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Title: City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn by William J. Mitchell ISBN: 0-262-63176-8 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.4 (10 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Space and place in cyberspace
Comment: These are more a series of musings than a solid essay on the internet and architecture. It is definitely interesting, and it brings up many points that are currently being addressed or have been brought up in the years since the books publication. If it has a central theme, it is the question of how to construct space so as to accommodate the internet and technology.
Mitchell is intelligent and sometimes insightful, but the book meanders and there's not much to hang on to.
Rating: 4
Summary: illustrative introduction to the bitsphere, telecom urbanism
Comment: W.J. Mitchell writes a picturesque collection of future scenes reflecting the impact of the digital telecommunications revolution in "City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn". The book is an intellectual gallery of exhibits arranged among seven chapters, each consisting of a variety of short scenes of plausible architecture and urbanism. I am giving this work four stars for its eloquent writing style, historical research, and some ideas that are slightly rehashed or have a short-range perspective that provide only a limited look at the issues associated with the network technologies. I think that few books, however, could come close to the clarity and coverage of ideas in such a limited number of pages for the general reader. (I should qualify that I am reading this 1996-published book in 2002. Maybe if I read this book in 1996, I would have a very different perspective.)
Mitchell deploys a variety of metaphors that provide future scenes that parallel familiar existing scenes. Digital networks, for example, are said to be the post-industrial mines, field, and factories that we now report to. The 'Net, like the railroad which distributed farmers' products to market and consumers, is the medium for transferring raw bit materials from suppliers to manufacturers of information. In the bitsphere, meeting forums are now despatialized, disembodied, and dispersed with virtual addresses, aliases, and chameleon personas. As Mitchell suggests, these "electronic agoras" escape traditional measures of identity. Discrimination and marginalization, moreoever, evolves in new forms with the rise of digital hermits and new information and communication access structures, erected in the form of PKI, Kerberos, firewalls, etc. After laying out the metaphor of the new bitsphere upon the template of traditional urbanism, Mitchell explores the emergent outcomes of the information infrastructure. While distance communication is enhanced by new multi-model designs that increase interactivity well beyond traditional situated roles, for example, the dark side of technological advancement thrives in new resurrected forms such as lurking telepimps, telethugs, cyberpunks, and cybercriminals.
Mitchell reconceptualizes social practices from the perspective of a historian and futurist. There is much to be appreciated from the historian perspective, e.g. depiction of the evolution of ATMs, electronic forums, and little brother datasurveillance. The majority of the scenes are based upon existing or nearly existent technologies, suggesting plausible applications within the next five years. (Again the scenes might have been more impressive in 1996.) While some issues are highlighted, such as the advancement of cybercrimes associated with floating signifiers that replace physical cash, the book does not discuss adoption or diffusion of the technologies aside from issues of membership and marginalization. In this way, the book has a deterministic perspective, in which the technology is viewed as an enabler of change and only eludes, to some extent, to the social construction of the technologies. This book is not a collection of information about new technologies. Rather, City of Bits is a presentation of ideas that are compatible with the technological artifacts and their potential role in urbanism. I recommend the "City of Bits" as a quick ONCE-READ of great writing that may help to unlock the closed mind to the promises and issues of the electronically-mediated future comprised of ubiquitous intelligence- and telecommunication-enabled artifacts.
This review refers to the electronic version: http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/City_of_Bits/
Rating: 4
Summary: IT Revolution
Comment: From the experience of history small, almost unnoticeable social phenomena, rather than radical movements at the foremost stage initiated most influential revolutions of our civilization. Small things like "Pulling glass" and "Address" are what William J Mitchell state as the indication of social and telecommunications evolution.
This book explains thoroughly how some telecommunications systems operate. For example, Electronic Mail System, Internet, Bulletin Board Systems and so forth.
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Title: e-topia by William J. Mitchell ISBN: 0262632055 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 28 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Me++ : The Cyborg Self and the Networked City by William J. Mitchell ISBN: 0262134349 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Digital Places: Building Our City of Bits by Thomas A. Horan, William J. Mitchell, Thomas A. Horan PhD. ISBN: 0874208459 Publisher: Urban Land Institute Pub. Date: 01 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: The Logic of Architecture: Design, Computation, and Cognition by William J. Mitchell ISBN: 0262631164 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 26 April, 1990 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
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Title: Variations on a Theme Park : The New American City and the End of Public Space by Michael Sorkin ISBN: 0374523142 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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