summaery2020: Projects

Project information

submitted by
Katharina Thurow

Mentors
Prof. Dr. Jasper Cepl, Prof. Dr. Lara Schrijver, Laura Stroszeck

Faculty:
Architecture and Urbanism

Degree programme:
Architecture (Master of Science (M.Sc.))

Type of project presentation
Final project

Semester
Summer semester 2021

Project description

Information moving on digital infrastructure varies in materiality and shape. In the form of submarine and underground cables, electric and optic signals, and electromagnetic waves in wireless transmission, it cuts through sea, land, and atmospheres of the Earth. This multi-layered geography is obscure in its diverse entanglement and sheer dimension, and it even opens up new spaces and territories. In this thick topography, our sense of direction can be troubled, and we might feel more and more detached from our immediate surroundings.
Today, we can be anywhere in the world virtually. While we consider this state to be immaterial, the material heaviness of our movements and actions slip beyond our threshold of perception. Just as their impact blurs in the distance, so do the divisions we draw between private and public, or leisure and work. More flexible and volatile forms of labour and transformations in production might seem to indicate a shift from physical to immaterial, from manual to automatic. And they raise questions to which we have no answers yet.

This master's thesis engages with the posed questions, not primarily for the purpose of answering, but with the aim to reveal and scrutinise our own perceptions and assumptions.

If you are interested in reading, feel free to contact me.

Email: katharina.thurow[at]googlemail.com