cyborg urbanism: Matthew Gandy, Geographer

Last week I went to go see what Geographer Matthew Gandy had to say about cyborg urbanism, mainly because it's a ridiculous title for a lecture, he is a Geographer, and it was beautiful out and I wanted to wander around Harvard Square.

His lecture delivered on the promised sci-fi kitsch from the moment he stood up at the podium, thirtyish with that skinny, wild-haired supernerd genius look and continued with references to awesome, campy sci-fi pop culture & movies (Metropolis sticks out in my mind).

He also delivered on substance, putting some meat on the study-but-inanimate bones of science fiction: he explained the term 'cyborg' and illustrated how it could be applied to the city, if we think of the city as an organism.

cyborg: Abbreviation of cybernetic organism.

cybornetics: the interdisciplinary study of the structure of complex systems, especially communication processes, control mechanisms and feedback principles. The essential goal of cybernetics is to understand and define the functions and processes of systems that have goals, and that participate in circular, causal chains that move from action to sensing to comparison with desired goal to action.

feedback and goals are the key to this idea. At first I was confused, he talked about the cyborg as an organism with both natural and artificial systems, and when we apply that to the city as an organism it falls a little flat - urbanity is natural (bodies) and artificial (streets, buildings). The novelty is in the idea of the digital enabling the city to pursue goals through feedback loops, presumably responding mechanically. This relates to a lot of the exciting work being done at the MIT Media Lab by folks like the Tangible Media Group and Ambient Intelligence Group. It also leaves the door open for material feedback systems that rely on the material's innate properties to create the desired mechanical reactions, rather than depending on delicate electrical systems.

I don't really know how this all relates to geography.