In the same urban setting with concrete walls, without those imaginary high-tech structures floating in the air as described in science fictions, like it or not, we are living in the Cybercity, especially the case under the popular use of Big Data and Blockchain. The cyberspace and urban dystopia is not a mixture, as their spatial relationship is like mother-and-son. Rather than “Form become InFORMation,” I would say information become space to define our habitat. As simple as the use of mobile phone, or with cyber lampposts set along pavements, our whereabouts in disguise of informative data, are in surveillance. During C19 pandemic, literally “The man who works there worships there”, since we went to temple online to pray to gods or consult fortune telling. Are gods now residing inside computer or the functions of temples and religious architecture are put into review if not in doubt?
Urban planning nowadays has to address the characteristics of cyber-living. One of which is decentralization, inclusive of physical form and space, and governing system of a society. When work-at-home, go-to-school-at-home, use of cryptocurrency, unmanned transportation, and many more have become norms, the space of flows requires a different mindset to conceive in order to suit the new matrix of activities. Rather than confining in fabricated environment, there exists a natural affinity to more organic form and space. Nature and natural elements would become crucial architectural components that people crave for in Cybercity .
Lai Kwong Ning, Max 3035795264
Appreciate how you draw examples from real life to prove that we are now living in a cyber city. Regarding your ‘mother-and-son’ metaphor, I wonder which is the mother, the physical word, or the narrative? I wonder why there is a natural affinity to more organic forms and spaces under the influence of cyber technologies.