Spatial Computing - e-flux

Editors Nick Axel, Nikolaus Hirsch, Laura Kurgan, Adam Vosburgh

Contributors Lucia Rebolino, Erin McElroy, Mimi Ọnụọha, Dare Brawley, Lai Yi Ohlsen, Tega Brain, Sam Lavigne

The politics, boundaries, and control systems built into spatial technologies are computationally designed to be invisible and are very difficult to exit. Approaching spatial computing critically might thus help us understand where and how things, people, animals, plants, and movements are tied to these bigger, less visible systems—ones that are perhaps not “seen” on the map but are guided by it.

Spatial Computing is a collaboration with the M.S. in Computational Design Practices Program (MSCDP) at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University.

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7 essays

All that is Air Melts into Air

Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne

The goal is fungibility—to assert equivalence between activities by people or environments so that emissions created over here can be traded and (theoretically) compensated for by actions removing or reducing carbon over there. The means is, of course, commodification. Offsets privatize planetary metabolism.

How Tall is the Internet?

Lai Yi Ohlsen

But no matter how we choose to do it, internet measurement—like all data-centric disciplines—inevitably bumps into questions: what are we trying to measure? What does it mean for the internet to be working the way we want it to? And who is we?

House Tech

Dare Brawley

The recognition that investment firms—not “irresponsible” individual home buyers—increased the severity of the crash marks a significant departure from prevailing public narratives about this period. Yet the policy response in the United States since the crisis has largely been to double down on promoting profit-driven investment in housing.

The End of a World / As We Knew It

Mimi Ọnụọha

I learned about the mass grave in 2018. It is located about five minutes by car from the Texas house I grew up in. I had driven past it every morning on my way to school, in the last dark hour before the sun took to stage.

Boycotting, Identifying, and Organizing Against Serial Evictors

Erin McElroy

Since the 1970s, punitive blocklisting technology has amalgamated various data sets, including eviction records, criminal records, credit rating data, and more, which can then be packaged and sold as recommendations to landlords on whether someone will be a “good” or “bad tenant.”

Unpredictable Atmosphere

Lucia Rebolino

So much depends on our ability to forecast the weather—and, when catastrophe strikes, on our ability to respond quickly. An architecture of forecasting is crucial for providing accurate and timely weather information and collecting essential weather and climate data.

Editorial

Laura Kurgan, Adam Vosburgh, and e-flux Architecture

Spatial Computing is a collaboration between e-flux Architecture and the M.S. in Computational Design Practices Program (MSCDP) at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University, featuring contributions by Dare Brawley, Catherine Griffiths, Laura Kurgan, Sam Lavigne and Tega Brain, Erin McElroy, Lai Yi Ohlsen, Mimi Ọnụọha, and Lucia Rebolino.

Subject

Infrastructure, Maps

Contributors

Laura Kurgan, Adam Vosburgh, and e-flux Architecture Editorial
Lucia Rebolino Unpredictable Atmosphere
Erin McElroy Boycotting, Identifying, and Organizing Against Serial Evictors
Mimi Ọnụọha The End of a World / As We Knew It
Dare Brawley House Tech
Lai Yi Ohlsen How Tall is the Internet?
Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne All that is Air Melts into Air

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Subject