Page 75 - META

75
ISSN 2309-0103 www.archidoct.net
Vol. 7 (2) / February 2020
information, the metadata 4 that follow meta-objects are character- istics of the objects and in-form them while at the same time can change and effect on the object. Here the subject object relationship is one of sympathy where they both cross-infect one another.
This of course affects the focus in conceptualizing such kinds of ar- chitectures. Robotics and self-configuring electronic environments – enabled by compatible devices that take advantage of the internet of things start to become the norm while they also affect the agencies within an ecology and the contribution in the creative act that is now not only made by human but also nonhuman agents. Non-human agents become less predicatble, more adaptable, and interactive, less automatic, as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in- troduce behavioural traits that incorporate feedback and correct or even better moderate (Hayles, 1999) their performance. As human and non-human agents are inscribed in the ecology of interactions cultural constructs are created that go beyond typical taxonomies of interiority and exteriority, content and context and thus architecture in a metarepresentational level is realized almost at the moment of its conception, in real time.
Lars Spuybroek’s d-tower was one of the first examples of an architec- ture that had an interactive internet-based component (Spuybroek, 2004) that controlled the appearance of the object by changing its color according to a questionnaire that engaged the citizens of Doet- inchem. Harvesting interactivity becomes a matter of conciseness and compatibility of networks with the design thinking / program- ing of architecture. The ideology behind smart cities is the same. Me- tarepresenting interactions comes with the promise of an umbrella software / environment that will be able harcest behaviors and feed- back from all dimensions of ecos. The definition and interconnection of all parameters at once will allow monitoring of the ecologies. This pragmatic approach, that seems to push aside all ideological aspects of the city by harvesting all kinds of available metadata is evident in projects like Chicago: City of Big Data. The city is analyzed as multiple layers of infrastructure; the narrative of unhindered flow describes the relation of data to the city. High-tech infrastructure as wireless networks has to comply with the low-tech infrastructures of the sew- ers and the roads 5.
5 Metapresence
Throughout architectural history and theories the control of the ar- chitectural object demanded a conceptual distance, a vantage point for the architect in order to overview the design object. This condi- tion affects even the meta-thinking of architecture as it compels it to retreat in contentual awareness confines that are generally identified by criticism, historical or theoretical referencing and quoting and
4 Metadata is content about content. Information about the author of the data, time and space when it was pro- duced
5. See also http://www.archi- tecture.org/exhibits/exhibit/ chicago-city-of-big-data/
//
Meta(re)presentations
Antonis Moras