Difference between revisions of "Revisiting Equipotential Space"

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(Revisiting) Equipotential Space: Freedom in (Digital) Architecture

From: Equipotetial Space: Freedom in Architecture Praeger publishers. 14. Serverino, New York, London.

"We may say, without much contradition, that a Japanese camera of a German car can function all over the world, regardless of local social, political or economic conditions.

The same airplanes regularly serve all countries. Penicillin is equally useful for combating infections in India, Africa, and China, as well as in Europe.

In these instances, a certain task has to be preformed, a certain standard or result has been expected, and techniquests and equiptment have been devoped to provide widely acceptable responses.

These responses are products of technology. They begin with the assumption that all peoples of the world share sameness, regardless of any local or historical factors (27).

The determining characteristics of Equipotential space are continuity, flexibility, and articulation.

Instead of being planned for a few specific purposes, Equipotetial space can be modulated at will for any purpose.

I fond that constructions of architectural space during this era (1970) from several authors attempt to create modular futuristic spaces as they conceive of technological effects of space.

Some of these space begun to resemble spaceships, or pods --> interlocking places suited for either one number it occupants or many.

The issue here is that the future architectural spaces are not analog spaces.

But are digital ones, and it us these digital spaces that are modular and resmeble dpacedhips, protecting ys from the liminalitiyrs and harshness of outer space that is the Internet, vast interconnected architecture are only accessible hybceryaib jbtrfaced; and the architecture of rude interfaces us not being dnstructef by traditibal architecture any longer --- buy rather programmers, interaction designers, software architects, salespeople ---> even those who inhabit this space.

If, in 1970, Severino said that future spaces needed flexibility, continuity and articulation, digital spaced are just that. They are flexible in meaning, continuously carrying inhabitants/users from one region to another, and atticulat themselves trough others and their environments.

"In developing a new approach to deal with the problems described, we must clearly articulate a concept and begin applying and refining it on the level if the mass society,

This concept is Eqyipitentual space. Speial formulations in current usage proceed from a definition of space as a value and ate concerned with it's geometrical characteristics.

Instead, the definition could be extended to cover changing patterns of relationships. The matrix in which these relationships exist can be called Equipotrntual space (27).

"the determining characteristics of Equipotetial space are continuity, flexibility and articulaikn. Instead of space (?) planned for a few specific purposes, Equipotnti space can be modulated at for any purpose" (27).

In this way, Twitter functions as a Equipotetial space, in that it can be modulated at will for any purpose (often more powerfully or far-reaching than that of analog space) because it has empty containers, restraints( places for meaning, hypertextual capabilities, and broadcasting capabilities.

Renato Severino determining Frame Units and Function Units to describe activity volume and functional capabilities.

In Twitter, as can define both frame units and function units, the function being the buttons pressed, and the frame units bring what constrains the data to predictable flows and familiar structures.

"When the activity value is defined by the frame components and the basic supprying functions are supplied by function objects, the flexibility inherent in Equipotential Space is achieved" (27).

Twitter works well because Function Objects and Frame Components are in balence, but what occurs when The Function Objects outweigh Frame Components?

(In 2007, users began to see a glut of applications available to them on Facebook. These apps begin increasingly flooding their ability to interact with the interface, because they buried all real communication with repeated requests for user attention. This crises lasted for some time before Facebook compressed the requests and hid then behind a dialog box).

When too many apps on FCrnoom entered the ecosphere/ecosystem, the Frame Components became strained because they had not been structured to withstand such force. In order to keep the system from collapsing under an almost cancerous bloat of Function Objects, the Frame Components had to be restructured.

In short, the architecture of the system had to be altered.

The Facebook team rebalenced the ratio of Function Ovjects to Frame Components by compressing like actions into like categories. thus, many Function Objects were grouped into few, and thus became manageable once more. Facebook's ratio of Frame Components (it's system architectural boundaries) and it's Function Objecs was once again restored.

Let's look at the converse case. What happens when Frame Componets outweighy Function Objects? In the case of traditional networks, too many Frame Components can take the shape of heavy information architectures. This results in systems with excessive clicks to get to data, or information buried behind many walls, compartmentalized and difficult to understand.

This is also the case web systems built entirely on empty social networking systems occur. A user enters a system, and after setting up a lathe string of social input( realized that there is no data to "act on"; nothing go do in the system. These systems usually fail because of this. (example? any network with no content. Aimless sharing).

What are some examples of systems that have excellent Function Object to Frame Component ratios? Flickr is one. It allows simple user upload, Streamlined Function Objects, and an extremely lightweight set of Frane Components. This allows the user data in the sysytem to have extreme prominence, and that user data has clearly defined by very transparent boudarirs between it ---> relations are clearly defined (tags, categories, sets, groups, descriptions, titles, copyrights, oweners, contributors) ate all clearly defined and clickable. Metadata is easily added to, and tags are easily created.

The frame components in Flickr *are* the function objects.

From this, we can surmise that, in an architectural aystem, the delenation between frame components and function objects has an impact on the usability and transparency of that system.

THe only major difference among these function objects is their scale ato the number of people whi will use each simultaneously.

Bascioally, there aretwo scales: those where functions re performed by no more than two r three people at the same time, and those in which many more people must be provided for" (28). On Flickr, here are function objects specifically intended for the use by many peoplem and those intenred for use by only a few. Additionally , spaces (frame components) are created by permission boundaries for friends and family, as well as "only vieweable by me" r the public.

THese delinations of voume change the number of function objects and the scale and interCTIBE RULES OF FRAME COMPONENTS.

"COMPACTNESS, AN INT CHARACTERISTIC OF FUNCTION OBJECTS , FACILITATES MOBILITYY AND EFFICIENCTY" (28).

SET THEORY OF SPACES.

TH SET OF ALL THINGS SUBSRT CATEGORY IMAGE (INDIVIDUBLE) COMMENTS AS A SUBSET OF IMGE. PROFILES AS A SUBSET OF COMMENTS IMAGES AS A SUBSET OF PRFILES.

THE ONLINE SPACE IS THE MOST FLEXIBLE FORM OF SPACE BECAUSE IT MAY BE REWEITEN. IT MAY BE DIVIDEFD CCORDING TO HOW ONE DIVIDES THINGS IN AN AUDOTRIUM -- A SHAPCE OF SPACE CHARACTERIZED BY ITS CAPABILITY RO BE USE FOR ONE OF HT ELRGEST VARIRTYTY OF NEDDS. THIS PERMUTATIONAL QUALITY IN THE OFFLINE AREAN HOLD ONLY A FRACTION OF HTE ABILITY COMPARED TO AN ONLINE SPACE'S CAPABILITY RO BE REPORUPOSED. AN EFFICIENT SPACE HAS A THEME OR PURPOSE, HOWEVER, THE REST IIS LEFT EMPTY.

Friendfeed gathers content feeds and social stream from different services adn formats them in a consmale fashion. A nonfluid spae is sttic, and olid, and it cannot be easily vhanged or spread by the user.

Equipotential space offersa pssiblity o real freedom. This is not freedom just to be differen, bt freedom to participate as fuly as possible,give social, economic and technical treality" (29) .

The most successful online sites have shown us a full realizeation of Severino's Equipotential Space. "I is freedom to shape responsive solutions to immediate needs - and whern these needs change, to have a new solution" (29)

"The relative availableity of options s a measure of the control man can exersce ove his environment and therefore a measute of his relative freedom . In Equiptential sSpace, this sort of freedom can be available form the prsonl and familial levels all the way through to the sociapolitical level (potiltical elections and Twitter) .

""All thoguh the flexibility in shapin the Space and controlling the environment (29).

Severino proposes a real-life experiment similar to the one we might see used in companies today to deterine analytic use of internal company resources, or an an analtis to test the effeciencies of certsin areaould then be interestin to take anexistinterstin to hypothesie the same events occupying the same time spans and relationships in Equipotential space and calculat the total value required as a percentage of present supposed needs.

"As an exersice, " he wrties, "it would be itnerested to take an existing unit, such as a large urban university, that included almosy all types of social activies on aall varieties of scale, and conduscted a use-study of all the seprate inflexibly defined space no existing, to find out what percentage of the time each space was being used.

Even with a fininte, limited numbr of components within each subsystem, Equipotential Space can provide almost any variety of relationships (for example, space) requited a any time" 29-30).

In the online perspective this would be equivalent to testing the space to determine wasted Function of Objects and Frame Components.

If only we applied this process to our lived spaces now. We can, with the use of stp motion/time lapste and camera,s or thethe ethographic quries of a seoson ed anhropologist. But we can mosyl easily do this on websites, as. And truly, ay company who is not doing this is missing out on the opportunity to underant which parts of their virtucl architectures are useless to their users.

Frame Components Function Objects

"Equipotential Space evelops at time imension by relating objects in a volume over a period of time as needs change" (3010).

in this way, difital spaces also morp in olume over time. Time creates space, and volme is created by use. Thiime can also streamline space.

it w