Comments on: Theses on New Media and the City http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/2006/06/01/theses-on-new-media-and-the-city/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=theses-on-new-media-and-the-city Geert Lovink's blog on the cultural politics of the Internet, media theory and art Fri, 21 Sep 2007 12:44:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: tripta http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/2006/06/01/theses-on-new-media-and-the-city/comment-page-1/#comment-202 tripta Tue, 27 Jun 2006 07:53:56 +0000 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/2006/06/01/theses-on-new-media-and-the-city/#comment-202 This dialouge between Pavlos Hatzopoulos and Geert Lovink raises some significant and interesting perspectives. I find the connections (or disconnections) between 'new media' and 'architecture' as a practice particularly relevant to the issues I am trying to understand. The manner in which practice and consumption of 'technology' in everyday facilitates 'architectural' innovations is really fascinating. As I have explored it specifically in the Indian context, the connections and intersections are insidious and subtle instead of being part of a larger imagination. I did some research in Nehru Place, Asia's largest secondhand hardware and pirated software market. This market complex though conceptualized as a part of the larger post-colonial imagination with corners and maps very clearly marked out for specific purpose has changed in character 'architecturally because of the prevalence of the 'secondhand' hardware and 'piracy' market. A lot of transactions in these fields require to be shielded off the 'public' eye and for that new rooms and spaces are created access to these is usually through a complicated labyrinth and needs specialized knowledge or a well-acquainted escort. Would these 'innovations' in the use of the architectural space qualify as media practices influencing them? I, however, think that this shift where architectural imagination would intersect with the new-media practices is very specific to context and usually employed to create some or the other sort of simulacrum to titillate and give a glimpse of the possibility. As a possibility, I think it has a long way to go. Does the fact that 'architecture' as a field has a much more sturdy historical background than the 'new-media' technologies make a difference in this regard? As also, at some level the fluidity of the new media practices, does it make the task of epistemologically makes it difficult for the two to intersect? This dialouge between Pavlos Hatzopoulos and Geert Lovink raises some significant and interesting perspectives. I find the connections (or disconnections) between ‘new media’ and ‘architecture’ as a practice particularly relevant to the issues I am trying to understand. The manner in which practice and consumption of ‘technology’ in everyday facilitates ‘architectural’ innovations is really fascinating. As I have explored it specifically in the Indian context, the connections and intersections are insidious and subtle instead of being part of a larger imagination. I did some research in Nehru Place, Asia’s largest secondhand hardware and pirated software market. This market complex though conceptualized as a part of the larger post-colonial imagination with corners and maps very clearly marked out for specific purpose has changed in character ‘architecturally because of the prevalence of the ‘secondhand’ hardware and ‘piracy’ market. A lot of transactions in these fields require to be shielded off the ‘public’ eye and for that new rooms and spaces are created access to these is usually through a complicated labyrinth and needs specialized knowledge or a well-acquainted escort. Would these ‘innovations’ in the use of the architectural space qualify as media practices influencing them?

I, however, think that this shift where architectural imagination would intersect with the new-media practices is very specific to context and usually employed to create some or the other sort of simulacrum to titillate and give a glimpse of the possibility. As a possibility, I think it has a long way to go. Does the fact that ‘architecture’ as a field has a much more sturdy historical background than the ‘new-media’ technologies make a difference in this regard? As also, at some level the fluidity of the new media practices, does it make the task of epistemologically makes it difficult for the two to intersect?

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