Up to the beginning of the 20th century, the Ancient Testament had been the most cited text in societies with Christian heritage when it came to condemning the human hybris and its emblematic spatial figure: the city. Yet, quite surprisingly, the most anti-urban text contains the perfect set of ingredients to build one. As the […]
Category Archives: Spaces
The tourist as the main inhabitant of a place
Who’s the real inhabitant of a place? For a long time, population maps have been constructed as if everybody stood still in their homes. Yet leaving this “domostatic” perspective is to geography like opening Pandora’s Box. All objects of any concern to the discipline must then be understood in a dynamic relationship to the rest […]
The Pope, Osama bin Laden and The Crucifix Map
Easter 2011 has been marked by a very particular conjunction of celebrations: the beatification of the body of the Pope John Paul II, preceded by its exhumation the capture and burial in deep sea of the body of Osama Bin Laden. John Paul II’s body has been moved to a marble stone monument in Pier […]
Paths in the green and spatial planning as a translation process
This map is an agent-based simulation result produced by NetLogo. It has been programmed years ago by a friend of mine, Alexios Kitsoupulos, from the University of Lausanne. What you see are paths produced in the green by people moving from one place to another. The basic rules are : – Individuals use existing paths […]
Augmented Reality and the Places of Dreams
Behind the illusion In Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, Klaus Kinski with his eyes buried deep into another world stands on the shore of a river and says: Everyday life is only an illusion behind which lies the reality of dreams This is what the Jivaro Indians reportedly believe. But what Kinski’s character sees is his boat climbing […]
Globalization and the society of diversified consumption: an optimistic view
And what if consumption has superseded itself with the advent of Internet advertisement? Since commercials are now possible on global scale, while being contextually aimed at specific audiences, it becomes less and less interesting to mass-produce for crowds subjugated by manufactured desire for standardized objects. Manufacturing myth, like cars, TV’s or CD players, is no […]