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Viral cities

08:04 / 13.11.02

remember the notion from an early issue of invisibles that cities are viruses, either literally or figuratively? has anyone comes across or know of any further musings on this as i'm a lazy researcher keen to read further!

much obliged.

09:32 / 13.11.02

I suspect Grant half-inched the idea from William Burroughs, even though Burroughs talks about language as a virus, rather than cities - the ideas strike me as too similar to be coincidence.

Burroughs had the notion that language functioned as a parasitical virus preying on the human race, serving only to perpetuate itself while crippling and destroying its host. I don't know how much literal truth there is in this, but it makes a good metaphor. It's similar to the idea of memes, Burroughs was probably influenced here by the general semantics of Alfred Korbyzski. He saw it as something to be transcended thus "you cannot take words into space" and the emphasis on cutting up texts etc.

You could argue (from an imaginative point of view rather than strictily historical one, I'd imagine) that language is bound up with the birth of civilisation, cities and agriculture - there's an amazing final passage in "The Soft Machine" which seems to be getting at this.

With regards to criticsm of cities and civilisation, there's an "Anarcho-primitivism" trend in American Anarchist writers which is ultra critical of civilisation/agriculture, viewing it as something akin to the biblical Fall, and putting primitive hunter-gather sociteis as some sort of ideal. John Zerzan ("Elements of Refusal") is the only anarcho-theorist I've read who argues along these lines. He's also critical of language etc. I haven't really got much time for this line of thought though. It's an interesting theory but about as much practical use as a chocolate saucepan.

Nietzsch E. Coyote

09:44 / 13.11.02

With regards to criticsm of cities and civilisation, there's an "Anarcho-primitivism" trend in American Anarchist writers which is ultra critical of civilisation/agriculture, viewing it as something akin to the biblical Fall, and putting primitive hunter-gather sociteis as some sort of ideal. John Zerzan ("Elements of Refusal") is the only anarcho-theorist I've read who argues along these lines. He's also critical of language etc. I haven't really got much time for this line of thought though. It's an interesting theory but about as much practical use as a chocolate saucepan.

Fight Club is basically set up on this premise, the movie as I don't know about the book really. Also the Ong's Hat stuff has a lot about "Anarcho-primitivism"

Our Lady of The Two Towers

15:15 / 13.11.02

And how would the city-virus spread? I can see people getting together and as more people congregate the space taken up by their buildings increases, but then isn't the city a byproduct rather than a virus?

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

18:36 / 13.11.02

And how would the city-virus spread?

In the Invisibles, man takes it with him to other planets and repeats the process of using up all available resources to make copies of itself and then leaving to find more plantes. Tom O'Bedlam talks about planets convered entirely with empty ruins of cities.

00:54 / 14.11.02

You definitely want to get hold of this book by Manuel de Landa. Its first section discussed at length the "calcification of humanity" - and views cities as exoskeletons. Later on it brings in genetics, viruses and flesh.

06:44 / 14.11.02

then isn't the city a byproduct rather than a virus?

The city is seen as both an informational "meme" that uses humans as hosts/vectors, and a physical presence in concrete/steel. Humans are part of its reproductive apparatus.

The Natural Way

09:10 / 14.11.02

So...Burroughs invented the meme? I didn't know that. Cool.

12:04 / 14.11.02

Another angle on the subject: I read recently in a "history of medicine" type book that the early cities were some of the unhealthist places imaginable - the mass congreation of people, lack of shared immunisation, lack of sanitation etc. led to masses of diseases spreading. So cities are connected with viruses quite literally in a way.

Even in terms of the modern urban environment dirt, pollution, rubbish makes an interesting counterpoint to the "gleaming towers of shining steel" imagery cities sometime have.

14:16 / 14.11.02

I never saw the city as a virus, but I have described gentrification as such. I'm not sure I'm right though. are there viruses that make their host more valuable?

15:31 / 14.11.02

Burroughs did not invent the meme. Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins coined the term and defined it in the 70's.

20:43 / 14.11.02

Hakim Bey is another notorious anarcho-primitivist. A lot of that stuff is bound up in deconstructive postmodernism, and eulogizing paleolithic foraging societies despite their equally terrible abuses.

The whole thing reeks of pre-trans fallaces, and retro romanticism.

22:21 / 14.11.02

The whole thing reeks of pre-trans fallaces, and retro romanticism.

I agree. For more of the same, check out pretty much anything by Ivan Illich- this guy is against school, medicine, and even public transportation. He is a compelling writer, though, and his ideas are worth looking in to.

20:20 / 15.11.02

Vaj,
You used so many words that went over my head, I thought I was at a Soviet air show.

If you assume that planet earth is a separate biological entity, and the 6-billion-strong mites living on it's skin are parasties, then:

1 - Small settlements/early townships - exposure
2 - Growing towns/factory or company towns/miner towns/growing seaports - infestations
3 - Smaller cities/multiple industries/initial suburban residents - early infections
4 - Major cities/start of urban blight/independent suburbs/friction amongst the dependents of the older and newer industries
/ pollution /homelessness/ warring unions/ crackhouses / immigration zones / pro sports teams - serious infections causing pus and damaging the whole organism (the earth, that is).

How are the parasites regulated? War, famine, plagues, the spores of the parasites settle in new infection sites.

Do I believe in any of this? Yeah, but how applicable and relevant is the concept?

VR
The Shark

09:22 / 01.12.02

all very interesting. with the amount of rubbish and chaos most cities generate, they're something of a blight on the natural world, and yet they're pretty essential components of civilisation as we know it. we're not only the vectors of any city-virus, but in some weird dual role we're the drones who constuct and shape it.

14:29 / 01.12.02

I think it's at best an emotive comparison. Biologically speaking, cities are much more like coral, but that's no good for the humans-bad/nature-good argument.

Cities, like virii, are part of the natural world. Humans are indigenous organisms, and therefore their artefacts are too. To pretend there is a great divide between humans and nature, especially while excluding virii from the second group, is gross subjectivity.

As organic artefacts, cities will inevitably vaguely mirror organic functions, so to compare cities to virii or coral or whatever is akin to comparing your clothes to fur. The answer is true, but ... so what?

22:42 / 01.12.02

Check out Howard Blooms books, The Lucifer Principle and The Global Brain, or just go to his web page. I think Grant has gotten a lot of ideas from him and others in this area of memes and neo-social evolutionists.

08:27 / 02.12.02

I do remember reading something a bit more switchboardy about this, but I can't remember where - though it was probably the Guardian, let's face it. The argument ran as follows (more or less): as corporatisation and agribusiness takes over the countryside, problems of environmental damage, lack of land, unemployment, poverty &c. increase and force people into urban areas - where the same corporatisation has crippled public services, leaving authorities unable to cope adequately with the number of new inhabitants; and this of course leads to urban poverty, disease, lack of sanitation, and so on, and the richer inhabitants ship out. It's a bit of an iterative process seen from that point, I suppose.

Obviously there would be regional variations on that model, and equally obviously it's far more severe in the developing world, but I do think there is a lot in it.

Oh, and you might be interested in Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines - it's a children's fantasy book, but it deals with predatory cities and is pretty good...