Digitally Infused Public Green Spaces: Collectively Reinventing Human Interaction with Nature (Introduction)

This paper was written for the Critical Approaches class in the Digital Media Studies Program at the University of Denver, Winter 2009. Works cited will be included in the last installation. It is still in draft format, with hopes for eventual publication.

The essence of many contemporary American problems, such as the climate crisis, declining public health, and urban decay is a general lack of spatial ideological and design literacy in the population, which results in uninformed choices. Looking back at the past century and beyond it becomes clear how dubious commodity/spatial design choices and a lack of ideological oversight have resulted in a society in which humans are separated from nature and each other. However in the last two decades, tremendous advances in the accessibility, mobility, and power of technology have combined to offer new possibilities for democratic and communal discourse through a revised, multi- layered public sphere, a reality which holds robust promise beyond what Habermas had envisioned. Simultaneously, interest in human environmental interaction has grown tremendously. The creation of hybrid green spaces, which work to combine the new techno-mediated public sphere and growing energy to revive our relationship with nature, offer new possibilities to address both contemporary social problems and fallacious, harmful ideologies. Through the consideration of such a space it becomes clear that hybrid techno-green spaces can promote intellectual and communal growth. This growth would empower individuals to participate in making intelligent life choices, while helping to reinvision humans’ place in nature.

John Thackara paraphrases the London Design Council, in writing that a large extent of the environmental impact of commodities are determined at the design stage. Lack of thought about the environment during the design process and contemporary America’s blurry, self-conflicting perception of nature result in the current state of planetary crisis.  The Contemporary American perception of the environment is so nebulous because nature, as found in the American vernacular is a slippery and duplicitous term (Olwig 1996). Keneth Olwig writes that nature is at once something polymorphous, cultural and constructed, but also “…complete, unmediated, and naturally given” (Ibid., 380). The complexity of the term nature leads to an often-fractured ideology of human environmental interaction. The notion of nature as primal, elemental, and intrinsically antithetical from humans, covers up a truth that Benjamin Franklin considers, though perhaps satirically, “the idea of nature contains, though often unnoticed, an extraordinary amount of human history” (Franklin 1953, 89-98). Franklin hints at the social construction of nature, which after considering recent human history is much more reasonable than the elemental, idealized version.

The problem is that when zealous environmentalists, either deep or shallow in approach try to re-connect with nature, it is unclear with which nature they re-unite. Only a society estranged from nature would hold up wilderness, or elemental nature as paradigm for the human place in nature, because this perception leaves no place for human interaction with their environment (Cronon 1996). When societal perceptions of nature are nebulous, how can individuals make sound choices, considering their interactions or in designing spaces or commodities? Cronon writes that with this skewed ideology, “We [contemporary society] leave ourselves little hope of discovering what an ethical, honorable human place in nature might actually look like.” (Ibid., 81) Collectively reimagining humanity and human ideologies within nature is the only way to truly address bad design and the planetary crisis.

Continuing the theme of contested realities presented by nature, the contemporary American city becomes an essential place for the consideration of nature and human interaction with the environment. Urban centers are at once both the source of tremendous problems and considerable promise. Contemporary cities require importation of goods and commodities necessary for life. This generates waste, which must be carried away. Both processes consume substantial amounts of energy, forming what is known as urban metabolism (Wolman 1965). While greater amounts of commodity production occur in cities, granting socioeconomic benefit for corporations and workers, the resulting waste is often ejected into the air and water with little or no filtering. Some cities are facing tremendous growth, heralding arrays of new opportunities for individuals, such as larger concentration of jobs. However, other cities around the world are vastly shrinking. The Complete Case Study 3: Japan by The Shrinking Cities Project considers urban contraction as an effect of deindustrialization, suburbanization, demographic shrinkage and post-socialist change Urban growth and shrinkage both bring up issues of density and spatiality in context of human habitation.

Cities are also important because they can be designed to act as interfaces for rethinking human’s connection to nature. Urban green spaces provide enumerable benefits to both city dwellers and the environment. Community gardens, green roofs/walls, and public parks all absorb heat and pollution, while improving public health and empowering individuals. Specifically, community gardens have been found to bolster communal and even political activity and awareness by providing a participatory communal outlet and sectors for activism. Community gardens demonstrate the urban center’s ability foster diverse public discourse, which would not occur in any other setting.

Here it is important to note the role of the city in Habermas’ concept of the public sphere, a space where individuals could engage in collective discourse about issues varying in scope from governance to local businesses. The eighteenth century café, which was a central vessel for public discourse, was made possible as a result of the urban center’s population density. It was this density, which allowed for communal interaction and collective intellectual discussion. Habermas forecast that corporate media, amongst other forces, would dissolve the public sphere and end discourse. The one to many, corporate broadcast model eventually realized some of fears due to their non-discursive model. However, in the last two decades, as digital technology has become lighter, faster, more agile and increasingly cheaper, it has become necessary to reconsider the capability of public spaces, both physical and digital, to allow for communal exchange. Most importantly, contemporary digital technology empowers individuals to interact anywhere, anytime, and in any way they choose by simultaneously consuming and producing content across ever fragmenting interfaces both physical and virtual.

Unfortunately, just as Habermas’ public sphere was not truly democratic, in that only white male landowners could participate, the contemporary technologically infused public sphere has its restrictions as well. Technology is becoming cheap, but not cheap enough for everyone to indulge. Even if an individual can afford the technology, it is nearly worthless without ubiquitous connectivity. The discourse will never reach its full democratic potential, while the entire spectrum of diversity remains unheard. 

The goal becomes how to collectively conceive of a new type of spatial ideology. How do individuals re-imagine themselves in relation to their dwellings, the city, technology and nature? It seems that contemporary society has the opportunity through digital technology to reconceptualize itself through techno-mediated democratic process and, “…[to] reinvent, or at least recover, an essentially premodern concept of nature in which people and their values do not appear to be excluded from nature.” (Olwig 1996, 380) Collectively rewriting humanity’s nature narrative will not be an easy task, but the promise of digital media and its discursive capability could offer new realms of interaction and conversation aiding in the formative process.

One answer is the amalgamation of the techno-infused public sphere and public green spaces like community gardens, green roofs and parks, which grant an opportunity for discourse on the ideological re-coupling of humans and nature. Experimental hybrid spaces, which combine digital technology, sustainable/environmentally conscious smart design actualizations and nature, all in harmony, will grant individuals new opportunities to communicate on these interactions. Simultaneously, these spaces would elucidate the environmental and public health benefits such spaces provide. John Thackara writes that if a legacy of bad design decisions can get society into a mess, a re-evaluation and correction of those decisions can get society out.