Blurring The Lines
Abstruse Goose is a comic I keep up with via my RSS feeds, and the other day I came across this strip.
Source:Abstruse Goose
I’ve made some pretty lengthy posts about how devices are blurring the lines between self and space and what will happen when the line can’t be distinguished at all- so it’s funny to see all those thoughts communicated more effectively with a comic strip panel and a single sentence. It sums everything up beautifully- whereas architecture is typically about exploring how humans relate to space, interactive architecture is about exploring ways to blur the two together. As the comic shows, it’s probably happening faster than we think.
What you’re saying about blurring the lines between self and space and being transformed by the spaces/technologies we create reminds me of Marshall McLuhan’s definition of a tool. This synopsis puts it better than I can.:
‘”We shape our tools,” he said, “and then our tools shape us.” Technology, according to McLuhan, is an extension of our own natural faculties. Just as a knife is an extension of the hand, and the wheel an extension of the leg, writing is an extension of speech and of memory. In this general metaphor, automobiles become extensions of our personal bodies, and the city an extension of our collective skin. Electronic communication is an extension of our nervous system, just as computers are extensions of our brains. Once extended, however, these technologies are “amputated.” They exist as external and independent objects, though we remain dependent upon them’