I’m reading Gillian Fuller and Ross Harley’s Aviopolis, researching my book on omnitopia. An interesting quote:
Airports are a type of city designed to facilitate global mass-movement as efficiently as possible. The city exists in no single location. It is dispersed and distributed in much the same way as most global information networks, and yet it is inhabited by real people and things (not just data). To access this city one needs to buy into a very particular set of procedures and rules. (p. 11)Read More: Aviopolis 2
(Photograph by Andrew Wood)
3 comments:
A friend of ours travels constantly for his job (China, Germany, Milan all in a week). He photographs the men's bathrooms at every airport he goes through. You'd be surprised (maybe) at the differences, and the varieties of art works in public restrooms throughout the world. Wonderful collection.
I'd love to see that collection. Does your friend have some of these pics online?
Sure, airports are fascinating places full of innovating technologies and moderns architectural designs that as Fuller suggest represent “hypermodern” cities of the future, but let’s not forget that airports are exclusive zones of control, were our bodies identities, nationalities and behaviors are strictly examine and manipulated. Lest not also forget that it is through this innovating technologies that various mechanism of control have invade our agencies in pervasive ways. In the name of fear and terror, we have all become objects of risk that require such as surveillance at the airport. Sure everybody experiences the airport differently and it’s not fare to generalize these processes and procedures ie; citizens vs. refugees experience the airport quite different. However we should never undermine such as technologies and such control in a zone like the airport. Airports look clean, organize and in a way militarize and standardize at the expense of the regulation and strict mechanism of control over our identities and bodies. I personally really hope that our cities never become like the airport.
Cheers
DF.
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