Coyne - Network nature: the place of nature in the digital age

NETWORK NATURE

NETWORK NATURE

THE PLACE OF NATURE IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Richard Coyne

To Chris

CONTENTS

Natural
selection

Numinous
nature

Nature is on the side of the independent, the hopeful, the free, the good and the healthy. Who does not hanker after places and things that are unmediated, authentic and natural ? But some digital-device users think that their technologies get in the way of direct access to nature. It is as if relentless connectivity, accompanied by work stress, boredom and poor health, burdens urban dwellers who must now look to nature to deliver the opposites of this technological affliction. It is easy to succumb to the view that nature is what is left in the crucible of human experience purged of troublesome technology and artifice.

But technology provides obvious benefits. Techno-science monitors, records and predicts the state of the natural world, from weather to life beneath the Arctic, and to great effect. Now you cannot make buildings of any scale without digitally enhanced surveys of sites, terrains, local bio-ecologies and climatic conditions. Data permeates designers interactions with nature. Designers, advisors, critics and developers see nature increasingly through the lens of data, and define nature in its terms.

I have two targets in my sights. The first target is the easy binary that puts technology at odds with nature; second is the trust and power accorded to data. Yes, we can be suspicious of digital technologies, but not because of the myriad changes in practices they require of us. Nor because they encourage brain overload, diminish authentic social interaction or distance us from nature. The problem is not devices but data, and the way it filters our perceptions of the world. Occluded by data, it is as if the nature we seek becomes even more elusive and limited. Data is amenable to mechanical manipulation, and there is a lot of it. So, it is easy to see data as a conduit to the unmediated experience of nature. For big-data enthusiasts, data subsumes nature.

I want to unseat the priority of a data-oriented frame. I challenge the importance accorded to data in design, and affirm instead its subservience to the rich field of semiotics. Signs, signals and symptoms, and their interpretation, permeate the whole that is nature. Designers, practitioners and consumers can usefully connect to the communicative networks of natural systems. Semiotics contributes much-needed debate about digital technologies and their design, as architects, landscape architects, planners and engineers respond to the challenges affecting landscapes, urban environments and nature. Nature communicates through signs; signs are ubiquitous in nature. But signs are not data. Nor is nature just data. I think that putting data in its place provides a more rounded and rich cultural orientation to the naturetechnology relationship. Semiotics also helps us understand nature and health. At least, semiotics and health trade in a common language of signs and symptoms.

Semiotics also provides a means of reintroducing meaning into a world view saturated with data. Environmentalist Bill McKibben wrote The End of Nature , the first edition of which appeared in 1989.

He advances a couple of poignant illustrations of this semiotic shift. The first draws on our aversion to things that we know will end before their time:

McKibben claims he chose not to know too much about vegetative die back, and other problems within the natural world affected by humans: I like the woods best in winter when it is harder to tell what might be dying.

The natural environment appears vulnerable across many dimensions, not the least its meanings. If we have learnt anything from politicians skilled at manipulating and trading in public opinion, it is that words and meanings really do matter, as does truth. Signs are crucial in understanding the environment and the complex discourses it entails. Semiotics supports this challenge. The stakes have never been higher, considering the threats we face, and how much we depend on what we think of as the natural environment.

I am grateful for insights into the disciplines of Landscape Architecture, Architecture and environment from colleagues Peter Aspinall, Dennis Dollens, Hannah Drummond, Roxana Bakhshayesh Karam, Michelle Bastian, Rebecca Crowther, Fabrizio Gesuelli, Philip Goulding, Matluba Khan, Dorothea Kalogianni, Asad Khan, Sophia Lycouris, Angus Macdonald, Patricia Macdonald, Panos Mavros, Stella Mygdali, Cristina Nan, Christopher Neale, Dimitra Ntzani, Tolulope Onabolu, Miguel Paredes Maldonado, Andrew Patrizio, Agnes Patuano, Jenny Roe, Graham Shawcross, Katerina Talianni, Neil Thin, Tiago Torres Campos, Catharine Ward Thompson and Dave Wood. Some of the work I reference here draws on the collaborative project Mobility, Mood and Place (EP/K037404/1), supported through the EPSRC/AHRC/SRC/MRC scheme Design for well-being: Ageing and mobility in the built environment, which has as its focus well-being and outdoor environments. I am also indebted to the enthusiasm of students in the MSc in Design and Digital Media and the MSc by Research in Digital Media and Culture, as well as teaching colleagues in the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in the University of Edinburgh.

Figure 1.1 Radio tuning dial. 1940s Philips 206a Bakelite Art Deco
valve table radio

Figure 1.2 An exercise in attention: the bear in the park. Meadows Walk
Edinburgh

Figure 2.1 Technology revealing isolated nature. Weather station
Blea Lake, Fgra Mountains, in central Romania

Figure 2.2 Illustration of Protozoa from Raoul Heinrich Francs book
Die Pflanze als Erfinder (1920)

Figure 2.3 Charles Jenckss Landform. Scottish National Gallery of
Modern Art, Edinburgh

Figure 3.1 Search results from Google Images. The top image
(Crieff, Scotland) is by the author. Those beneath are matches
found by Google Images search

Figure 3.3 Overlay of signs in the countryside. Pennine Way, Derbyshire,
England

Figure 4.1 Books containing the human gene sequence at the
Wellcome Trust, London

Figure 5.1 The discovery of fire. Illustration by Cesare Cesariano
(14751543) to Vitruviuss Ten Books of Architecture

Figure 5.2 Deep window reveal emphasizes the relationship between
inside and outside. Lyme Park, Disley, Stockport, England

Figure 5.3 Organically formed media facade as a proto-digital skin,
Graz Kunsthaus, architects Peter Cook and Colin Fournier (2003)

Figure 5.4 Bioreceptive Calcareous Composite Wall by Zhili Wang,
Xinhe Lin, Yuxin Jiang, and Qingyue Zeng at the BiotA Lab,
Bartlett UCL (Prof. Marcos Cruz and Richard Beckett). This is a multilayered cast of a bioreceptive prototype with use of
different particle sizes to enhance a selective water-retention
system in a wall

Figure 6.1 Master Rock site-specific performance 15 October 2015.
Courtesy of Artangel and Maria Fusco

Figure 6.2 The golden spike marking the Global Boundary Stratotype
Section and Point (GBSSP) at the base of the Ediacaran
Period 16 August 2008

Figure 6.3 Landscape fractured by underground forces, residence of
Loki the trickster god. Rangaring ytra, Suurland, Iceland

Figure 7.1 Synthetic landscape in computer game by Daoliangzi Zhang.
MSc Design and Digital Media (supervised by Jules Rawlinson)
used with permission

Figure 7.2 Raticate, an augmented reality Pokmon Go character
appearing on a busy road