I wrote a chapter for the following book: F. Dervin et A. Ljalikova, Regards sur les mondes hypermobiles : mythes et réalités (Paris : L’Harmattan, 2008). Find the table of content after the images of the book cover :)

Table des matières:

Présentation
(F. Dervin et A. Ljalikova) 9

I. Individus hypermobiles
Environnements néo-nomades, système écologique ?
(Y. Abbas) 19
La mobilité comme aspiration à l’utopie conjugale
(G. Charrier) 37

II. Hypermobilités urbaines
Les périurbains sont-ils hypermobiles par nature ?
(D. Mathieu-Huber) 75
Comment devient-on un lieu de l’hypermobilité ?
Dynamique et vie quotidienne dans le quartier du
Châtelain à Bruxelles
(G. Lits) 95

III. (Non-) lieux et hypermobilités
La ville à l’épreuve du mouvement : mobilités
et renouvellement du paysage urbain
(D. Masson) 121
Ethnographie de la téléphonie mobile dans le
métro parisien
(C. Burget) 143
La double dimension de l’activité de visite :
venir au musée et visiter le musée
(V. Vitalbo) 167

IV. Regards critiques sur les hypermobilités
Hypermobilité à Paris ? Logique d’incommunication
sociale et sous-mobilité spatiale
(L. Béru) 185
L’imaginaire de la mobilité roumaine :
de l’inquiétude à la réécriture du monde
(M. Salvan) 207
Erasmus : 20 ans d’hypermobilité/
hypomobilité existentielle ?
(F. Dervin) 225

I had a fascinating conversation with JB after his thesis defense yesterday evening; thanks to Oren, colleague at ReD Associates.

As JB writes about his research:

“Biojects is a concept i coined to specify a certain class of objects that follow biological rules and share similar structures in their behavior and constitution with organisms. A specific class of biojects is composed by immaterial instances such as concepts or ideas. They exist as phenomena but are difficult to observe per se (for more information on existent object vs non-existent objects see Zalta and Meinong).”

Seems highly interesting… How can neo-nomads resist? An Atlas of Radical Cartography.

N. is fantastic… She keeps on feeding me with cool stuff to blog!?

Check this “visuel interactif” Design made in Korea (Le Monde, 25-11-07). Below some screnshots for appetizers:

“It is hard to imagine a society that would deny the body just as we had progressively denied the soul. This, however, is where we are heading.”

Paul Virilio, Negative Horizon (London, New York: Continuum, 2005); the last words.

A conference held way back then… Mobility in American culture:

The corsortium’s first conference was held at the University of Bologna in June 2002. It explored mobility as a quintessential American ideology. Participants considered sociological, cultural (both popular and high), economic, technological, literary, historical and political approaches to the topic. They discussed how Americans received and resisted the ideology of mobility. They considered mobility in art and film, mobility in racial, ethnic, gender and class formations, and mobility in the 21st century’s context of globalization.

Cowardice or selfish practicality for the one making the move, many of us have experienced a technologically mediated breakup, the phone call being a boring classic, now it happens through text messaging. My friend N. witnessed worse: a tape sent via mail! No way to answer directly to that one… is there? Is breaking up on the move the way to go? Spying technologies also seem to facilitate the resolution of many divorce cases. Read: Your cheatin’ heart leaves tell-tale e- trail:

Most of these stories do not end amicably. Earlier this year, a technology consultant from the Philadelphia area, who did not want his name used because he has a teenage son, strongly suspected his wife was having an affair. Instead of confronting her, the husband installed a $49 program called PC Pandora on her computer. The program surreptitiously took snapshots of her screen every 15 seconds and e-mailed them to him. Soon he had a comprehensive overview of the sites she visited and the instant messages she was sending.

It is as if technologies amplify the worse of us. Un peu de courage, de panache et de romantisme que diable!

Article in the Economist, Home Truth About Telecoms. Technology and Society: Anthropologists investigate the use of communications technology and reach some surprising conclusions:

Of course, improvements to mobile networks and the spread of third-generation (3G) and Wi-Fi networks mean that you no longer need to be at your desk to get things done. But Ms Broadbent found that there is not, in fact, much appetite for working while on the move. Indeed, she calls this “the hypermobility myth”. After studying workers who spend more than half their time out of the office—salesmen, consultants, pilots, journalists and photographers—she found that they generally stick to communications while on the move, gathering information that they then work on when they get back to their desks. Hotel rooms and airports are, she says, “not seen as an appropriate environment for substantive work” and are mainly used for e-mail.

Business Week, Sept. 10, 2007

Digitization? The entire network runs on software known as Jovial, so old there are only 6 programmers in the country who know how to write it. And incredible as it seems, family minivans with NavStar have more sophisticated location guidance than some aircraft.

Via archilab.org:

La mobilité est aussi celle des habitants. Dans les projets d’Architecture-Principe, entre 1963 et 1968, le sol se soulève, et le plan oblique génère une architecture du déplacement. Le principe majeur de la fonction oblique est celui de la “circulation habitable”, rendue possible à travers les plans inclinés, le sol artificiel et les systèmes de rampes. Parent et Virilio parlent alors de “dérivation” dans les villes obliques. La fracture du plan détermine la fonction oblique. Dès 1966, année de la construction de l’église Ste Bernadette du Banlay à Nevers, - monolithe fracturé en béton brut -, l’architecture se transforme en “plaques topotoniques” mouvantes dont l’inclinaison incorpore le déplacement physique de l’habitant. Cette dimension gravitationnelle de l’espace a, encore aujourd’hui, des répercussions dans le développement récent des architectures cognitives, espaces artificiels animés qui interagissent avec l’habitant ou leur environnement (Nox, Oosterhuis, etc). Avant sa rencontre avec Paul Virilio, Claude Parent avait déjà exploré la fracture du plan, l’instabilité à travers le basculement de cubes ainsi qu’à travers ses premiers dessins de Turbosites et de Villes-cônes. Paul Virilio avait, quant à lui, déjà mené des recherches sur les bunkers de l’Atlantique. Tous deux fondèrent ainsi le groupe et la revue “Architecture-Principe” qui développa la fonction oblique à partir de la “topologie des surfaces orientées”. La plupart des dessins et maquettes des projets expérimentaux d’Architecture-Principe seront exposés.