Two Words for the Future

Architecture 209X, Spring 2007

Words and Cities: The rhetoric and meaning of statistically improbable phrases

Nicholas De Monchaux

Qing Wang

Two Words for the Future

The two words I will choose are Hybrid and Media. The hybridization of culture will be the inevitable tendency of our time. The media will accelerate this process. It is Undeniable that our time is overwhelmed by information created by mass media. The traditional TV, newspaper, movie impacted the perception and the personal value judgment. People actually learn from TVs and take whatever they learn to use on the real life. People believe what are reported in the newspaper. The review on a magazine can influence the public opinions. The fashion on the screen will be duplicated in the real life. The plot of a movie will be repeated innumerous in the real conversation. Eventually, people like what media tells them to like. Furthermore, the computer-based new media, internet reforms our society, our perception more than TVs. Through this new media, people find another alternative subjectivity. People can have a second change to choose what kind person they want to be, just like in online game “second life”. People can make, build tools and buildings and sell them to other people in a virtual world. The virtual money can be transfer into the real money. Some people’s lives have been already shifted by this new media. They spend more time in this media than in real world. They actually “live” in it. The media not just affects our real life, it replaces our life. People physically live in this real world but mentally habitat in the virtual world. This separation makes human being become the hybridized animal. This separation can be derived up to the ancient myth of China. Recently, it is translated into a modern visual representation in Daniel Lee’s work “Judgment”. The ancient myth about the hybridization of soul and body is proven by modern media.

The hybridization also happens between different cultures. Today, it is impossible to say that one single culture is developed by itself. The notion of orthodox culture has been shifted into multi-culture or hybrid culture. The ambiguity of western and eastern culture was largely accepted by the mass media. Japan might be the perfect instance in this case. It keeps the traditional Asian culture also widely transfers the western culture. Hong Kong might be another case. It has been involved in the globalization for decades and interacted with the culture exchange for the same long period. Days like now, one culture hardly stands by itself since the mass media intrudes our lives in every way it can do. The hybridization will continue on by the mass media.