Adams, site and place

This Thursday, January 10th. 2019, the work of the American composer John Luther Adams will be performed in Rotterdam’s Doelen Concert Hall. Reading the text on his website I was struck by the reference he creates to e.g. the works of Robert Smithson concerning site and non-site. Adams weaves his thoughts on people, landscape, art and culture through music such as ‘Dark Waves’ and, earlier, ‘Become Ocean’. But his text alone remains timeless reading ………..

AIOTI Amsterdam meeting

AIOTI’s WG-13 on Smart Building & Smart Architecture has held a constructive and intense meeting on Nov. 21-22 at the offices of UNSENSE in Amsterdam. After an interesting presentation by Roger Tan on the actual works of UNSENSE we experienced a very essential and significant exchange of opinions, particular about the basics of what will – beginning 2019 – result in WG-13’s white-paper. Core of the discussions was the ontology of smart building, the ethical framework and the urge to address these issues in line with human values.

lecture cyber-physical systems

Yesterday’s afternoon, the 30th of October at the Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam we listened to Prof.Dr. Ben van Lier who delivered his inaugural lecture for the Hogeschool Rotterdam; ‘Thinking about ecologies of autonomous cyber-physical systems and their ethics’. Afterwards a (too brief) discussion moderated by Rob van Kranenburg (Council) with Liisa Janssens (TNO), Linda Kool (Rathenau) and Jonne Hoek (TU-Twente). Again the conclusion was drawn that the overall lack of awareness is real; the english text of the lecture is published by the HR but should in fact be transformed into a summary in Dutch and published widely.

Fuller’s heritage

To celebrate the impact of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, Whirlwind Creative – a multi-talented creative firm based in New York City – has created a 28 minute film about the 10 years legacy and impact of the program. The film’s creators, David Lackey and Terren Baker, conducted dozens of interviews with the Fuller Challenge winners, jurors, review team members, and others to create a profile of the program. Released in conjunction with the curated archive of the whole-systems design innovations, the film provides an inspiring context and makes a compelling case for the importance of this approach to addressing the interrelated issues facing the world today.

https://www.bfi.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4053&qid=4181949

 

smart building

During the last Building Holland conference on April 17-19th in Amsterdam – https://www.buildingholland.nl/preview-bh_aafc2016/20180426-een-smart-building-is-een-dienst – one of the presentations – ‘a Smart Building is a service’ – summarized on the website is the following; (alas only in Dutch, so translated by me).: ‘A smart building will later on not be a collection of stones with people in it, but will resemble more of a computer with roof on top. Sensors measure the presence and even happiness of people, life-cycle of materials, installations will be watched, the building will adapt to the wishes of the user, even when this user is unaware of this.’ Given the title: a service provided, managed and controlled by who?
One remark by a lawyer present: ‘when I hear the term ‘smart’ I know that in 99% of issues it concerns a privacy-problem.’
I could not be there, but I am certainly most glad he was……………

ethics & science; values and autonomous systems?

Published this month, the EGE ‘Statement on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Autonomous Systems‘, rapporteur TUD-Prof. Dr. Jeroen van der Hoven. Since ‘Autonomous Systems’ here includes the IoT its relevance/importance is obvious, in particular since the report states that ‘Autonomy in the ethically relevant sense of the world can therefore (see its philosophical origin, mp) only be attributed to human beings’. This comes as a rather anthropocentric approach; it excludes all other possibilities to add objects as autonomous elements while at  the same time the report questions earlier: ‘Around which values do we want to organise our societies?’ If we conclude that the answer to this important  question can be framed ‘post-human’, can we thus exclude a certain amount of autonomy for anything other then the subject?

Wonen in een infosphere

artikel geschreven voor BNI’s themanummer 2017-4 over technologische innovatie; lees pagina 14-17.

 

“Soon, your house could betray you”
Rem Koolhaas, Artforum, April 2015

 

“It is only human choice that makes the human world function. Technology can motivate human choice,
but not replace it”.
Jaron Lanier, ‘You are not a gadget’

 

domus en/of technica ?
Domotica (ook wel huisautomatisering of smart homes[1] genoemd) is het toepassen van elektronica en huisnetwerken ten behoeve van de automatisering van processen in en om de woning. Het woord “domotica” is een samentrekking van domus (huis in het Latijn) en het achtervoegsel -tica dat lijkt te duiden op ’toegepaste wetenschap’.
Een definitie van domotica is: De integratie van technologie en diensten, ten behoeve van een betere kwaliteit van wonen en leven.[2] Bij domotica draait het dus niet alleen om integratie van techniek en bediening in de woning, maar ook om de dienstverlening van buitenaf naar de woning.
bron: Wikipedia.

Als er iets is dat de mens gemeen heeft de medemens is het dat allen ‘wonen’. Vanzelfsprekend verschillen vorm en kwaliteit, maar op enigerlei wijze hebben wij allen min of meer een dak boven ons hoofd. Tezelfdertijd is de mens een technisch wezen; in toenemende mate echter zorgt de combinatie voor frictie, met name daar waar menselijke waarden – b.v. de wens/noodzaak tot privacy – in het geding zijn.
Onze gebouwde omgeving vormt tevens de fysieke (wettelijke) basis voor het verschil tussen private en publieke ruimte; we hebben als individu het eerste nodig om te kunnen ‘acteren’ in het tweede. Zolang deze scheiding bestaat en de private ruimte een fysieke vertaling – de woning – nodig heeft zal deze geleefde ruimte ontwerp en technologie kennen.
Daarnaast; als wij woningen bouwen doen we dat voor ca. 100-120 jaar, de gemiddelde duur van bewoning in ons land is 7-10 jaar. Geen weldenkend mens zal kunnen voorspellen hoe de wereld eruit ziet over 25 jaar, laat staan over 100 jaar. Het is dus tamelijk pretentieus bij ontwerp te bepalen hoe komende generaties hun wonen moeten vormgeven zolang wij geen totale flexibiliteit inbouwen en daarmee wenselijke en/of noodzakelijke aanpassingen faciliteren.

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