Preliminary diagrams - typical upper school typologies and speculations

Contemporary schools tend to be highly secured objects located within the community. I argue that schools should trend away from this inward focus towards creating a more interactive presence within the urban environment. Information is everywhere, heightening the learning process and thus requiring the individual to operate with a critical eye. The digital era can foster passivity because of the ease with which one can operate in society; the school must challenge this notion and immerse its students in society, using digital technology as a tool for empowerment.

Thesis Statement and Proposal

Intellectual Framework

In its broadest sense, this research investigates how one should design the physical environment for the contemporary subject of the Digital Era. The ease and immediacy with which one can access the preponderance of information available through digital media has complicated the development and understanding of self-identity in popular culture, and by correlation how one engages with society (1).

The internet is a limitless reservoir of information which also provides a platform for users to publicly and privately communicate. It is both a resource for news and research and also as a ‘space’ for social networking and interaction. However, the abundance of information and the ability of anyone to contribute this information makes different scenarios of ‘truth’ plausible; “details can be reconfigured, reinstalled in settings to produce any number of virtual realities. Statistics can be offered to support most anything we like” (2).

While digital technology decentralizes power and increases the fluidity and reach for information exchange, it also increases the capacity for enhanced control of its environments. Applications are increasingly deployed to leverage user profiles and usage patterns in order to help individuals ‘navigate’ towards similar types of information amongst the abundance of information at their disposal, consequently helping to reinforce existing ideologies and interests. While this creates an ease and immediacy to acquiring information that most users enjoy, it perpetuates a reflexive process of information gathering which effectively narrows the construction of individual and collective identity. Therefore, while digital technologies might promise the democratization of information exchange, the manner in which the uncritical user accesses that information might be leading him down a more specific, homogenous road.

Digital technology has also blurred the boundaries between public and private – individuals can engage in public activity anywhere with handheld digital devices. Families watch worldwide events from their living room. We can engage anything from a distance, but this comes at a cost to public space and formulations of the public sphere “as the immediacy of various forms of action-at-a-distance dislodge the social primacy of embodied presence” (3). The mass audience carries little to no physical, emotional, or intellectual connection to the events and information continuously broadcast on television and online media. Our nation may be at war, but we do not necessarily feel it. Instead, we watch it unfold as we would a movie and often fail to fully understand its consequences.

The visual culture which currently dominates the digital era threatens to undermine serious engagement with society. The public becomes somewhat numb to the social and political environment because it doesn’t fully engage these environments. While the potential of digital media to proliferate information, construct knowledge, and connect diverse publics is tremendous, we must still critically consider its technologies. “The challenge to the creative use of media technologies is fostering the diversity of public actors and terrains and to develop strategies of articulating the new public domains that connect physical urban spaces and the potential public sphere of the electronic networks. This public sphere will only come into being if there are complex forms of interaction, of participation and learning, that use the technical possibilities of the new networks and that allow for new and creative forms of becoming visible, becoming active, in short, of becoming public” (4).

This thesis aims to critique contemporary formulations of identity and societal engagement in an age increasingly dominated by the proliferation of electronic information and interaction through the proposition of an architecture which fosters critical awareness of the (re)presentations of actuality in digital media and directs critical engagement between the new subject of the digital era and the public sphere.



Architectural Implications

Most of the architecture of the last two decades has focused on new formal expression the tools of digital technology make possible and on the affects of digital media on physical objects that traditionally have been the bearers of information. While Archigram considered how digital technology could create a more fluid, user oriented environment in the 1960’s and 70’s, architects at the turn of the 21st century such as Frank Gehry have emphasized the use of digital technology to create more fluid forms for inert objects (5). Rem Koolhaas, Toyo Ito and many others have proposed new designs for the contemporary library in an attempt to account for digital media as well as the traditional book, but very few architectural proposals have emerged regarding how the proliferation of digital technology directly affects the subject in society; this type of investigation has largely been left to public artists.

These considerations are relevant because digital media is increasingly shaping our identity and how we engage with society at large. Architects must examine the affects the digital world has on how we negotiate physical space. If the digital world is characterized by the ease and immediacy of information exchange, which can be self-reinforcing, how can design of the physical environment facilitate new, unexpected interactions that slow down our movement and encourage travel down more diverse network paths? How can the built environment challenge us to critically examine the mediated world from which we gather information? How can architects design the physical world to facilitate in-depth interaction in society at large? How can architectural design leverage digital technologies to inform, educate and encourage citizens to actively participate in political, cultural, and economic events in a way that creates new possibilities rather than reinforcing old ideologies?

Design Proposal
The design proposal will focus on designing a new, contemporary urban upper school. I find the school appropriate because:

1. All people are required to attend school to learn, to process information and acquire knowledge, a process that has dramatically changed in the digital era. The school is a place made to house and teach the subject, to challenge him to actively engage in society.
2. This is a crucial place in the development and maturation of a personal and collective identity.
3. It is a public building that is treated as increasingly private due to fear and security issues.
4. It can have a very public, empowering voice.

Historically, the school has focused around the classroom, a place for focus and learning. In many ways the fundamental teaching system is still based on societal values that are centuries old. It has increasingly turned its focus inward, protecting itself against the exterior world in contemporary times even though the learning process has becomes a continuous cycle because of the abundance of information available for consumption.

I suggest that the school should become more transparent and engaged with society, instead of turning away from it, especially in light of the fact that information is everywhere and can be accessed from anywhere. The digital world suggests that the learning process is constant, and the school must take on a much greater role in teaching its students to be critical of information and their environment. The school must embrace digital technologies but teach students to critically engage them, utilizing these technologies to foster a greater understanding that all citizens can have a powerful voice in society. It must challenge students to move away from homogenous views by immersing students in the diverse world.

The school should reinvigorate its role in society as a powerful public institution and integral player in shaping urban environments and community life.

Potential avenues for design:
Speculation 1. The school should not be an object in the urban environment, it should trend towards becoming seamless with the urban environment. In order to effectively teach students today, they must learn to critically analyze the mediated environment, which is everywhere. Physical interaction in diverse environments can emphasize the importance of tactile interaction, and help create greater awareness and understanding of notions of public.
i) This might suggest the school be decentralized in the urban environment and the students must actively participate in its terrain.
ii) Alternatively, it might suggest that the school building envelop other public institutions in order to interact with the public at large. School facilities such as libraries, auditoriums, gymnasiums, and theaters could be opened up for public use. Public financing could be leveraged in this way to produce better programs and facilities while creating diverse interactions.

Speculation 2. The school must embrace digital technologies and give students a forum to utilize these technologies in public and private, challenging them to see the advantages and disadvantages of such technologies so they can be critical of them. Projecting digital technologies into the urban community can empower students and teach them to understand the value of an active public voice. This is an opportunity to engage the public sphere.

Speculation 3. Students could operate on two levels within the school with a physical and digital presence, therefore learning the values and discrepancy between the two, and forcing them to critically engage both in a manner that becomes productive in leveraging one to push the other.

Speculation 4. Schools should investigate the possibility of public/private partnerships, which seem inevitable in today’s society. If properly conceived, private business can be an outlet to enhance school programs but also provide alternative after school activities and professional development.

Architecture can no longer be considered an autonomous endeavor, it must embrace and investigate the political, cultural, and economic agencies which control its proliferation in order to effectively respond to the needs of society today.

1.Georg Simmel describes the concept of self as something unique and independent, but based on the desire for inclusion in society in “How is Society Possible.” American Journal of Sociology 16 (1910-1911).
2.Jodi Dean, “Uncertainty, Conspiracy, Abduction” in Reality Squared: Televisual Discourses on the Real, ed. James 3.Friedman. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press (2002), 304.
3.Scott McQuire. The Media City: Media, Architecture, and Urban Space. London: Sage Publications (2008), 10.
4.Qtd in McQuire, 150.
5.McQuire, 100.

Workshop #3

My design research revolves around how we should design for the new subject of the digital era; and the design project will focus on designing a new, contemporary urban upper school. I find the school appropriate because:

1. this is the place where people go to learn, to process information and acquire knowledge, a process that has dramatically changed in the digital era. The school is a place made to house and teach the subject.
2. this is a crucial place in the formation of identity
3. it is a public building but because of fear and security issues, is also very private
4. it can have a very public, empowering voice.

Historically, the school has focused around the classroom, a place for focus and learning. In contemporary times, it has increasingly turned its focus inward, protecting itself against the exterior world. I want to challenge this notion, especially in light of the fact that information is everywhere and can be accessed from anywhere. The digital world suggests that the learning process is constant, and the school must take on a much greater role in teaching its students to be critical of information and their environment. It must teach them to be critically engaged and foster an understanding that all citizens have a voice in society. It must challenge them to move away from homogenous views by immersing students in the diverse world.

To do this I propose that the school should be focused outward, and understand learning as a continuous open process. I suggest that it should take an active public role and also find a way to leverage the inevitable private influence.

Speculation 1. The school library should be opened to the public – it should be a public library that can engage society in general.

Speculation 2. The school must embrace media technologies and give the students a forum to utilize these technologies in public, challenging them to see the advantages and disadvantages of such technologies so they can be critical of them.

Speculation 3. The school should exhibit some type of transparency and interaction with its surroundings, rather than shutting itself off from its environment. It should not fear society, it should embrace society.

The formation of identity in the context of online media

Workshop 2: method

The evidence from this analysis suggests that the preponderance of information available through digital media has complicated the development and understanding of self identity in popular culture. Georg Simmel describes the concept of self as something unique and independent, but based on the desire for inclusion in society (1) . In the contemporary digital age, the internet has fostered the creation of a new virtual society; we must evaluate how identity is formed and manipulated in this arena and consider the corresponding effects this might have on our physical engagement with society.

The internet is a limitless reservoir of information which also provides a platform for users to publicly and privately communicate. It is used both as resource for news and research and also as a ‘space’ for social networking and interaction. However, the abundance of information and the ability of anyone to contribute this information makes different scenarios of ‘truth’ plausible; “details can be reconfigured, reinstalled in settings to produce any number of virtual realities. Statistics can be offered to support most anything we like” (2).

Compounding this issue is the ability of social networking applications to leverage user profiles and established patterns to provide them with similar types of information. While this creates an ease and immediacy to acquiring information that most online users enjoy, it perpetuates a reflexive process of information gathering which effectively narrows the construction of our identities. While the internet promises a wealth of information, the manner in which we access that information might be leading us down a more homogenous road.

This consideration is relevant to architecture because the virtual world of cyberspace is increasingly shaping our identity and how we engage with society at large. What effect does virtual space have on how we negotiate physical space? If the virtual society is one of ease and immediacy and self-reinforcing, how can the physical environment slow down our movement and allow for diversity? How can the built environment challenge us to critically examine the mediated world from which we gather information?

1. Georg Simmel, “How is Society Possible.” American Journal of Sociology 16 (1910-1911).
2. Jodi Dean, “Uncertainty, Conspiracy, Abduction” in Reality Squared: Televisual Discourses on the Real, ed. James Friedman. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press (2002), 304.

Reality TV

Reality TV is increasingly inspiring the fusion of news and entertainment, blurring the lines between factual events and stylized narratives. News programs mix politics with entertainment to make it more appealing to mass audiences in an age of hyper proliferation of information. Viewers transform an “environment of information into learning experiences… this is an understanding of learning as personal and social action… the value of factual television as a resource for learning is especially apparent when information can be gathered from a variety of media and non-media sources” (Hill 2005, 169-170). Kevin Robins describes the sociological and political perspectives of reality TV as pointing

“to an increasing compartmentalization of society in which we build up “safe environments” where we no longer need to share physical space with the underpriviledged, where the more problematic aspects of reality are locked out. With its focus on rescuing us from nature and technology gone awry and protecting us from criminals, reality TV could easily be interpreted as converging an ideology tailored to such a development... It might express a longing for a lost touch with reality, prompted by the undermining and problematizing of indexicality… it also is obsessed with conveying a sense of connectedness, of contact with the world” (Fetveit, 131-132).

He continues to describe the security and safety we have in watching the news and other
‘reality’ TV from the comfortable confines of our home.

“The powerful urge for a sense of contact with the real is inscribed in much of the reality TV footage… it comes with a unique promise of contact with reality, but at the same time it promises a secure distance. Too much reality is easily dispensed with by a touch on the remote control. [There is a] tendency to replace the world around us with an alternative space of simulation” (qtd in Fetveit, 130).

Virtual reality (to which reality TV anticipates) “is inspired by the dream of an alternative and compensatory reality… so attractive because it combines entertainment and thrills with comfort and security” (qtd in Fetveit, 130).

Since reality TV arrived arrived on the television screen in earnest in the 1980’s, the genre has morphed and hybridized with other entertainment formats. Popular factual television is often regarded as a the populist dumbing down of the more elitist and prestigious documentaries. While the reality TV genre draws its cast from ‘everyday ordinary’ people, increasingly, “these real people are always necessarily ‘scripted’ by producer treatments and ‘clues’ announced on screen… So the most authentic direct-cinema mode – following a group of real people through their daily lives as a microcosm of some bigger truth – becomes a stylized testament that such persons are actually in someone else’s fictive test tube, in this case, the producers… it is a producer’s artifice” (Caldwell, 273). While the reality TV audience continues to grow and follow the cast and characters of programs through a variety of media, they are also aware of the heightened entertainment aspect of the programming and question the validity of their truthfulness. “The more emphasis is placed on spectacle and style, the more audiences look for authenticity in people’s behavior, emotions and the settings for representations of reality” (Hill 2005, 16). The spectacle/performance paradigm asserts that media is constitutive of everyday life. “Contemporary society is performative, spectacular, and focused on the self and individual identities” (Hill 2005, 20). Television is a major source of ‘people watching’ for comparison and possible evaluation” (qtd in Hill 2005, 200).

In this sense, the genre becomes a bridge between formulations of cultural and individual identity, both reflexively influencing the other. Reality TV programs translate the emotions and experience of its ‘real’ participants into entertainment, while viewers utilize this entertainment to formulate their own emotions and experience. In discussing the genres of factuality of programs “viewers process this generic material, making existing and new associations, adding personal meaning to the material, and in doing so are playing a part in the transformation of factuality” (Hill 2005, 95). Reality TV viewing is like a ‘mad dream’ “between fact and fiction, and public and private, viewers are caught in intermediate space,” between consciousness and unconsciousness, which can create a powerful self-reflexive experience (qtd in Hill 2005, 108).

Bollas describes this space as similar to the consciousness between waking and dreaming - when we are dreaming but ‘awake’ enough to see ourself dreaming and reflect on it. “We are always working on our psyche and we never fully make sense of our self-experiences… we explore the messages from factual content and experiences in order to continually reinterpret and make sense of ourselves” (Hill 2005, 89). We witness TV but also witness ourselves as viewers. With ‘factual’ programming we are always working through what is and isn’t real. “The intermediate space of factual genres is transformative, and at times we will personally connect with something in a program, reflecting on what that person or real event means to us, creating a powerful self-reflexive space. The intermediate space of factual genres can also be troubling, a negative experience that challenges viewers to address their personal motivations for watching different kinds of factual content” (Hill 2007, 89).

There is often a ‘troubling side’ to watching reality TV, a dark side that causes viewers to be self critical of themselves. This ‘dark side’ is similar to Carl Jung’s discussion of the “shadow as the dark side of the human psyche. The shadow is the hidden part of the unconscious, something we try to ignore but which is a powerful aspect of ourselves. To be conscious of the dark side of the psyche is important for self-development” (Hill 2005, 108). “Reality TV viewers describe themselves as looking in a mirror and not liking what they see” (Hill 2005, 111). The audience often classify ‘performers’/participants as weird and in comparison the viewer feels he is normal, placing himself in a superior position. This has precedent throughout history, weird people being entertainment for the masses… ie. Traveling fairs of the Renaissance, Roman gladiatorial games, Victorian freakshows (Hill 2007, 207).

As the distinction between fact and fiction become increasingly blurred, the traditional boundaries between the public and private spheres are reorienting themselves. “There has been a breakdown of the boundaries between the public and popular, a focus on spectacle, emotion and personality, a new aesthetics of the real. There is an understanding that reality TV has become so bloated and extreme that it has instigated its own relocation into light entertainment and drama. One of the outcomes of the restyling of factuality is a move back to reality, away from the spectacle of reality entertainment” (Hill 2005, 214).

Works Cited
Caldwell, John. “Prime Time Fiction Theorizes the Docu-Real” in Reality Squared: Televisual Discourses on the Real, ed. James Friedman. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press (2002). 259-292.
Fetveit, Arild. “Reality TV in the digital Era: A Paradox in Visual Culture?” in Reality Squared: Televisual Discourses on the Real, ed. James Friedman. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press (2002). 119-137.
Hill, Annette. Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. New York: Routledge (2005).
Hill, Annette. Restyling factual TV: audiences and news, documentary and reality genres. New York: Routledge (2007).

General Thesis Statement

This thesis aims to critique contemporary formulations of identity and societal engagement in an age increasingly dominated by the proliferation of electronic information and interaction, through the proposition of an architecture which fosters critical awareness of the (re)presentations of actuality in digital media and directs critical engagement in new, virtual ideas of the public sphere. Citizens of the digital media era must learn to critique the ease with which one can construct and proliferate fictive identities in contemporary society and re-engage the affects of tactile interactions, which digital technology increasingly allows us to avoid.

The Global Village
Marshal Mcluhan discusses digital technology’s ability to greatly expand the reach of individuals across the globe and how this could foster collective activity and engagement in society. According to Jean Baudrillard however, the ease and immediacy with which one can acquire information, is directing a corresponding withdrawal from tactile engagement: “All the horizons have already been traversed, you have already confronted all the elsewheres, and all that remains is for you to become ecstatic over, or to withdraw from, this inhuman extrapolation” (1). “The masses plunge into an ecstatic indifference, into the pornography of information, and place themselves at the heart of the system” (2). The individual’s passive withdrawal from society is facilitated by popular culture’s corresponding lack of critical engagement with both the media relaying the massive amounts of information and the content of the information itself.

Public Sphere
In today’s society “individual organizations and political parties engage in public relations so as to validate their actions and improve their image rather than to encourage or engage the public in a rational critical debate involving the issues at hand” (3). If we consider the media as part of Jurgen Habermas’ public sphere, it offers unconstrained access to information which might foster critical discussion and the formulation of social and political views. In many instances, however, it is difficult for the mass audience to decipher fact from fiction because of the preponderance of information. Furthermore, because of this preponderance of information, people can often track down the ‘answers’ they are looking for, correct or not.

The boundaries between public and private have disappeared – people can engage in public activity regardless of their location. Many scholars claim digital media has democratized public space, but this ignores economic factors, which preclude the lower classes from acquiring equal access to the digital networks. Thus, while digital media has expanded our notions of traditional public space and provides us with an abundance of information, the accessibility of new technologies exacerbate the marginalization of the lower classes while the mass audience often fails to critically engage this information it desires.

Identity
The preponderance of information available through digital media has complicated the development and understanding of self-identity in popular culture. Consumers demand the latest digital technologies and products without considering implications of how the structure of these technologies might inherently limit interaction within society. Digital media allows everyone to be anyone at anytime, but always within the confines of the medium itself. It blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction, real and virtual, private and public. And while individuals have the ability to construct fictive identities at will, collectively, society is homogenizing because of its lack of depth and critical awareness.

Jonathan Bignell describes the internet as a "spectacular hall of mirrors, for the attraction of a hall of mirrors is to see oneself differently, as a virtual mirror image, but also to allow this distorted image to be seen by others in a public space" (4). We construct narratives of the self, and the media helps us to formulate these narratives. We are at any given moment how we would like to appear to others (5). Contemporary society is filled with anxiety around truth and trust because of the “fugitivity of truth in the information age. Details can be reconfigured, reinstalled in settings to produce any number of virtual realities. Statistics can be offered to support most anything we like. Preoccupation with evidence marks our insecurity, our search for answers that elude us because our very search fills up the files” (6).

1. Jean Baudrillard. The Ecstasy of Communication. New York: Semiotext(e) (1988), 42.
2. Ibid, 86.
3. James Friedman. “Attraction to Distraction: Live Television and the Public Sphere” in Reality Squared: Televisual Discourses on the Real, ed. James Friedman. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press (2002), 149.
4. Jonathan, Bignell. Postmodern Media Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (2000), 215.
5. Annette Hill. Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television. New York: Routledge (2005), 90.
6. Jodi Dean. “Uncertainty, Conspiracy, Abduction” in Reality Squared: Televisual Discourses on the Real, ed. James Friedman. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press (2002), 304.