This issue of Volume magazine deals with THE SYSTEM. It’s not the latest Hollywood production, the ultimate sound experience, or Apple’s next level consumer lock-in product line. And despite its ominous ring, it isn’t the enemy either, like the NSA appears to be.
THE SYSTEM* indicates the complex interaction of the economy, professional practice and personal choice. The asterisk draws attention to the ambiguity of such a term, while hinting at an intention to change ‘it’, whatever it is. What the system does, on the other hand, is perhaps more easily understood: it organizes things. The system is a set of institutions and infrastructures that shape the contours of resource flows and modulate the rhythms of material cycles.
The system doesn’t just distribute and determine availability though; it frames the imagination and conditions creative activity there within. In this issue of Volume, we’re dilating our pupils to focus on ‘the system’ itself, treating it as a result of, and therefore question of, design. As we are unfortunately well aware, lobbying is not enough to change the system. Applying strategies like leveraging, short-circuiting, disrupting and infecting might be more effective.
This issue of Volume magazine deals with THE SYSTEM. It’s not the latest Hollywood production, the ultimate sound experience, or Apple’s next level consumer lock-in product line. And despite its ominous ring, it isn’t the enemy either, like the NSA appears to be.
THE SYSTEM* indicates the complex interaction of the economy, professional practice and personal choice. The asterisk draws attention to the ambiguity of such a term, while hinting at an intention to change ‘it’, whatever it is. What the system does, on the other hand, is perhaps more easily understood: it organizes things. The system is a set of institutions and infrastructures that shape the contours of resource flows and modulate the rhythms of material cycles.
The system doesn’t just distribute and determine availability though; it frames the imagination and conditions creative activity there within. In this issue of Volume, we’re dilating our pupils to focus on ‘the system’ itself, treating it as a result of, and therefore question of, design. As we are unfortunately well aware, lobbying is not enough to change the system. Applying strategies like leveraging, short-circuiting, disrupting and infecting might be more effective.
Table of Contents:
Editorial: How Much Does Your System Weigh? - Arjen Oosterman
Mining Value - Lionel Devlieger interview
Resist, Release, Retire, Repeat - Debbie Chen
Expanding Dredge Geologics - Neeraj Bhatia / The Open Workshop
Latent City - Yaohua Wang
The Project of a Collective Line - Godofredo Enes Pereira
Neck of the Moon - Design Earth
Cosmic Circuitry - Sasha Engelmann
Cycles of Creativity - Jan Jongert interview
Metabolic Wastebelts for Suburbia - Alan M. Berger et al. and MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism
Logistical Hijack - Clare Lyster
Global Security Pipeline - Nick Axel
Acceleration and Rationalization - Francesco Marullo
Rewiring Territories - The Petropolis of Tomorrow
Polysynthetic Reclamation - Bruno De Meulder and Kelly Shannon
Unknown Unknowns - Rob Holmes
Open Supply Blockchains - Guy James
Deposition Effects - Jesse LeCavalier
Revolution as a Technical Question - Amador Fernández-Savater
Geographies of Uncertainty - Ghazal Jafari
Two Liquids - Tom Fox
Back to the Source - Thomas Rau interview
Coup de Grâce - Patrik Schumacher
Infinite Circulation - Ross Exo Adams
Babel - Edwin Gardner and Christiaan Fruneaux
Sample and Hold - Robert Gerard Pietrusko
Protocols of Interplay - Keller Easterling
