New Cities/New Soviets

July 24, 2004

Hypercity

On any block in the city, look down the street and you can see the traces of a million passages.

The city, by its nature, is the product of countless people. Through the intentional conflux of labor, or the unintentional overlapping of living spaces, the city is changed and shaped to better suit us, to form a more perfect ground of our interaction.

Layer by layer, the city is assembled. Layers of construction, layers of relationships, chains of production, chains of objects. You pass down the street/ I pass down the street. What do we have in common?

How can this complexity be comprehended? Where can one find a place in this megasystem?

Of course, it is possible to try to stay entirely within one layer -- follow in line, in conformity with the established system. But is this really life in the city?

Hypercity is an attempt to jump between layers; to give consistancy to that jump. It is a local affair -- every jump is different, so Hypercity must use specifics. Each section tries to deal with one volume

Posted by Sam at July 24, 2004 06:54 AM

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