Technical image and the built environment : ideas for a possible design agenda

Abstract

Vilem Flusser introduces in his 'Into the Universe of the Technical Images' this universe as attracting the' existential interest of future humans'. He describes the technical images as re-assemblies of bits of truth that are leftovers: The universe of texts abstracted the world thoroughly. It also abstracted the orthographic rules of logic and reasoning until only disconnected bits of information remained. The technical images compute these bits in an attempt to make the world understandable again and to provide the possibility to communicate its possibilities dialogical. The consequence for the built environment sounds very simple: It has as its first task to serve the existential interest of future humans, their search for the sense of life. The present environment reflects the sense of life in a universe of texts: The shelter is brought to a state where it serves the physical human needs perfectly, and the forms of the shelters reflect the enterprise of science and technology, of progress towards a linear goal of an industrial society appropriately. The environment of the emerging universe has to change its focus. It has to enable the existential human need to experience the infinity of possibilities, explore them, change them, in a mutual exchange of at the same time challenge and reaction, appreciation, with the colleagues with the same specificity: consciousness. The sense of life can only be found in this permanent dynamic, dialogical experience. Five elements could symbolize this environment: The lonely tower, the element of contemplative moods, that cannot be failed to notice; The dense tubes, the continuously busy and productive element; The flat planes, the experimental element with a maximum of edges and contrast between environments and individuals, around which the confrontation with the linear goal is fought; The big connector, the symbol for the element that is only functional as infrastructure but inevitable as audience; And the refined capsule, the volume for best most facilitated exchange and common experience. Together they form an 'Institute for Culture', for sense-seeking. Site for some sketches is Pier 40 on the Hudson River Water Front in Manhattan.