretentiously trivial. This could of course be an area where my space-time digestion requires stretching. But where the actual site itself is concerned I have found their web design to be good. There is a simplicity to it that is almost poetic, it even makes ugly people and internet predators look friendly; which is why I don’t have an issue with the ‘big brother watching’ thing. We live in a world full of madness, and it is unfortunately the case that protection from it is, to a certain degree, necessary. What is more unfortunate – is that the people doing the protecting are themselves not entirely free from this self same madness.
There are always reasons to panic; fascism, fetishism, and general identity confusion all existed long before FB.
As sudjested by Ettlinger, in her publication of, In Search of Architecture in Virtual Space,
Since architecture is also known as the art of space, it is only fitting that in our attempt to interpret the world of pictorial images in terms of a space, we would turn to works of art with architectural content in them. In terms of facebook, it’s the graphics generated by pixels on a computer screen, that give an attractive virtual space, space that cannot be felt, or touched or experienced, a space that give multi-personalities a platform to engage with a virtual community, that people of the 20th century have bought into in light of the movement into the 21st century. A platform that has and is abused by big corporations and other media to engage in people’s lives and personal information. All this is known by most of the users, and people still use it and avoid the true architectural space that has meaning and feeling, and avoid their true community as they know that they will be seen for who they truly are.
My view is that people are engaged with the true notion of architectural space in their everyday lives, moving from home to work, or be it from home to school, and are faced with the interactions of new people on trains, buses, parking lot, parks etc, and still have the opportunity to be who they are and enjoy the spaces they are in, they all do however have found a platform to express themselves to friends and strangers as to their feelings on a momentary 10mins that they’ll manage to log on to facebook. So it is actually a parallel world, virtual and real space that actually work hand in hand as long as people know their stand and use both spaces in a meaningful manner.
What is virtual reality?
We begin to ask, where is what we see?
Is it physical space? No
Mental Space? No
Non physical space? It is not tangible, it is not real. Virtual space is limitless. ‘Virtual reality’ is an oxymoron as ‘virtual’ is opposite to ‘reality.’ ‘Virtual’ Space denotes to the ‘non physical.’ One has to question is Facebook even virtual architecture as this would mean it would have to be a non physical space? It is not so much a space but a place.
‘Virtual’ also denotes illusion. Facebook on some level is an illusion. Facebook does not occupy real space yet the characters within it are real. This offers a false sense of comfort and security. The 500 people on your friends list may be listed under friends but when last did you speak to your grade 9 classmate you weren’t actually friends with or maybe that one guy you met once 2 years ago at a party in London? People using the site are more likely to say and post things they usually would not tell 10 let alone 300 people. It allows people the freedom to ‘internet stalk’ people. The line between personal privacy is blurred and one questions what should be kept private and what not. Facebook offers a false sense of freedom of speech. You are welcome to speak your mind but there may be consequences. Already this week, we have seen celebrities speak out like the Australian swimmer, Stephanie Rice who said’
‘Suck on that faggots’ after the Springboks lost to the Aussies. As a consequence Jaguar has withdrawn their contract with her. Celebrities are even more susceptible to getting into trouble than the rest of us.
On the flip side it has allowed many people to connect with others across the globe, small businesses have an opportunity to show their products for free, others have a chance to network for work. I feel the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages and the 500 million who have joined realise these advantages.
I think face book is an excellent tool that creates a successful platform for social interaction throughout the world. It surely creates a synchronized interactive space that promotes the idea of us being global citizens which is very much relevant when one considers today’s world where human existence[and survival] is based on information technologies of which the internet is the centre and the organizing form. However, its architecture leaves a lot be desired. My feeling is that it offers a picturesque kind of architecture that puts more emphasis on image over content and meaning thus creating this romantic but limiting space that to some extent alienates us not from reality but the totality of reality. Its full potential is definitely not being explored considering the immense exposure it bears. It’s almost one sided and does not afford one the opportunity to talk about other serious issues that need urgent awareness. It’s mostly about this utopian space in which we share images and videos, send birthday massages, tell other people how much we love and miss them, etc. It is very refreshing but far from total reality. Good architecture is essentially about serving different needs of people through creating multi-layered spaces that are able to engage one’s different senses on different levels within a well defined structure and this is the one quality that seriously lacks in face book.
It lacks the other layers of space that could afford one the opportunity to engage in discussions that are of issues that hold content. Issues such as the real impact and functions of the 2010 world cup stadiums now that the world cup is over or the move towards fascism that we seem to be experiencing in South Africa. I strongly believe that face book would be more valuable and complete if it was designed in such a way that it gave its users an option of switching from the pretty world it has created to a more serious one that’s missing[and vice versa].
I would whole heartedly agree that one could argue that the cyber world is one that is of an architectural nature, as was stated; architecture is the creation of a space that one refers to as a place in a personal capacity, it is what bonds man to his environment as he knows it. This place is however not one that is of a realistic matter but rather one of a virtual world, which in our young infancy as a technological generation, is unbeknown to man in his uneducated understanding of this technological state.
This creates an issue which divides society, as the younger generations learn from an early age how to use and engage with this virtual world – becoming the pro’s and the masters, but leaves the older generations unattached and unable to understand it. This has a profound impact on society, as the elders in society, the guru’s of experience, cannot pass down vital learning experience they have encounted through their personal journeys through life. This leaves a younger generation with very little guidance and structure in what social issues should be carried forward in how to adapt and develop society in the future.
This issue of a young society emerging with little foundation in the past leaves an opportunity for a new society to develop and emerge, which we are currently living at present. As this represents a dawn of a new age – the age fuelled by the advancement and progression of technology.
We have all witnessed the effects of this new age, and are currently going through the stages of the growing pains. A period where debates such as this topic emerge as society bonds together to seek the guidance and understanding of what is lacking. This may be seen as the crafting of the architecture for our new age, as the debates rage on and society finds is feet in what it deems fit and unworthy of being part of this new age.
One of the biggest concerns with this new age is in the nature or method of taking part in this new means of communication to form our new social construct. As it poses a network that links all together, but yet physically places individuals in private places scattered in all corners of the world. This has positive and negative connotations, positive; in the regard that opinions may be received from a diverse group of people which fuels topics for debate, and negative; as it isolates and separates individuals from each other – loss of human contact. Reference was made to the pre-modern, religious based society, which used the placement of the church as the dominant form of control and education within the society, but where this differs from our new age, is that in the past the individual, the physical being as a character and person, was drawn out of the private dwelling space to take part in society through the means of physical contact and literal engagement with
others. In our new age today, the individual remains in the “comforts” of their home / work place, communicating through a method that provides no personal interaction or physical contact with the soul of a human being. The essence of our being has been lost, our connection to others and to that which makes us the dominant species on earth. This new method of communication only works and is accepted because of the breakdown in the social construct of past and present society, partly due to the effects of the world wars, political dominance and the adverse effects of the capitalist attitudes to evoke consumerism. These three issues have single handily caused the destruction of our society, and what has resulted is an individual emerging in our present day that has no personal identity or character. What the new age presents this individual with, is the opportunity to express their inner character in a manner that is free and non judgemental (well not face to face). Our new generation has found a place for the freedom of expression, but at the expense of personal contact and that which connects our souls as human beings to the greater good of being a living human on earth.
Individuals now choose to stay indoors, encapsulated by this virtual cyber-place that provides communication, freedom of expression and entertainment – all in an isolated cut off manner, the will to experience the sun and the wind on your face while waiting for a friend at a local gathering spot is being lost to a world that offers the realms of fictional characters and unknown darkness. One cannot deny the positive attributes that this new age of technology has brought to our daily lives, but one can only hope that the crafting of the architecture for this new age is constructed with an integrity that respects and is founded on the essence of life, that makes which brings dignity and humanity to our daily existence, as I still prefer having a conversation face to face.
Facebook is one of the many architectural spaces existing in the cyber world that has come to bridge the gap created by the problems that modern society (community) has. The postmodern community has lost its sense of a centralised theme (churches, government etc), instead it has become more individualistic and lacks a support system among fraternities similar in nature, or share similar values. This is not an issue with the younger generation only, even the older generation has also been hit with this decentralised structure as evidenced from the numerous strikes that South Africa currently experiences . South Africa being the architect of the spirit of UBUNTU, a concept that promotes caring and respect every member of a society regardless of their affiliations (I am because others are) could have avoided these strikes if government practised UBUNTU and decided to just raise salaries for all civil servants across the board regardless of their profession and locations, and not wait for a particular profession to strike before raising their salaries, then take chances with the other professions.
This decentralised way of thinking has also affected the young generation as they no longer feel the need to hang out with peers of their age and do some sport, read books, e.t.c, in the real world, and Instead they prefer to withdraw to their bedrooms and enter into their own world (cyber world), using the computer looking for amusement from the variety of things being offered there, amongst them face book.
Facebook has created a home for the community in the cyber world, that has its advantages and disadvantages , the pros being the ability for the users to share ideas, help each other with problems (social, educational, spiritual etc), and the cons being encouraging the separation of the youthful generation from the real world which if they could tap in, they would get a lot of knowledge and wisdom,(have you ever wondered why is it that the youth of today can not spell and write properly when they can talk and operate sophisticated computers? As an individual who has benefited from facebook through a link (architectural books) that a friend sent me when I was struggling to find relevant books for the work I was doing would say one need to be careful of not losing themselves in some cyber created spaces but have time to balance between the real world and the imaginary because by the end of the day much as we might not like it we live in a real world.
Facebook as a cyber architecture reminds me quite of the movie THE MATRIX where two worlds exist, the real world, filled with which I will not deny seemed like a horrible place, grey in nature, people eating muck, dressed shabbily they had to plug into the virtual world where life was as we experience it today. Everyone who lived in the virtual world was basically unaware that their experiences were unreal (pure escapism), they were basically a cushion. And a beautiful cushion it was, compared to the ‘real world’ where machines were beginning to dominate man, and as I remember, even fed off humans. The creator of this virtual world was the architect whom was able to condition people’s experiences; he watched jus as God through multiple screens, as his ‘program’ took shape. What I am actually getting at here is that as architects we do have the responsibility to condition the spaces that exist and transform them into places. However we must except that ancient times are exactly that, ancient!! Not to say that these times had nothing to offer. We take with us the lessons of community and moral structure and build a world defined by social evolution accepting what we have discovered along our journey.
I agree with Elzabé when she says: “We have to be hybrid architects and work in collaboration with engineers, designers, socialists, philosophers and people who understand culture. If we want to change the world we have to look forward and adapt rather than look back nostalgically to a purist ideal of the past.”
The word architect now denotes many things. The architect of life (GOD if u are religious, the architect whom transforms space into place and then there is the ordinary human being whom is the architect of their ‘reality’, their future. Life itself is living; we cannot isolate ourselves within it. There are ‘two’ sides to every coin. What is on the one side shall influence the other.
I find it really interesting to take facebook to another level and placing it on the hands of architecture. In this way we can link architectural works with the sense of community, from the sacred spaces to the most public spaces. The question is, is there architecture which in principle is impossible to build?
In the 1920s, the architects of the Russian avant-garde imagined buildings floating in the air but now floating buildings are no longer a fantasy. Architects who claim to be designers of cyber-architecture proclaim their freedom to design in a digital space that is free from the constraints of gravity. Le Corbusier’s concept of architecture is also this type of virtual thing.
Even Mies Van Der Rohe’s glass skyscrapers (existing only in photos) are exactly this kind of material expression of formless intensity as such. His experience of architecture was this kind of experience, of architecture as a virtual image.
When the freedom of cyber-space with respect to real space is stressed, the result is merely to increase the formal variety of the design. The question of virtual architecture is not how to present computers and computer networks as if they were the same sort of thing as real space, or in a similar world. Far from being a clean machine, the computer is a parasite that attaches itself to us, enticing and perverse. It may be that the reality of our daily life is already structured as cyber space, with our (continued……)
……(continued) bodies obtaining their tactile sensation from cyber-space, not the space of actual architecture and cities.
With reference to all this, we can now relate facebook with immaterial or virtual architecture. We compare it with architecture that is no longer satisfied with form, light and the other aspects of real world and which has no walls or boundaries. Facebook is a virtually personalised social network in which people interact and be entertained. It indeed represents a virtual reality-environment as opposed to the actual or concrete reality-environment in which it exists, and it is a fragmented, non-centred structure of postmodern society.
In his book, The Condition of Post Modernity (1986); David Harvey argues that our perception of time and space has been altered by affordable immigration, air travel, satellite technology and the rise of global corporation; all of which have a drive towards the world as a ‘global village’. It is because of advancements in Information & Communication Technology with social networks such as Facebook™ and MySpace™ have enabled us to share information, making the world more open and connected.
Unfortunately for Architecture, these social networks are the new public gathering places; they are the new town squares, cafes and other social spots. They are the new platforms for public participation, engagement and activity. Unfortunately they do not allow people to connect at a humane level as do traditional architectural social places. As an article in Time magazine states, “Facebook™ estimates it has more than 500 million active users worldwide; average users count some 130 friends”, could the rapid growth of this network and others of its kind not be one of the many factors contributing to the urban decay of our inner cities? Activity and social interaction has shifted from the city cores to the various commercial nodes as well as our homes and work places because people now communicate, socialize and work from their personal computers.
Architecture has a responsibility to give a sense of place, the ability to elevate one’s spirit to higher levels where greater learning, spirituality and a sense of well-being can be achieved.
On the contrary, even though highly useful as networking tool Facebook is not capable of this. Architecture has the ability to make us aware of time as it marks moments in this continuum of time and defines ‘places’ in the continuum of space, facebook cannot achieve this as it can only be perceived through one sense – sight; completely disregarding the other senses.
21st century technology has created a platform for new ways of imagining and designing spaces with a sense of place 21st century architects must be aware of this and take full advantage. We must find a way to embrace new technologies as they have already found their way into the realm of architecture, we must find a way to make it enhance it and not detract from it. One needs to ask themselves, “What does “sense of place” mean today? And with the new and rapidly developing technologies being literally carried around by occupants all over the world, how does this re-preset, re-define and re-introduce people to the built environment which surrounds them?
How do we as people percieve Architecture? A friend of mine(not an Architect) once described it as ‘buildings with rooms that we use to do certain things…..eat, sleep, plan the next terrorist attack…you know….and you draw them’. I guess when looking at it this way he wasnt considering the ‘watchful eye in the sky’….the overseer of all with the most advanced of technologies….BIG BROTHER as its come to be refered to as…. Maybe it is a good thing not to be too aware of all the ‘hidden’ functions that the Architecture we inhabit has…..anyway.
That aside, I guess its possible to draw parallels between the Architecture that we physically inhabit and the soft one that is the virtual computer world. As technology has evolved, so has the relationships that people have both with and within the collection of communities that we experience as embodied beings. And with the constant advancements in IT and communications it has become possible for people great distances apart to keep ‘in touch’ virtually with each other. I feel that tools like facebook enable us to congregate as ‘friends’ in a community in which there are virtual doors that we use to either give access to others through invites that we accept as friends or limit those that we have no interest in being associated with.
The collection of sites like facebook and myspace therefore can be looked at as virtual polycentres that connect people on all other fronts except
The collection of sites like facebook and myspace therefore can be looked at as virtual polycentres that connect people on all other fronts except the physical. This could change though looking at how fast things are evolving technologywise. For example, there are rumours that, should Japan get to host the worldcup in 2022, they plan to make accessible headsets that would virtually place people in the stadiums from whichever part of the world they are in. I imagine that soon it will be possible with such advancements to get in touch with people on a virtually more physical level therefore taking the facebook experience that much closer to reality. The virtual world then becomes an extension of the physical Architectural platform that is the ‘real’ world, whatever that is.
The metaphor of Facebook and similar sites/services as virtual architecture is intriguing to say the least. The notion of these sites assuming the role of public & community space is interesting too, and true to a degree, in my opinion. Architecture in it’s ‘traditional’(that is, physical)form engages all of the senses, providing an unfiltered realm of event, wherein the unexpected can occur at any time. One may easily meet new people, indulge in new sensory experiences and take pleasure in revisiting old, familiar feelings. The virtual realm, however, is only a visual stimulant. Lacking any true archetypes, reference points or landmarks, it is a shallow reproduction of a public realm. Architecture resonates on a level beyond just sensory stimulation, serving as the canvas upon which memory is painted by the brush of experience. Naturally, this results in a rooting in time and place: the very merits we hold so dear to architecture (besides shelter, of course). Cyber architecture is an ‘architecture’ of moment, lacking a narrative or reference points. It is either filtered, or diluted (depending on one’s viewpoint). In comparison to a ‘real’ social space, cyber architecture allows us to show only filtered images of our true being, selected by us as the qualities that most accurately represent our personality. So, in conclusion, Facebook and the like are merely reproductions, conveniently discarding that which makes architecture so powerful. However… Architecture is representative of society at a particular time. Perhaps our instant gratification-obsessed (to be continued)
(from previous) society demands this. The discarding of that which we deem unnecessary facets of the physical human interaction experience is what our society wishes for. The presentation of an idealized vision of self to the world is enticing. Perhaps that’s where the allure of titles like World of Warcraft comes in. Our society has made it so difficult to live up to the ascribed standard of beauty/ acceptance that more people find it easier to give up and join virtual communities. The presentation of our idealized selves to the world only makes it easier for those who control advertising and marketing to read what we as a society want, and play on our collective perceived ‘needs’. There will, however, always be those who are easily led astray by current trends. They will allow themselves to be manipulated by any form of social control instigated by the powers that be. Facebook, and by extension, the internet, just make it easier. Way easier. Instant gratification for all. But at what cost? Do we risk forgetting the magic of experience? In the long run will this spiral out of control? It remains to be seen. We need to realise that the internet and all it’s related features, are tools. Whether one allows oneself to be controlled by the allure of this, then perhaps one doesn’t deserve ‘reality’ as we know it. However, if one recognises tools as just that, then they can be used to their fullest capacity.
Through the ages, art (and architecture) have been a reflection or representation of the times. Facebook and other social networking sites are just that: cyber architecture which is a direct illustration of the instant, impersonal and technology driven world we live in.
One can almost not blame Facebook’s CEO Zuckerberg for exploiting the youth’s need for attention and voyeuristic tendencies. An illustration of this would be the ‘writing on one’s wall’s’ which most users prefer to do rather than write a private message. The tool is only as useful (or destructive) as the one driving it. Facebook is rather the creation or architecture of the self. Rather than building cyber walls and spaces, users design and construct the image of their self that they would like to be seen as, this is evident in choosing a profile picture or updating one’s status, and so on. Once again, this is a reflection of the image conscious and falseness of the today’s society.
The Google Earth street view option could also be described as another type of cyber architecture, and also a reflection of the spirit of the times. Through the computer one can now travel to many different destinations without having to leave the house.
(cont..)
This is not to say that an instantly connected and easily accessible world is not a good thing, as with everything there are positives as well as negatives. Cyber architecture has made the possibilities of the imagination a reality. It has created a space in which one can easily connect, allowed those who normally couldn’t to travel the world and made up to date information available to all.
However, specifically to whether one can describe these cyber spaces as architecture really, one needs to consider the most important element of architecture which is ‘place.’ A true ‘place’ can not exist within the cyber world and so everything in it will remain a 2D reflection or construction of an idea of a reality.
I agree with the statement that social-networking sites, such as Facebook, are a form of cyber-architecture. I think this was the original intention. Cyber-space describes a virtual place created by the user, which has been designed to project the specific image said user wishes the viewers (visitors) to perceive and experience.
It is a ‘place’ where people spend their time in order to meet, relax, or simply as a form of entertainment. Facebook serves as an outlet for many people. The persona created can either be hidden behind or lived vicariously through.
These kinds of sites were originally limited to online chat rooms, created as a convenient way for us to communicate with people we would not normally have the opportunity to meet with, usually with a similar interest, and creating ‘cyber-communities’. But people need a certain amount of human interaction. When users started abandoning the chat rooms in search of something more, social-networking sites were born. The SN sites we know today are far more complex than the first chat rooms; this development is a result of a need for additional stimulation.
Internet jargon is also full of architecturally related words. We create home pages, visit chat rooms, we open windows to view information, web pages have addresses and sites, or ITO Facebook, you can write on someone’s wall. These words are common& familiar to us; further supporting the idea of it enticing us to occupy manufactured ‘space’ we recognize or can identify with.
Cyber space, essentially it is a virtual space that proved its users the opportunity to browse, inquire, communicate, etc. without physically being present in that point in space. It offers the user the opportunity to be a spectator rather than a participant, viewing and browsing from the comfort of their homes or even work. Architecture is essentially a protective envelope that protects and shelters its inhabitants against the elements of the world, be it weather, society, etc. Architecture is a physical object, something that our senses experience when we inhabit it; we experience the space through sight, smell, touch, etc. Architecture is a congregation space and allow for people to interact physically, where as cyber architecture only allows for people to interact virtually, and users have to push aside the reality with fictional experience.
Facebook has become the global playground for social interaction, setting up the opportunity for lost friends to reunite or to make new friends along the line. It gives each individual using the site to display their life, ambitions, thoughts and experiences to a global audience. It’s so ironic that a virtual space or chartrooms can provide insecure users the confidence to communicate and speak their mind, when faced with a physical and real situation of interaction; they fail to communicate because the pressure of the audience reaction and opinion is too immense.
Continues……
A general observation that I find quite ironic is that in most instances, the cyber-architecture needs architecture to survive. When I think of using the internet I always find myself inside a building, house or office. This envelope provides us with shelter and the tools we need to run our PC’s and enter the virtual space. A coin have two sides too it, on the one side, it is amazing how many doors and opportunities have opened because of social networking, the ease of communication and accessibility. But on the other side, it has separated the society into isolated rooms and diminished physical social interaction. But at the end of it all it is still up the individual’s decision to use whatever medium he finds himself most comfortable in.
In todays society and the way the world has evolved from the invention of the steam engine, the motor car, to the aeroplane it seems facebook is a natural evolution of ‘space’ in a sense. This technology has made it easy for us humans to move around. We no longer live in small towns where the square and the streets are our main source of communication and livelyhood. We use cellphones and technology instead. Today, families are dispersed right accross the globe. ‘Facebook’ provides a universal ‘place’ for all kinds of people to communicate. It could be said it is the ‘Agora’ of the internet. Unlike the greeks however, we no longer hear statements from the King or council but from the common man.