Nomad & Machine

Space and Power: Politics, War, and Architecture by Paul Hirst

Chapter 1

nomad |ˈnōˌmad|

noun

• a member of a people having no permanent abode, and who travel from place to place to find fresh pasture for their livestock

• a person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer

machine |məˈ sh ēn|

noun

an apparatus using or applying mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task : a fax machine | a shredding machine.

• [usu. with adj. ] a coin-operated dispenser : a candy machine.

• technical any device that transmits a force or directs its application.

• figurative an efficient and well-organized group of powerful people : his campaign illustrated the continuing strength of a powerful political machine.

• figurative a person who acts with the mechanical efficiency of a machine : comedians are more than just laugh machines.

verb [ trans. ]

(esp. in manufacturing) make or operate on with a machine : [as adj. ] ( machined)

Conduit & Pacification

Operation Gatekeeper:the rise of the "illegal alien" and the making of the U.S.-Mexico boundary      by Joseph Nevins

The border is simultaneously a line of control to keep things out (immigrants and drugs) and a gateway for authorized goods, services, and people.

So much stress is placed on the “the image of a secure border.” But I wonder about the border as an actual place, a place where people live and cross daily to work.  Is all that matters the image?

According to Joseph Nevins, the border is a permanent construction site.  Constructing fences, walls, national identities and exclusivities.

conduit |ˈkänˌd(y)oōət; ˈkänd(w)ət|

•Facilitates interaction between national spaces

• a channel for conveying water or other fluid : a conduit for conveying water to the power plant | figurative the office acts as a conduit for ideas to flow throughout the organization.

• a tube or trough for protecting electric wiring

pacification |ˌpasifiˈkā sh ən|

• A process, in constant flux and one that social actors must reproduce to maintain

• Territorial order in which infrastructural power dominates & despotic power is deployed only occasionally

To pacify:

• to quell the anger, agitation, or excitement of

• bring peace to (a country or warring factions), esp. by the use or threatened use of military force 

Flow & Matrix

Atlas of Novel Tectonics: Introduction

“We hold to the idea that architecture is not simply reducible to the container and the contained but that there exists a dynamic exchange between the life of matter and the matter of our lives.” P.34

Flow |flō|

Verb

• Contours and rates of change in data

• Patterns of material action

• Flow of information, people, and materials (energy-matter-potential)

• to move along or out steadily and continuously in a current or stream

• (of the sea or a tidal river) move toward the land; rise.

• circulate continuously within a particular system

• proceed or be produced smoothly, continuously, and effortlessly

• ( flow from) result from; be caused by

• (of a solid) undergo a permanent change of shape under stress, without melting.

Matrix |ˈmātriks|

Noun

• An environment or material in which something develops; a surrounding medium or structure

• A mass of fine-grained rock in which gems, crystals, or fossils are embedded.

• A mold in which something, such as printing type or a phonograph record, is cast or shaped.

• An organizational structure in which two or more lines of command, responsibility, or communication may run through the same individual.

• In Mathematics: a rectangular array of quantities or expressions in rows and columns that is treated as a single entity and manipulated according to particular rules.

• In Biology the substance between cells or in which structures are embedded.

Sullen & Abyss

Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings

A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey (1967)

Sullen

“Under the dead light of the Passaic afternoon the desert became a map of infinite disintegration and forgetfulness. This monument of minute particles blazed under a bleakly glowing sun, and suggested the sullen dissolution of entire continents, the drying up of oceans- no longer were there green forests and high mountains- all that existed were millions of grains of sand, a vast deposit of bones and stones pulverized into dust.” P.74

 |ˈsələn|

adjective

• (esp. of water) slow-moving : rivers in sullen, perpetual flood.

• bad-tempered and sulky; gloomy : a sullen pout | figurative a sullen sunless sky. A sullen person is gloomy, untalkative, and ill-humored by nature, but a glum person is usually silent because of low spirits or depressing circumstances

ORIGIN Middle English (in the senses [solitary, averse to company,] and [unusual] ): from Anglo-Norman French sulein, from sol ‘sole.’

Abyss

“Passaic seems full of “holes” compared to New York City, which seems tightly packed and solid, and those holes in a sense are the monumental vacancies that define, without trying, the memory-traces of an abandoned set of futures.” P.72

|əˈbis|

noun

• a void

• a deep or seemingly bottomless chasm

• figurative a wide or profound difference between people; a gulf : the abyss between the two nations.

• figurative the regions of hell conceived of as a bottomless pit

• ( the abyss) figurative a catastrophic situation seen as likely to occur : teetering on the edge of the abyss of a total political wipeout.

ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [infernal pit] ): via late Latin from Greek abussos ‘bottomless,’ from a- ‘without’ + bussos ‘depth.’

Graft & Hinterlands

A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History by Manuel De Landa

Geological History 1700-2000 A.D.

Graft

“The original loop (coal-iron-steam-cotton), and its newly aquired nodes (railroads, telegraph), continued to function into the twentieth century. The new technologies simply grafted themselves into the previous meshwork, becoming yet other nodes, participating in its self reproduction and, hence reproducing themselves.” P.92

|graft|

verb [ trans. ]

• Horticulture insert (a scion) as a graft : it was common to graft different varieties onto a single tree trunk.

• insert a graft on (a stock).

• Medicine transplant (living tissue) as a graft : they can graft a new hand onto the arm.

• figurative insert or fix (something) permanently to something else, typically in a way considered inappropriate

ORIGIN late Middle English graff, from Old French grafe, via Latin from Greek graphion ‘stylus, writing implement’ (with reference to the tapered tip of the scion), from graphein ‘write.’ The final -t is typical of phonetic confusion between -f and -ft at the end of words; compare with tuft .

Hinterlands

“Industrial hinterlands have always emerged in close connection with dynamic urban centers, spawned and nourished by cities and towns enjoying some kind of positive feedback from their agglomeration of skills and economic functions.” P.98    

|ˈhintərˌland|

noun

the often uncharted areas beyond a coastal district or a river's banks : early settlers were driven from the coastal areas into the hinterland.

• an area surrounding a town or port and served by it : the city had grown prosperous by exploiting its local western hinterland.

• the remote areas of a region : the mountain hinterland.

• figurative an area lying beyond what is visible or known : in the hinterland of his mind these things rose, dark and ominous.

ORIGIN late 19th cent.: from German, from hinter ‘behind’ + Land ‘land.’

Exposure & Fields

“Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes” by James Corner

“No matter how objective and descriptive the claims for it might be, imaging always exercises agency, actively unfolding, generating, and actualizing emergent realities.” P. 160

Exposure

“Not only is a collective recognition of land as landscape made possible through exposure to prior images (a phenomenon central to both spectacle and tourist landscapes) but also the ability to intentionally construe and construct designed landscapes is enabled through various forms and activities of imaging.” P.153

|ikˈspō zh ər|

noun/ verb- to expose

• The state of being exposed to contact with something

• an act or instance of being uncovered or unprotected

• experience of something for the first time or for a long duration

• the action of exposing a photographic film to light

• the direction in which a building faces; an outlook

• to uncover something or reveal an image

Designed exposure- sequencing and planning the uncovering and revealing of something

Fields

“We might say that gardens are defined less by formal appearances than through the activities of gardening, just as agricultural fields derive their form from the logistics of farming, and cities from the flows, processes, and performances of urbanization.” P. 159

|fēld|

noun

• open land

• a mass of people, resources, or land

• a piece of land used for a particular purpose, esp. an area marked out for a game or sport

• a large area of land or water completely covered in a particular substance, esp. snow or ice.

• an area rich in a natural product, typically oil or gas : an oil field.

• an area on which a battle is fought : a field of battle.

• archaic a battle : many a bloody field was to be fought.

• a place where a subject of scientific study or artistic representation can be observed in its natural location or context.

• a particular branch of study or sphere of activity or interest

• a space or range within which objects are visible from a particular viewpoint or through a piece of apparatus : field of view

• Computing a part of a record, representing an item of data.

“The scenic landscape tends not only to displace the viewing subject in both space and time but also to displace the objects is contains.”

Entangled & Organism

Recycling Recycling by Mark Wigley

Wigley talks about the extension of the body where "the limit between interior and exterior, organic and technological, gives way. The inevitable consequence is the extension of the human nervous system into a generalized cybernetic system."

or·gan·ism
[awr-guh-niz-uh m]
-noun

•A form of life (Life: something that manifests growth through metabolism, reproduction, or adaptation)
•Any organized body or system conceived of as analogous to a living being
•Any complex system which has properties determined by the character abd relationships of the whole, rather than its parts

en·tan·gle
[en-tang-guh l]
-verb

•intertwined or tangled (tangle: a mass of confused interlaced threads, strands, or parts. To involve something that obstructs or overgrows)
•to be involved in difficulties
•to confuse or perplex

"The prosthetic body grows into a landscape, a terrain that can be occupied."
(Language is an example of a prosthesis)

Traced & Numbers

Frontiers by Malcolm Anderson
Chapter 5: Frontiers and Migration

Traced [treys]
-noun

•To have followed something back to the source
•To link to the past, the passage of the past
•To locate tracks left by a person, animal, or object
•Evidence of former existence
•To draw (a line) over another, to copy

Numbers [nuhm-berz]
-noun

It's all about numbers. Numbers of people, numbers of years, numbers on bills. Time is recorded through the very symbol of the number.

•the sum, total, count or aggregate of a collection of units
•a word or symbol
•to count or perform an action repetitively
•to set a limit, to have reached an amount
•a considerable amount or quantity
•the basis of science lies in numbers

By the numbers: policy, or in great unison

Also interesting is:
numbers pool
-noun
1. Also called numbers, numbers game, numbers racket. an illegal daily lottery in which money is wagered on the appearance of certain numbers in some statistical listing or tabulation published in a daily newspaper, racing form, etc.

Lebensraum & Concentrated

Frontiers by Malcom Anderson
Chapter one: History and Theory


Lebensraum
[le-buh ns-roum, -buh nz-]
-noun

According to Frederick Rayzel: The space necessary for a people to support itself and to develop the various cultural and social forms associated with it.

•additional territory considered by a nation, especially Nazi Germany, to be necessary for national survival or for the expansion of trade.
•any additional space needed in order to act, function, etc.
•living space


con·cen·trat·ed
[kon-suh n-trey-tid]
-adjective

Clustered or gathered closely
Thick or dense
In Mining: to separate (metal or ore) from rock, sand, etc., so as to improve the quality of the valuable portion.

Amplified & Thinking

"Organization Space: Landscapes, Highways, and Houses in America" by Keller Easterling

"Architecture is not about the house but rather about housekeeping."

Amplified

To increase, to raise
To make larger, greater, or stronger
Expand or extend
To clarify
To exaggerate
To call attention to


Thinking

To reason or reflect
To judge
To be conscious
To remember
To make rational decisions
To evaluate a situation
To consider something
To invent
To have consideration or regard
To have a belief or opinion
To have or form in the mind an idea, Conception
To analyze, plan
To anticipate something
To imagine


"When a small desire meets large volumes of consumers, or a dumb component is multiplied within a banal or repetitive environment, it has the power to gradually reconstitute an organization."