Architect Leopold Lambert examines architecture as a political weapon, focusing on the case study of the West Bank.

Several links:

• Local Code: a project which tracks unused pavement space
• Invisible Cities: project by Christian Schmidt and Liangjie Jia. “Invisible Cities maps information from one realm—online social networks—to another: an immersive, three-dimensional space. In doing so, the piece creates a parallel experience to the physical urban environment.”(from website)

Daniel Miller’s article in Eurozine

Manuel de Landa’s paper here

Der Spiegel‘s article on Wikileaks provides a description of the person behind the website which has thrown a huge, unpredictable spanner in the military works.

If the problem is the lack of infrastructure (due to high economic costs or low returns) or even the impossibility of the expansion of infrastructure helping communities to commute and work, then maybe it comes down to adopting alternatives to change social behaviour, like open-source info applications (a la iphones). However, as Varnelis says:

“…unfortunately, agencies seem to think that the act of making such information available is somewhere between aiding and abetting terrorism and a distraction from their job.”

Systems Gone Wild: Infrastructure After Modernity

Alberto Perez-Gomez’s work “Architecture and the Crisis of the Modern Sciences” sheds some knowledge on the tension between the Ancients and the Moderns, as exemplified in the battles of Claude Perrault and Francis Blondel in the seventeenth century, which was alluded to by Mark Wigley in his essay “The Architectural Brain”. The volume itself traces the use of geometry and mathematics in architecture from the 17th century onwards which according to Perez-Gomez, precipitates a crisis in architectural thought and practice (i.e. the critical problem of architecture as art or science — the problem of techne as poesis vs praxis). Architecture is reduced to “a system of rational prescriptive rules” (9); the emphasis on structure and form, as provided by geometry and number (mathesis), isolates the symbolic/transcendental (you could say ontological) aspect of human experience. I’m not quite sure what he means by “reconciliation” which is tied to this transcendental aspect, but I suppose it has to do with the generation of meaning in human experience. The autonomy of mathematical form negates this in its assumption of “absolute rationality” (8), thus architectural practice either turns into mere production, or ignores theory altogether.

Perez-Gomez identifies two transformative periods behind the crisis: 1) end of the seventeenth century, with the entry of philosophy and Galilean science questioning the link between divinity and geometry and increasing secularisation of knowledge; 2) 18th century, with Newtonian revolution — systemisation and mathematization of knowledge (i.e. mechanical/natural laws); also formalisation of geometry and math as methods of “technological intentionality” (from Habermas)

Points of interest:

• the metaphysical totality inhabiting architecture theory and practice in the Renaissance and the 17th/18th century (e.g. Alberti, Vignola, etc.), prompted by an understanding of mythos (i.e. architecture as art; embodiment of metaphysics) – beginnings of understanding the world as construction (shift from poesis to praxis)
• autonomy of form: architectural style emerges post-1800 once that becomes established (symbolic meaning detached with the assertion of rationality in structure — theory here becomes the handmaiden of rational control, however, it is also expected to provide some form of transcendental meaning); distinction between ‘necessary structure’ and ‘contingent ornament’ (12)
• Claude Perrault vs Francis Blondel: Perrault wrote a treatise and he also edited and commented on Vitruvius’ Ten Books. A scientist and a physician by training, Perrault married his scientific interests with his architectural thought. Science, at that point of time, substituted the mysteries of the world with idealized geometrical models through which one would be able to manipulate/grasp aspects of the external world — the halfway point between the complete secularization of thought (for the idealized mathematical models still provided a link between divine insight and the human world) and the belief in the world as all-encompassing cosmos. His work Parallele des Anciens et Modernes instigated the battle between the ancients and the moderns, supporting the view of the moderns, who believed in searching for truth in the observation of nature, rather than relying on hermeneutic-based insights from the texts of the ancients, separating scientific truth from divine thought. Perrault’s method was an inductive one which relied on the construction of hypotheses and rejected the final cause. In architecture, Perrault rejected the assumption of the practices and beliefs of the ancients in the name of innovation towards a projective completion of knowledge and practice (27). The formation of the Royal Academy of Architecture in 1671 marked the institutionalization of architectural education and practice in rational/theoretical terms, as opposed to the traditional apprentice model. Perrault also proposed a system of proportions, using the arithmetic mean, as seen in the prescriptive creation of the petit module (31). Rejecting also the relationship between architectural proportion and musical harmony, beauty was not determined by proportion, which, he asserted, was ultimately subject to associations determined by custom and “the imagination” (35), but by ‘visible aspects’. Unseating the fixed referent relationships between truth, beauty and proportion, Perrault’s work contributes to the historical development of the network by 1) establishing a shifting relative equivalence between different aspects of architecture according to mathematical relationships (i.e. aesthetic aspects are separated from technical ones which are reflected in a fixed system), and in this sense 2) establishing architecture as a critical prescriptive rational/theoretical system (ars fabricandi) instead of an art based on divine principles carried down by the ancients (i.e. reliance on the visible form and rejection of an invisible content). Blondel, the founding member of the Academy of Architecture, opposed Perrault in his Cours d’Architecture, as he still believed in the validity of geometrical abstraction in relation to the world (scientia universalis) and could not distinguish aesthetic aspects such as architectural proportion, from more technical, mathematical ones. He insisted on the existence of stable and invariable principles.

Cybermobilization: The New Levee En Masse

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/Parameters/06summer/cronin.htm

http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/c_armycorps.html#6

US Army vs Ashton Kutcher on twitter

Jyri Engeström: Nodal points

object-centred sociality

Taken from “Napoleon’s Strategy and Tactics”:

Napoleon expertly concentrated troops before battle. He wrote: “Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, and Frederick, as well as Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar, have all acted upon the same principles. These have been – to keep their forces united …” It was Napoleon’s method that when several corps begin an aggressive action they should concentrate at a place away from the enemy to prevent the opposing army from destroying the approaching armies piecemeal. Speed of maneuver and speed of concentration were crucial components of victory. Napoleon wrote: “Fire must be concentrated on one point, and as soon as the breach is made, the equilibrium is broken and the rest is nothing.” There is however misunderstanding of this theory. Lidell Hart explained “Subsequent military theory has put the accent on the first clause instead of on the last: in particular, on the words ‘one point’ instead of on the ‘equilibrium’. The former is but a physical metaphor, whereas the latter expressess the actual psychological result which ensures ‘that the rest is nothing.’ His own emphasis can be traced in the strategic course of his campaigns.
The word ‘point’ even, has been the source of much confusion, and more controversy. One school has argued that Napoleon meant that the concentrated blow must be aimed at the enemy’s strongest point, on the ground that this, and this only, ensures decisive results. For if the enemy’s main resistance be broken, its rupture will involve that of any lesser opposition. This argument ignores the factor of cost, and the fact that the victor may be too exhausted to exploit his success – so that even a weaker opponent may acquire a relatively higher resisting power than the original.
The other school – better imbued with the idea of economy of force, but only in the limited sense of first costs – has contended that the offensive should be aimed at the enemy’s weakest point. But where a point is obviously weak this is usually because it is remote from any vital artery or nerve centre, or because it is deliberately left weak to draw the assailant into a trap. Here, again, illumination comes from the actual campaign in which Bonaparte put his maxim into execution. It clearly suggests that what he really meant was no ‘point’, but ‘joint’ – and that at this stage of his career he was too firmly imbued with the economy of force to waste his limited strength in battering at the enemy’s strong point. A joint, however, is both vital and vulnerable.” (Hart – “Strategy” 1991 pp 98-99)
Napoleon used as little force as possible against non-critical objectives.
“There are in Europe many good generals,” he declared in 1797, “but they see too many things at once. I see only one thing, namely the enemy’s main body. I try to crush it, confident that secondary matters will then settle themselves.” According to David Chandler here lies the central theme, of Napoleon’s concept of warfare. In order to concentrate superior combat strength in one place, economy of force must be exercised in other places. Economy of force requires the acceptance of prudent risks in selected areas to achieve superiority at the point of decision.