parasites

Tokyo 2005; Parasites, position paper to metapolis and urban life has been accepted. paper scheduled for publication.

Extract:

He studied parasites… When at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I came across the work of Michael Rakowitz1 who had graduated the year before from the Visual Art department. For the purpose of his thesis, Rakowitz, at that time a student of Krzysztof Wodiczko,2 had put in display the homeless population of Boston areas. His art statement was showing the strong relationship homeless have with the society who engenders them. Rakowitz provided the particular nomadic culture with shelters made of plastic. Not only the strange worm looking shelters drew attention, but their envelopes were also an interface which stressed communication. “By adding pockets to the ‘paraSITE’ shelters, Rakowitz allows ‘the user to display messages to the public,’ like a tattoo on one’s flesh.”3 More fundamentally, the shelters made of plastic could stand because they were connected to exhausts vents—where usually homeless gather because it is warm. Without the air coming out of buildings, and the link which channels it, the shelters could not take form. Obviously the relationship is symbiotic because at least one element benefits from the other. On one hand, the “paraSITE” takes shape and the homeless gains a certain identity because of the exhaust vent, while on the other hand, the building—the host—does not profit from the “paraSITE”. The relationship however is not totally parasitic as the shelter feeds from wastes of the building. So, if indeed the SITE is “para~”, which means “alongside”, it does not harm the edifice (unless it is considered as “bad publicity”). As the host remains unaffected, the symbiotic relationship is called commensalism, meaning “at table together” rather than parasitism.4

The biological metaphor is by no means innocent. Rakowitz’ brilliant art statement which raises awareness of a social dysfunction of our cities has inspired an investigation of close contacts between mobile populations and buildings. Today, other nomadic tribes, those with cell phones, wearable, and other connecting devices develop a deep skin relationship with the architectural environment, starting with the building envelop. New technologies, ubiquitous computing and automats feed today’s nomad, the neo-nomad, with information and goods. By calling a number affixed to a wall at a specific location, a “PoemPoint”, an itinerant in the city of Leeds in England could receive back on his mobile device poetic text messages.5 By swiping my cellular phone against a device on a bus, I validate my eticket.6 By inserting my credit card in a vending machine I can buy a wide range of items. In exchange, retailers retrieve information about my tastes and approximate my needs after analysis of my purchase patterns. Hence the symbiotic relationship is mutual, as each depends on the other for survival. A neo-nomad would not survive without his credit card and his cellular phone (as cellular phones increasingly enable transactions). A misplaced vending machine would have no use in a public space, unless one owns a localization awareness device.

The symbiotic relationship raises the paradox that we can roam anywhere where the infrastructure exists. However, similarly to the architecture of Rakowitz’ shelters, other tools enabling the link, like the card or the database for example, seem essential for the exchange to happen between the skin of the building—even if just an interface—and the individual. The system needs to recognize the individual while the individual on the move also benefits from recognizing where he roams in. For instance, who possesses a credit card from a specific bank might want to avoid paying extra fees by retrieving cash from machines specific only to the bank he is a customer of. Hence the notion of recognition seems to be essential for exchanges to happen. For the sociologist George Amar, biology has taught us that individuals and their movement evolve in “mediums” rather than “space”.7 This observation led him to develop the concept of “adherence” or “grip”. People adhere with a different degree to environments they pass through, depending on time and familiarity for example. This scenario seems to privilege the making of a global infrastructure, as the global permits to extend the limits for physical roaming. It also indicates that the urban and architectural environment of the neo-nomad is a matter of signs and invisible—yet perceptible—marks of territories.8 As Amar writes, “we are walking in fields of signs.”9 Hence if the infrastructure tends to globalization, for the neo-nomad to “adhere” to places, architectural solutions need to take into account the link between individual and buildings and operate transformations at deep skin level.

1 Michael Jonathan Rakowitz, paraSITE, Master of Science in Visual Studies Thesis, MIT 1998
2 Krzysztof Wodiczko has designed mobile carts for the homeless.
Krzysztof Wodiczko, Critical Vehicles, Writings, projects, interviews, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999)
3 Yasmine Abbas, Embodiment: Mental and physical geographies of the neo-nomad, Master of Science in Architecture Studies Thesis, MIT 2001
4 Please refer to the online biology textbook based on Dr. John W. Kimball’s writing; accessed June 9, 2005
5 www.citypoems.co.uk/ accessed June 8, 2005
6 http://www.altibus.com/ accessed June 9, 2005
7 Georges Amar, Notes sur la mobilité à l’âge du signe ; in Daniel Kaplan, Hubert Lafont, Mobilités.net (Paris: Questions numériques L.G.D.J., 2004)
8 For further information, read Jean François Dortier, Jacques Goldberg, Jean-François Staszak, Y’a-t-il une géographie du territoire animal ? accessed June 23, 2005
9 My translation. Georges Amar, Notes sur la mobilité à l’âge du signe ; in Daniel Kaplan, Hubert Lafont, Mobilités.net (Paris: Questions numériques L.G.D.J., 2004) ; p.40