the body-technology nexus that underpins the contemporary city
Kind of a culmination of what we have been discussing this semester, it seems. - That our technology and infrastructure and how it relates to us and our bodies is the foundation of the conflict as well as the harmony we experience with our built environment.
dings of technology we can discern an emphasison the cyborg as a means of becoming ‘post human’ in order to liberate the human bodyfrom the illusory boundaries of the autonomous self.
The fact that life is not forever seems to give people a sense of care in what they do, because of the effects that it may have on their life. But with those boundaries gone, how far will we go, and could we still be considered human?
fertilization, gene sequencing, advanced prosthetics and other sophisticated medicaltechnologies
The above are mostly used in ways to maintain a sense of normalcy in our lives - to recreate nature, or how we perceive what nature would do. But, at what point does this transition into something as extreme as biological warfare- technology recreating something biological again, but is the intention the only thing that separates this?
interface between technology and the body.
Our bodies interact with technology all the time, where is the limit for when it becomes invasive/threatening?
modes of social and political inclusion
Can we talk about this in class?
I learned how makeshift connector hoses could carrygas from a neighbor’s source to one’s oven and how running extension cords froma neighbor’s home or tripping their current could power portable heaters.
Like Anand's discussion and description of the water in Premnagar.
Transitioning Horner residents’ nostalgia for project heat went beyond personalyearnings for the sensory certainty it had provided, to anxieties about how its losscomplicated kin relationships
The creation of this infrastructure facilitated the building of relationships, and when the people were displaced, so were those relationships. It shows just how much of an impact the built environment has on us and who we relate to.
personal tastes and the collective benefits
This seems like a nearly impossible distinction for a government to make on the peoples' behalf. Which goes into the infrastructure of government and whether or not it is facilitating good change, or too bureaucratic to facilitate anything at all.
infrastructural breakdownsas further evidence of the careless planning and mismanagement that plagued thehousing projects
Pruitt and Igoe, right? this mismanagement of already under served populations,
changing urban built environment shapes a new ethics of social care
This seems like an echo of the Anand piece. Where the built environment, more that just physically, puts people in "their place" in society.
Beingsurrounded from all sides, and with suchthick textures of surveillance and calculation
This feels like the society we live in as a whole. Where we might be pinned down based on our social classes, but also our own social infrastructure that we develop and how that then shapes us as we feel we shaped it.
Here, residents are constantlyreminded that the place they inhabit wasnever intended for them in the first place
Constant feeling of displacement right? Where do they belong? Also, what then is their impact on the built environment, is it really theirs?
Maringanti and Jonnalagadda indicate thatas the mechanics of everyday residencebecome more individuated and privatized,thus making local political mobilizationsmore difficult, the intermeshing of practicesand perspectives, which relies both on soli-darity and difference, is disentangled. Thecomplex balance then of watching andleaving alone, of acknowledging being wit-nessed but also ignored is disrupted andthen vulnerable to intensifying feelings thatcertain people are expendable, and that theenactments of daily intimacies, of theprocess of being a person, depend on gettingrid of others, expelling them from proximity,further complicating the process of demon-strating mutual care.
Can we break this down further in class, please?
States are renowned for pro-viding a basic facility, such as a communitytoilet, water well or community center.However, their maintenance and repairsbecome the responsibility of the local neigh-borhood.
We saw this in pruitt&igoe right?
he subway offers proof of the relativesafety of the overall urban environment,
comfortably uncomfortable?
the urban environment as a world existingsimultaneously with and without us
Do we ever look at it this way? People find so much identity in their environment and then their environment gets claimed or labeled because of their existence. I wonder if we ever fully separate ourselves and acknowledge its existence without us being a part of it. I kind of feel like this is an example of the question about if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody hears it, does it actually fall?
ensconce
love this word! ensconced: establish or settle (someone) in a comfortable, safe, or secret place.
However, force also can exceed the boundsplaced on it. I
Seems like a look back at Harvey, human force reacting to and adjusting the bounds of thee built environment.
new terrain of infrastructure dothey seem to point to
interesting choice of words here. The built environment as its own terrain, on the global terrain, based off of elements of social terrain. Cute.
some common urban odours detected in contemporary smellscapes
because every culture could interpret the same smell differently, right? it would need to be very specific in it's organization .
enhance their polysensoriality of the city
a growing attraction? it seems like those amusement parks with the garden rooms that you walk into and feel so fresh after. People travel all over to visit nice smelling gardens. Is this to encourage tourism as wll in these cities?
smell was something that we scarcely, if ever, thought about.
That seems like it might not always be true, because we definitely don't see houses going up right next to landfills. ??
whether smell truly is of less meaning and use in society today,
Does it? because we are smelling all the time, more than we talk, or even see, except when we are sick.
a less beautiful and a less ugly place without a sense of smell
Couldn't this be true of any sense? I'm sure it would offer you greater indulgence in the other 4 if you lost 1, but is this one special in some way comparatively?
sense of smell
despite it being such a big part of our awareness, and so important to our well-being.
The smell environments of towns and cities are incredibly important ar combine with other sensory information to impact directly on peoplt everyday experiences of urban life and their perceptions of different plac(
I relate this to walking into a house at Christmas time and there being fresh baked cookies coming out of the oven. The combination of that and the decorations really sets the holiday spirit into everyone who feels that.
t types of machines can be matched to types of societies;
Our built environment, the things we place around us, elements of infrastructure, reflective of our culture and society.
to produce a new sort of citizen
technology with citizenship? person or thing?
practices of routinization and extension
rhythm?
actor-network theory
Actor–network theory (ANT) is an approach to social theory and research, originating in the field of science studies, which treats objects as part of social networks.
Infrastructures are matter that enable the movement of other matter.
Again, aren't they also used to prevent movement? And in terms of technology and how it is used to control us, to a certain extent, isn't it more forcing a certain movement on us?
seeking to organize populations and territories throughtechnological domains t
Is this similar to an interpretation of a panopticon? Where technology is the all seeing center?
new intellectual directions in the disciplinehave begun to make the issue of infrastructures central.
Kind of the foundation of this class, right?
Infrastructures are built networks that facilitate the flow of goods, people, or ideas and allow fortheir exchange over space.
But by it's actual definition, couldn't it also be a built network that blocks certain happenings instead of facilitating them? both good and bad?
Infrastructures
in·fra·struc·ture ˈinfrəˌstrək(t)SHər/ noun noun: infrastructure; plural noun: infrastructures
the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.
Cities are based in large part on activities of repair and maintenance, the systematic re-placement of place, and this ability is still there in times of trouble to be adapted to the new circumstance
Related to Harvey's Right to the City, we refresh and adapt our environment to better fit our own changes as individuals and as a society.
an object which has temporal extension into the futur
the built environment as an extension of ourselves? is this confirming what we speak of in class about our environment reflecting us and therefore reflecting the time in which we exist?
f enmit
enmity = feelings of hatred, animosity
advances in material civilization necessarily lead to moral progres
If anything, doesn't this lead to us being more isolated in our day to day lives? And furthers the disparity between "1st" and "3rd" world nations?
tropes
metaphors
misanthrop
misanthropy = a hatred or mistrust of humankind
The vending of the black body and the sundering of the black family became an economy unto themselves, estimated to have brought in tens of millions of dollars to antebellum America.
The manipulation and extortion that took place, for example, in North Lawndale encouraged its own economy and profited many men who took place in this post slavery...slavery.
useful members of the community.”
this doesn't sit right with me. People can only be allowed to be part of a society if they are "useful"? And useful how? to perpetuate stereotypes and further participate in segregation?
They were charging society with a crime against their community.
Why do we so rarely learn about organized efforts of minorities fighting back against the inequality and unfairness that has been so completely thrown against them?
The “neoliberal city,” then, is a market-driven urbanity; it is a cityshaped more by the logic of Market than the needs of its inhabitants;responding more to individual or corporate interests than public con-cerns.
Is this not what the United States has turned into under the guise of democracy? Because the power really is in the hands of the wealthy.
reclaim their right to the city in a different fashion
Here again we see how important people's "right to the city" is. The dialectic between the inhabitants and the city allows the people to change with the city and vise versa, which is am important social tool.
the rich, now apprehen-sive of the physical presence and “social dangers” of the dispossessed,tend to seek their own enclosed and exclusive zones—the privatebeaches, exclusive neighborhoods, gated communities, securely-guardedbars, restaurants and places of sociability, work,
How does this effect the children growing up in this type of culture? It seems that with the way things are like this, the rich will continue to be more closed off and therefore more disconnected than ever from the issues concerning the rest of their countries.
The “neoliberal city,” then, is a market-driven urbanity; it is a cityshaped more by the logic of Market than the needs of its inhabitants;responding
Is this not what the United States has turned into under the guise of democracy? Because the power really is in the hands of the wealthy.
it entailed a radical transfor-mation in lifestyles
Are we ready for another change as big as this in our society? I mean this question more specifically in terms of our overall built environment and our gradual shift over to a more sustainable life style.
it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city.
Isn't this what we did originally in putting in cities?
Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense of the nature of his task, in making the city man has remade himself.
An exact description of the dialectical relationship between the individual and their built environment.
likely smile, listen to his jokes, and play the coy flirting games
Are they allowing themselves to become a part of this sexist built environment? How are their actions intertwined with the environment?
attach meaning to space in ways that reflect their cultural knowledge of the world.
Is there a way to define the built environment across the globe? Or, is it too culturally specific?
filtered through the culture we have learned.
Further explanation that the built environment is only how we perceive it, and how we perceive it is more than just physically.
The physical world is not presented to all humans in the same way
And yet, it is our combined built environment. Is this reason enough to expand our definition of the built environment to mean more than just physical surroundings?
people expect not to have privacy
Cultures can vary so much. In our culture, privacy is expected and respected but, as stated here, that's not true everywhere. Was that desire for privacy from our built environment? Or did we create that in response to our built environment in our culture in the U.S.?
enable and constrain certain types of behaviors
What types of behaviors would you expect to see in our immediate awareness because of the changes so rapidly taking place?
spatial environ- ment as integral to the psychological concept of the self
you are what you surround yourself with? This seems like it could be expanded to refer also to who you surround yourself with. Which seems to go back to what we were discussing in class about boundaries of the term "built environment" and how we define it.
manifestation of culture
I don't know why I have never thought of it this way, but it seems almost obvious that over time structures have been built as representations of the times they were constructed in.
last several decades,
What sparked the interest in this decades ago?
society and culture and the built environment persisted
Could this relationship ever not be dialectical? It seems it would have to be, down to the very core.