More is More | ii. junkspace

Koolhaas' writing resembles the spaces he describes. One synonym leading to the next, metaphors seamlessly layered upon another, he paints a picture that mirrors the complexity and mallification of the world we inhabit. The whole essay is a rambling of thoughts with a healthy dosage of ellipses and semicolons. These words don't just describe the seamless, artificial and layered space that ties together airports, malls, hotels and art galleries. They also give us insight into the structureless yet comprehensive thought process of an architect trying to make sense of it all, by describing it in crystalline detail. It reminds us of our collective helplessness and lack of control in a world for which we are not entirely responsible. 

" . . . all theory for the production of space is based on an obsessive preoccupation with its opposite: substance and objects, i.e., architecture. Architects could never explain space; Junk space is our punishment for their mystifications."

_______

Here are three (re)interpretations of Junkspace reflecting my own thoughts as I read the essay:

Junkspace as a distributed virus

Junkspace is like a virus because it is difficult to detect, describe and diagnose. It doesn't affect individuals, but the collective. It hides in layered complexity and propagates through forces - economic, cultural or aspirational - whose origins are as mysterious as the program it seeks to create. 

Junkspace as a partially self-aware system with distributed intelligence

In many ways it is like a swarm of bees, or a flock of birds, whose non-linear intelligence exists within the shared medium of stimuli and responses: outside of any one member, but yet affected by all ^[1]. When you're part of the swarm, it is difficult to predict where we're headed next. And that is exactly what individuals feel when they try to asses complex systems, be it economics, politics, weather or urban growth. Even short term predictions are of little certainty when dealing with systems that are chaotic, concentrated and of high entropy. The only way to improve the model is to feed more information into it.

By showering us with a constant stream of information, Koolhaas' writing and the described world can have a blinding effect if all of it is to be taken in at once. It might even make one believe that there is little that we can do to make positive changes. But the little that we do individually or in small teams, is all that matters - its effects get magnified over time ^[2].

Junkspace as a physical phenomenon and evidence of Life

Entropy = Disorder; Information = Order = Life

Information overload can seem chaotic at first glance, but sensible information is actually of much lower entropy (a measure of disorder in a system) than probabilistic randomness akin to that emanating from a monkey typing on a keyboard. Life and the information it generates is actually very highly ordered compared to the rest of the universe. That all this ordered complexity exists at all is in itself a miracle in this world where the Second Law of Thermodynamics holds true: "The total entropy of an isolated system always increases (in the direction of time)." (This simple law in physics has implications that even include the arrow of time, differentiating past from future.) Some people point to the Anthropic Principle as an explanation for our highly improbable perception of existence and lack of disorder, others point to the hand of God. 

The exception to the Second Law is then Life itself (not really ^[3], just saying it for dramatic effect), and the resultant order it creates as manifested in the built and virtual worlds. Life is the only phenomenon in this universe that apparently tries to reverse the Second Law by decreasing the local disorder of a system ^[4]. Reversing entropy growth implies blurring past and future, at least theoretically. Junkspace is then the symptomatic projection of Life where traces of the past, present and future all exist simultaneously - a physical phenomenon, predicted by the laws of the universe, that is a direct result of the occurrence of intelligent life. We may replace Junkspace with something today, only for it to be called the Junkspace of tommorow.

Junkspace is, simply because Life is.

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