An individualised and relevant connection is being made between each tract of land via real-time processing of profiles crossed with geolocation data. Automated evaluation of virtual concordances between the mood of each individual and every fragment of urbanity. A new anthropology of space is being established, breaking away from persistent, established links for the glorification of fluid and mobile events, predicated on the greatest exploitation of the occasion, leading to the emergence of a KAIROS SPACE. A relationship with permanence begins to liquefy, for the benefit of always-temporary and endlessly repeated dynamic tensions which spring up within each of us, wherever we may be, at home, in the street, a café, a shopping area, an airport…. “Precognitive urbanity” is a sort of surface for infinite virtuality, discovering a “third place” structured by algorithmic calculations, processed to deduce every expedient and punctual conjunction. A person located near a certain sports footwear shop may receive a message informing him of special deals related to his “purchasing history”, on the condition that he makes a purchase in the immediate future.
The anthropological space that was patiently developed throughout history, based on common practices and a progressive privacy which became internalised out of habit, is converted into an algorithmic space unfolding in real time, or a fluid surface area adjusting itself to each profile and each correlation in its immediate surroundings. This “physical-abstract” expanse, both universally shared and extremely personalised, revealing itself to be a smooth infinite plane, plotted in such a way as to optimise all efforts, to warn us of potential pitfalls, to direct us toward “fair” commercial or relational happenings…. An “immaterial sensitive architecture”, generating an infinity of moving virtual bubbles shrouding the body, endlessly informed of any potential relevance. The body-subject, characterised by Merleau-Ponty as the power of perception determining the decision-making process, is “put into motion” as a PROCESSOR BODY emitting nearly constant flows of information for servers, and benefitting in return from an eminently directed “omniscient assistance”.
Éric Sadin
http://www.ericsadin.org
[Excerpt from the book "La Société de l’anticipation", Inculte Publishing, September 2011]
/ Nils Aziosmanoff