Co-Evolutionary Mediation

Sean A. Gallagher

"There are two key questions or themes driving this project, which seem to me to be the critical issues we need to deal with today in architecture. The first investigates the relationship between architecture, Empire [cf. Negri & Hardt] and Geo/Bio Politics, searching for points where architecture and urbanism might usefully participate in this relationship to create a world with more freedom. The second question seeks a more robust conceptual model for both politics and architecture, a model for design which suggests the superimposition of bodies coexisting and interacting with each other. There are many examples of this superimposition: viruses living in our human bodies, waves of flow passing through bodies in stadiums, human bodies living within cities, cultures thriving within new technologies, new technologies emerging within economies. Discovering the optimum relation between the more fluid bodies - what we could describe as the more temporalized bodies - and the more stratified bodies - will be the larger goal.

To get at this idea, our specific program will be to compose a scenario for the design of a headquarters, network model, and tactical response team with equipment for an international organization that handles events at a truly global scale. This organization will be a hybrid of groups such as NATO, the UN, the World Health Organization, Medicine Sans Frontiers, and the Center for Disease Control [CDC]. We will consider other NGOs, global entities, corporations and technologies as candidates, such as Monsanto, Earth First, the NSA, and CARNIVORE. In the performance of organizations like the CDC or NATO, it is crucial for information to become actionable immediately and impact the way that both global and tactical responses take place. Architecture has traditionally operated very slowly as a large scale cultural memory mechanism. How can its performance model now be revised to acknowledge immediately actionable information?

Film viewings will be a central part of the initial work and will provide material for analysis and alternative precedent models for new scenarios and programs. Scenario writing will be used as way of identifying key evolutionary factors in the program (cf. www.gbn.org & www.wired.com). Instead of attempting to design a building by analyzing an existing entity- a film, a city, an institution- and then projecting that analysis onto a receptive body- we’ll be simultaneously designing, embedding partially completed analytic results, and extracting the analysis in a revised form from the project. In other words, just as in the real world there are many systems which overlap and feedback with each other, we’ll be maintaining that the DIAGRAM components of our initial work continue to exist- to live on as a para-site of time within matter within time, inside the project." - Ed Keller

Final Scenario: {Biotech Superimpositions Organization}

The final project proposal develops upon prior investigations of superimpositions within the umbrella of evolutionary subject matter. The focus of this investigation concerns the human's heterotrophic dependency on microbes and exploring its past, contemporary, and future relationship to gene-culture co-evolution. The big idea being that we will soon wield this heterotrophic relationship with genetically altered microbes to biologically adjust our body, and in return, technologically speed human evolution. Existing social markets surrounding an individual‘s health and appearance will eventually seriously promote and accelerate this type of biotech research. In anticipation of this revolution an organization is created to investigate the multiple variables of this co-evolution in order to advantageously move towards harnessing the benefits of this potential future.

The organization is a team of ethnologists, biologists, and geneticist, whose objective is to understand how variability in human behavior and society may be interpreted as resulting from interactions between genetic and cultural processes. To initiate the series of investigations, the team decided that Manhattan, because of its constant flux and diverse cultural overlap, should be the first city of many ecological 'petri dishes.' Broadway Street was seen as a vehicle for their investigations since it threads together cultural microclimates around most of the island. As with traditional ethnology, research would have to be conducted in spaces where the subjects live, work, and leisure. The equipment necessary to observe and compile superimposition information is hypothesized to be 'landart' within the existing pedestrian infrastructure. These semi-permanent exhibition pieces will be placed in leased vender zones and disclose themselves as experimental social health artifacts. They will physically capture discharged material on various analysis beds, scan bodies as they sit or pass through a designated parameter, and tract activities of groups and emerging trends through social microclimate thresholds.

Biopower Transmutations

At the dawn of biotech awareness, in pursuit of understanding the genetic machinery of life, we are able to see a future of great transformative knowledge and ability. Like most new enlightenments, social anxieties relating to moral and ethical stabilities are immediately expressed concerning the biotech research or experimentation. However, these issues (ie: cloning) are merely circus exercises with limited appeal, and the existing social markets surrounding an individual's health and appearance will dominate the movement's attention. Currently, by scratching the surface of the biotech world, we are becoming more familiar with our many microscopic heterotrophic relationships. Our body is superimposed daily with 2 pounds of bacteria, most of which is necessary to maintain a coherent state. We have historically co-evolved with these organisms, and their DNA is laced within the human genome. These microbes (bacteria) have the ability in real time to create, manufacture, swap and share enormous amounts of DNA with their environment, and by domesticating and/or genetically altering the microbes we may be able to significantly change our body's state. It is here that we find the biotech industry’s most powerful potential, and with time, can conceive of a future where we will learn to wield our heterotrophic relationship with microbe (bacteria) ‘machines’ (genetically altered organisms) to physically calibrate the body‘s coherent composition.

In this pursuit to advantageously change our genetic and biologic composition with superimposed microbes, it is likely that we will comprehensively speed human evolution: mind and body. The manipulation of our body's evolutionary speed surfaces an issue of gene-culture co-evolution within human societies. While having the ability to calibrate in real time our body's composition presents many advantages for both health and appearance, it also makes our genetic memory more vulnerable to cultural manifestations and consumptions. These cultural transmissions have been suspected of influencing the body's evolutionary rates in the past, but due to the speed at which most cultures evolve, it has only been considered minor. By increasing the evolutionary speed of the body, Biotech capabilities will open the door to a more significant relationship between culture and human genetic sequencing. In anticipation of this revolution an organization was created to passively investigate current and potential biological and social superimpositions.

The organization will be a team of ethnologists, biologists, and geneticist, who set out understand how variability in human behavior and society may be interpreted as resulting from interactions between genetic and cultural processes. With this information, educated steps can be made in the advancement of microbe 'machine' augmentation for advantageous superimpositions. To initiate the investigation, the team will need a facility to collaborate and conduct genetic research within a region of constant flux and diverse cultural overlap. As with traditional ethnography, the research must be conducted in spaces where the subjects live, work, and leisure. With these constraints, it was decided that the facility should passively inhabit a suitable region and capture, like light to film, the interactions of the social and biological bodies. The organization concluded that the island of Manhattan, New York seemed to have the variety, density, and flux required to sample a multiplicity of superimpositions. It was also decided that they should inscribe a path through the urban network of cultural microclimates, neighborhoods with no relation to administrative boundaries, which evoked the qualities of distinct social bodies. This theoretical/physical path would become the constant within the research that could be similarly replicated in other cities around the world. Broadway Street was decided as the path for their investigations in Manhattan since it threads together diverse microclimates in various geographic areas of the island.

The next challenge was orchestrating a process to passively conduct field research which included extracting biological information from the unaware participants. Furthermore, the conducted research could not infringe on the participants privacy rights, thus, the process would have to extract types of information which guaranteed animosity. Procedures of identification analysis, such as fingerprinting and retina scans, would be restricted while surveillance media would be strategically distorted to enhance transitional flows rather than person tracking. The team considered three methods of passive observation that were physically harmless to the body. The first method, touch plates, would physically capture discharged material on an analysis bed. The discharged material might be perspiration, dead skin compilation or exhaled material left behind by individuals on vertical and horizontal surfaces. The second method, particle transmissions, would scan a person’s body as they sit or pass through a designated parameter. This method is similar to the body scanning platforms, which are currently becoming popular for one stop medical analysis. These devises would be calibrated to detect the various organisms that are active within the human body. The third method, image recording, would tract activities of social groups through climatic thresholds and the emergence and spreading of trends. Then this information will be sent to a facility along Broadway to guide further analysis of gene-culture co-evolution, experimental procedures of microbe augmentation, and as residual memory of cultural sweeps.

In order to insure participation with the observation methods, the team hypothesized that the locations would have to be highly visible in microclimatic thresholds of pedestrian activity. The research processes would then have to interrupt, redirect, or become the participant's daily routine and entice voluntarily interaction. The team decided to purchase vender zones down Broadway and hire a design firm to create semi-permanent exhibition pieces of work and leisure with the intention to create within these public areas interactive landscapes and artifacts composed of the passive observation devises. The devises will conceptually become interactive 'landart' within the existing pedestrian infrastructure which discloses itself as an experimental social health artifact for the public domain, and used at the participant’s own risk. Fortunately, under the 'Patriots Act' of 2002, it would not have to fully disclose its entire functions as a public surveillance devise. In addition to the 'landart' observation artifacts, the organization requires a facility for collaboration, experimentation, and documentation. Furthermore, since the organization’s will be dependant on future social markets surrounding an individual's health and appearance, it was decide that the facility should also physically and programmatically recognize the public and begin to brand, educate, and supply its products. With this mainstream camouflage, the facility would be able to co-exist within Broadway’s context seamlessly catering to both the public and its own research.

Pedestrian Traffic Superimpositions: {site analysis}

Once sites within cultural microclimatic thresholds were selected, the next step in the design process was to document and analyze pedestrian flow patterns. With this information the design team would be able to locate and arrange built interventions that entice voluntarily interaction with the observation methods by physically interrupting, redirecting, or becoming the participant's daily routine.

Passive 'Landart' Artifacts:

{semi permanent exhibition devices}

The organization and design team considered three methods of passive observation that were physically harmless to the body. The first method, touch plates, would physically capture discharged material on an analysis bed. The discharged material might be perspiration, dead skin compilation or exhaled material left behind by individuals on vertical or horizontal surfaces. The second method, particle transmissions, would scan a person’s body as they sit or pass through a designated parameter. This method is similar to the body scanning platforms which are currently becoming popular for one stop medical analysis. These devises would be calibrated to detect the various organisms that are active within the human body. The third method, image recording, would tract activities of social groups through climatic thresholds and the emergence and spreading of trends. The conducted research would not infringe on the participant's privacy rights, thus, the processes above extract types of information which guarantee animosity. Procedures of identification analysis, such as fingerprinting and retina scans, would be restricted while surveillance media would be strategically distorted to enhance transitional flows rather than person tracking. Fortunately, under the 'Patriots Act' of 2002, it would not have to fully disclose its entire functions, just discloses itself as an experimental social health artifact for the public domain, and used at the participant’s own risk.

Richard Tucker Square {Motion Funnel} 66b
- influence sidewalk traffic
- create semi-enclosed resting/work areas
- lease promotion space (education/entertainment)
- offer climatic havens (elements/temperature/volumes)

Touch Plates {surface analysis}
- (AN) physically captures discharged materials on an analysis bed

Parameter Scans {superimposition analysis}
- (GS) calibrated to detect the various organisms that are active within the human body

Image Surveillance {movement analysis}
- (FC) tract activities of social groups through climatic thresholds

Corporate Headquarters:

{public/research analysis environment [HQb]}

All information will be sent to this facility to inform the gene-culture co-evolution analysis, experimental genetic augmentation of microbes, and as a residual memory of cultural and biological flux within Manhattan. This facility will be the prototype environment for the global collaboration, experimentation, and documentation of advantageous superimpositions of genetically engineered microbes and humans. Due to the organization's funding dependency on existing corporations within social markets surrounding an individual's health and appearance, they envisioned a headquarters facility that also physically and programmatically recognizes the public and makes the first step at branding, educating, and supply its resulting products. With this mainstream camouflage, the facility will be able to co-exist within Broadway's existing context while seamlessly catering to both the public and its own research process.

Program {Mainstream Camouflage}

Public Spaces
- education (exhibition/auditorium/courtyard)
- market (boutique-retail/unique identity)

Company Spaces
- business (reception/offices/conference/storage)
- communication (network/info host/collaboration)
- research (laboratories/tech shops/monitoring)