Ambient Commons
Author | : Malcolm McCullough |
Publisher | : MIT Press |
Total Pages | : 366 |
Release | : 2013 |
ISBN-10 | : 9780262018807 |
ISBN-13 | : 0262018802 |
Rating | : 4/5 (07 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: This book explores the workings of attention though a rediscovery of surroundings. Not all that informs has been written and sent; not all attention involves deliberate thought. The intrinsic structure of space -- the layout of a studio, for example, or a plaza -- becomes part of any mental engagement with it. McCullough describes what he calls the Ambient: an increasing tendency to perceive information superabundance whole, where individual signals matter less and at least some mediation assumes inhabitable form. He explores how the fixed forms of architecture and the city play a cognitive role in the flow of ambient information. As a persistently inhabited world, can the Ambient be understood as a shared cultural resource, to be socially curated, voluntarily limited, and self-governed as if a commons?