“Many interesting artists and activists these days are working on making things visible. They give hidden but important things shapes that we can see. Seeing, we can discuss. Paul Graham Raven described this engagement with infrastructure, “Don’t think outside the box. Think about the box.”” – Metafoundry 35: Dilution of Precision
infrastructure
“De-fanged by the sickly nostalgia of the new urbanists and the seductive sales patter of the postmodernist forces of ‘regeneration’, our urban discourse has settled into a cosy agreement that all we can and should do with the city is ameliorate and prettify. The consensus disdains intensity and drama, and obsesses about detail and paving and planting. Heavy infrastructure must be ignored, screened or removed. The human scale is venerated above all else.” – The chaos and tangled energy of living cities – Will Wiles – Aeon
“A new line, the Crossrail heavy-rail link, is now forcing its way through this extraordinary knot with the odd combination of tact and ultraviolence so characteristic of civil engineering.” – The chaos and tangled energy of living cities – Will Wiles – Aeon
“Platforms are the infrastructure of global society. They establish the basic parameters of what is possible, both behaviourally and ideologically. In this sense, they embody the material transcendental of society: they are what make possible particular sets of actions, relationships, and powers. While much of the current global platform is biased towards capitalist social relations, this is not an inevitable necessity. These material platforms of production, finance, logistics, and consumption can and will be reprogrammed and reformatted towards post-capitalist ends.” – #ACCELERATE MANIFESTO for an Accelerationist Politics