The following editorial was originally a paper presented for a landscape architecture research course. Please feel free to comment:
Reversing Technopoly
Designing Congruity in the Landscape through a
Reunification of Art, Nature, Technology
Oliver Kiley
“Incoherence, disorder, and violence are the hallmarks of the modern world. If we are to build a better world—one that can be sustained ecologically and one that sustains us spiritually—we must transcend the disorder and fragmentation of the industrial age.”
- David Orr “The Nature of Design” (2002)
.Context
Sustainability, as it is broadly perceived, is reached through an integration of ecology, economic, and social systems. In the design fields, “sustainable decisions” are predominantly rationalized and conceived of using ecological or economic justifications. We might construct an energy efficient building because it lowers the heating bill. Or we might restore a riparian corridor to protect water quality and reduce the risk of flood. In both cases, these activities are grounded in quantitative justifications. The green building saves us “x-dollars,” the river corridor reduces the flood risk by “x-amount” or improves water temperatures by “x-degrees.”
The social component of sustainability falls into a tertiary position—marginalized or at worst absent—largely because it is difficult to quantify. This is unfortunate, as social sustainability is necessary for promoting, implementing, and upholding, in perpetuity, ecologically or economically driven sustainable practice. Failure to address social sustainability maintains status-quo mentalities and values, preventing a community from recognizing its relationship to the environment and to humanity at all scales.
.Purpose
The same manner of thought that creates problems can not solve them.
- Albert Einstein
The “big problem” of today—and using Thomas Berry’s (1999) term “The Great Work” of solving that problem—is “nothing less than the effort to harmonize the human enterprise with how the world works as a physical system and how it ought to work as a moral system” (Orr, 2002). The three pieces of sustainability must interact in a synergistic way for such a paradigm to emerge.
.Intention
This essay explores the relationship between aesthetics, technology, and nature as it relates to social sustainability. This exploration seeks answers to the questions: how does this relationship, in particular aesthetics, work for or against sustainability; and what opportunities are there to use aesthetics as a lever for promoting a sustainable future?
The initial hypothesis is that aesthetic preferences contribute to the form and function of the paleotechnic landscape (Lyle, 1985), which generally degrades the environment and societal well-being. By understanding the drivers of aesthetic preference, as a piece of the broader social condition, we might ascertain ways using aesthetics to re-engage communities with their life-places and promote sustainability.
.Perspective
“Technology begets more technology, technological systems, technology-driven politics, technology-dependent economies, and finally, people who can neither function nor think a hair’s breadth beyond the limits of one machine or another.”
- David Orr “The Nature of Design” (2002)
Key to understanding the ways in which aesthetics are responsible for the post-modern landscape, in particular vernacular landscapes such as the suburbs or the commercial strip, and how we might affect change is to examine how “disorder and fragmentation” (referring to the opening quote) came to dominate the landscape. Robert Thayer’s book “Gray World, Green Heart” (1994) provides a compelling account of how this occurred by considering the role of technology, nature, and aesthetics in shaping the evolution of humanity.
Thayer’s “triangle” diagram (Figure 1) describes a relationship between the means for living (technology/tools), the context for living (ecology/environment/nature), and the motives for living (philosophy/aesthetics/art). At the earliest points in human history, there was a unification and congruency between these three elements. Tools were both objects of art, imbued with meaning and religious significance, and objects of utility closely linked to an understanding of and engagement with the local environment. Over time these three attributes of life have separated, to the point that technology itself not only becomes the sole means for living but threatens to become the motive and context as well.
Neil Postman articulates, in his book “Technopoly” (1992), how unbridled technological progress leads not only to a separation between technology, art, and nature, but to a condition where technology becomes the entirety of existence. In early tool-using cultures (the first stage) tools were used to solve problems but not undermine the integrity of the culture into which they were introduced. The technocracy (the second stage), ignited by scientific discoveries during the renaissance, marks an incompatibility and conflict between traditional cultural views and emerging views (i.e. the story of genesis giving way discoveries in astronomy).
In technopoly, the language and metrics of technological progress not only replace traditional views but makes them irrelevant. Technopoly then is a primary reason why, as stated at the beginning of this paper, a sustainable practice based on ecological (scientific) or economic justifications is easier for society to implement. In technopoly, quantifications carry all the weight in a discussion, while, subjective or inductive issues lack merit, plausibility, and assurance, specifically because they cannot be quantified. The result of technopoly is that we become further separated from nature (understanding it only through a technological filter) and further confused about meaning and purpose in our lives (because technology offers no sense of purpose other than itself).Returning to Orr, technopoly succeeds in creating “disorder and fragmentation” by pushing meaning and context away from how we are living.
.Dilemma
“Landscapes that create an illusion of a better world while depriving us of the actual means of achieving it are not sustainable.”
- Robert Thayer (1994)
Thayer (1994) describes the post-modern dilemma as a conflict between topophilia (love of the land), technophilia (love of technology), and technophobia (fear of technology), illustrated in the second triangle diagram (Figure 2). Essentially, our “love of the land,” emanating from pastoral aesthetic preferences, prompts us to protect and beautify our surroundings. Simultaneously, environmentally degrading technologies are ignored, masked, or kept hidden away to preserve the aesthetic. Our “love of technology,” saying we can’t live without a particular technology, results in a highly contrived landscape, built in conformance to technological requirements but covered with a pastoral veneer that allows us to ignore our justifiable fears of technology.
This unhealthy condition is known as “landscape guilt” (Thayer, 1994), and is responsible for much of the aesthetics of the vernacular landscape. Elaborate screens are built around air-conditioning units so we have a uninterrupted pastoral landscape experience without being reminded that fossil fuel power plants, miles distant, provides us with a cool interior in exchange for hotter global temperatures. The post-modern landscape is filled with such incongruities, where the surface appearance of a place is disconnected with its core functioning. Rolling suburban lawns are vibrant and pleasing, but hidden throughout are sprinkler heads designed to operate when we are not home and retreat, unseen, below ground when we are, so we can avoid thinking about their draining of water resources. The compounded result of this vernacular aesthetic of landscape guilt is that people “know less about how their increasingly technological world really works, seem[ing] to care more about surface impressions and images (Thayer, 1994). Unpleasant technologies are made invisible, and people eventually forget they exist and continue to cause problems.
.Obstacle
“We reach back to grasp selective historical artifacts in search for spirituality and a perceived simpler way of life . . . we construct a sanitized environment comprised of high-tech comfort and high-touch sentiment”
- Park & Coppack (1994)
The origins our preference for pastoral landscapes—realized as suburban landscapes—has been documented extensively (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989; van der Windt & Keulartz, 2006). Unfortunately, our affinity for rural, historic, or pastoral images, and consequent application of rural sentiment to suburban form, only widens the rift between surface and core. This occurs because while the “simplicity and smallness of rural life is perceived as desirable, we still want the convince of technical society” (Miller, 1992). Our sentiments have turned against us in technopoly, with pastoral and rural images being used by advertisers to sell good and services, perpetuating the illusion of a healthy, “high-touch” landscape, while we in fact become further removed from reality (Miller, 1992).
Contributing to the problem is the fact that much of the vernacular landscape is conceived of not from a design, meaning, or place making standpoint, but instead is a product of engineering and computation. In suburbia, strict dimensioning regulations coupled with the use of CAD applications determines built form more than the very landscape into which the forms are built (Thayer, 1994). Under technopoly, this shouldn’t be surprising. Technology begets more technology, and there is no place for subjective alternatives under the tyranny of quantification. The real-world consequences are landscapes devoid of artistic intention, spiritual meaning, and a connection to the local environment.
.Response
“The milieu in which technopoly flourishes is one in which the tie between information and human purpose has been severed . . . it appears indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, in enormous volume and at high speeds, and disconnected from theory, meaning or purpose.”
- Neil Postman, “Technopoly” (1992)
The quotation above is a reiteration of the post-modern dilemma. With respect to aesthetics, we find our landscapes increasingly dominated by advertising, confusing realities, and illusions, all at a growing pace and intensity—hence disorder and fragmentation. On another level through, “contemporary society is made up of individuals seeking to simplify a hectic existence in order to allow themselves to come to terms with that existence” (Park & Coppack, 1994). How might designers, particularly landscape architects, respond to this desire? If technopoly is a dominant driver of landscape form, by severing our connection to art and meaning and in turn nature and place, then a socially sustainable aesthetic response must strive for pulling those factors back together again.
Thayer (1994) poses the following question:
“Can a few conspicuous solar houses, constructed wetlands, bike paths, recycling industries, wildlife habitat corridors, organic agriculture plots, and wind farms really be the key to saving the world? Isn’t a much greater transformation needed in global economic, political, and social institutions needed?”
The answer to the second question is “yes,” but it is contingent upon individuals at a local level adopting, understanding, and advocating for sustainable practices. The issue that, un-sustainability is experienced at a local level through one’s connection to the local environment and community. Only by seeing and observing sustainable practices “in-site” and in-use by individuals can they be proliferated through social institutions. Thayer (1994) provides insight as to how we might use the aesthetic design of a sustainable endeavor to help instill meaning and a sense of place back into the vernacular landscape:
(1) Transparency: Expressing the Unseen. “In a world where more and more of the technology controlling our lives is not only beyond our individual control but is also invisible and incomprehensible to the average person, the landscape serves not only as the foundation for our only genuinely ‘tangible’ reality, but as the only mechanism by which we can really know where we are—and how and why as well.”
(2) Visual Ecology. Being able to “assess the conditions affecting us and make cogent environmental decisions, is both possible and necessary.” Visual ecology is dependent on transparency. If we are unable to see the core functioning of a space, we are unable to understand the processes, assess its condition, and change its operation. By having a visual ecology, people can better understand the world around them, reducing confusion and illusion in their lives.
(3) Congruency: Complexity without Contradiction. “The emotional state provoked by the landscape’s surfaces should be congruent with and not contradictory to the manner in which the core properties of the same landscape provide for our functional needs and well-being.” Congruency is dependent upon visual ecology, and relates directly to counter-acting landscape guilt, which leaves people feeling disconnected from place and meaning. A congruent landscape is honest and makes people feel positive and empowered, that they are making a difference in the world.
(4) The Role of Fantasy. “Fantasy and imagination are necessary for human survival. In today’s world saturated by entertainment and illusion, the danger is not in the amount of fantasy itself but in the blurring of the line between fantasy and reality.” Fantasy spurs imagination and instills meaning through symbolic gestures. People are attracted to, and become quickly engaged with the fantastical or ‘wondrous.’ On this basis, the sustainable ‘fantastic’ landscape excites and draws people into the story of that place.
(5) Bio-regional Aesthetics: The Style of No-Style. The sustainable version of form-follows-function replaces mechanical function with localized ecological function. “There may be no distinct style [in the sustainable landscape], since style itself necessarily separates surface from core.” The forms of the sustainable landscape will as varied as there are places on the Earth.
(6) Art + Creativity. “Artful interpretations are necessary to offer alternative visions and to explore and make sense out of the unseen.” The transition from a pastoral-illusion driven landscape requires art and creativity to re-link surface and core attributes. Post-modern culture has become adept at ignoring this relationship, but our latent affinity for creativity and art can be used as a vector for captivating and education the populace.
(7) Observation Expedites Acceptance. For example, solar panels or wind farms “need” to be visible in order for people to accept them and to link their energy use to its source—ultimately supporting the need to replace conventional energy systems. Alternatively, vivifying an un-sustainable technology in the landscape allows people to react against it and question its purposes and how it shapes their life.
.Beginning
“Ecological design is not an individual practicing art, but instead a ongoing negotiation between a community and the ecology of the place they inhabit.”
- David Orr “The Nature of Design” (2002)
Our pastoral preferences are a strong driver for landscape form. The emergence of technopoly and landscape-guilt modifies this vision at a fundamental level. Not only is the post-modern pastoral landscape (i.e. suburbia) technology derived and dependant, but it functions entirely differently than a genuine pastoral landscape. More importantly, the illusions and incongruities between what we see and what we get (or think we get) in the landscape today degrades our quality of life by separating the means, motives, and context for living. This separation is an inhibitor to pursuing sustainable designs that are socially as well as ecologically and economically supported.
For designers and architects, the challenge becomes to first recognize technopoly’s role in shaping the environment and then, following Thayer’s advice, is to design intentionally. Reunite the functioning and means for living with motives and context. But the crucial issue is that this awakened design cannot be relegated to a single point—a park, a plaza, a garden—but to the entire fabric of the vernacular landscape.
(need to add references)
