Reimagining Urban Futures: xxx-cavat0r and the Speculative Architectures of Big Postmodernism
Frederik De Wilde’s xxx-cavat0r is harnessing the generative potential of machine learning and aerial LiDAR scans to explore speculative futures of architecture in the era of Big Data. The artwork, an interactive and generative piece, manipulates point cloud data—captured via drone-based LiDAR—within a 3D space, reinterpreting and sonifying this data in real-time through AI-driven processes. The resulting digital landscapes, cities, maps, and archives evoke a concept De Wilde terms “Big Postmodernism,” a period where the influx of unstructured, non-teleological data, once a destabilizing force, is mastered by a complex, distributed algorithmic regime. xxx-cavat0r within the speculative futures of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in architecture, critically examining its implications for the post-Anthropocene, while drawing connections to the tensions between modernism, postmodernism, and Big Data as articulated in contemporary discourse.
A Speculative Digital Topography
The point cloud data, derived from aerial LiDAR scans, appears as a fragmented, almost organic mesh, suggesting a cityscape or landscape that is both familiar and alien. The real-time sonification—where AI interprets the data into auditory outputs—adds a multisensory layer, enhancing the immersive quality of the work. This generative process blurs the lines between human agency and algorithmic intervention, as the AI radically reinterprets the raw data, producing novel digital architectures that exist beyond the physical constraints of traditional urban planning. The result is a speculative archive, a digital topography that challenges conventional notions of space, time, and narrative in the context of Big Data.
De Wilde’s focus on “Big Postmodernism” positions xxx-cavat0r as a critique of the modernist impulse to order and optimize, exemplified by figures like Le Corbusier, who might have used such point cloud data to functionalize urban space with ruthless efficiency; as articulated in the modernist dream of total control through data aligns uneasily with Big Data’s unstructured, non-teleological nature, which resonates more with postmodernism’s embrace of multiplicity and indeterminacy (Jameson, 1991). Yet, De Wilde suggests a third path: a Big Postmodernism where algorithms neither destabilize nor dominate but instead create a pluralized regime capable of processing complexity. The artwork’s speculative cities—constructed through AI-driven reinterpretation—thus embody a post-Anthropocene vision, where human agency is decentered, and the built environment evolves through machinic creativity.
Speculative Futures of AI in Architecture
The integration of AI and machine learning in xxx-cavat0r offers a speculative glimpse into the future of architecture, where traditional design methodologies are supplanted by generative algorithms. The artwork’s use of point cloud data to construct imaginary cities prefigures a world where urban planning is no longer a human-driven process but a collaborative act between man, machine, and algorithm. This aligns with emerging trends in computational architecture, where tools like generative adversarial networks (GANs) are used to design structures that optimize for sustainability, density, and aesthetics (Goodfellow et al., 2014). However, De Wilde’s approach is distinctly speculative, focusing not on practical application but on the erosion of boundaries between human creativity and machinic authorship.
The post-Anthropocene framework is particularly apt here, as it denotes an era where human dominance over the Earth’s systems gives way to a more distributed agency, including non-human actors like algorithms (Braidotti, 2019). In xxx-cavat0r, the AI’s real-time reinterpretation of LiDAR data suggests a future where cities are not designed but grown—emerging from the interplay of data, algorithms, and environmental inputs. This resonates with Donna Haraway’s concept of the Chthulucene, which emphasizes multispecies entanglements and the co-creation of futures beyond anthropocentric control (Haraway, 2016). Yet, this speculative future is not utopian; the artwork’s fragmented, glitch-like aesthetic evokes a sense of unease, hinting at the loss of human agency in the face of algorithmic omnipotence.
Big Postmodernism and the Struggle Between Modernism and Resistance
The ultimate goal of xxx-cavat0r is installation presented in three parts: (1) a sonified scan of a city without algorithmic intervention, (2) an optimized, modernist reinterpretation of the same city by the AI, and (3) a postmodern resistance to this optimization using an algorithm like that developed at UMass to “fill in” the modernist model with complexity. This structure encapsulates the central tension of Big Postmodernism: the struggle between a modernist impulse to let data reign (as Le Corbusier might have done) and a postmodern insistence that the world cannot be reduced to models. De Wilde’s work thus becomes a battleground for these ideologies, questioning whether Big Data heralds a return to modernism’s totalizing frameworks or whether postmodernism can harness algorithms to resist such reductionism.The third scenario—using algorithms to subvert modernist optimization—raises a critical concern: the resulting complexity may be “worse” than the modernist model, suggesting a chaotic, unmanageable urban future. This aligns with Timothy Morton’s concept of hyperobjects, where phenomena like Big Data are so vast and distributed that they defy human comprehension, leading to unintended consequences (Morton, 2013). In xxx-cavat0r, the AI’s sonification of the optimized city as “boring” underscores this critique, reflecting the sterility of a data-driven utopia. Conversely, the postmodern resistance introduces noise and multiplicity, but at the cost of coherence, mirroring the fragmented aesthetic of the artwork itself.
Connection to the Post-Anthropocene
The post-Anthropocene lens amplifies these tensions, as it challenges the anthropocentric foundations of both modernism and postmodernism. In a post-Anthropocene world, the traditional concept of the archive—embodied in xxx-cavat0r’s digital maps and landscapes—is no longer a human construct but a machinic one, raising questions about control and authorship. The artwork’s erosion of boundaries between man, machine, and algorithm reflects a broader shift toward a distributed creativity, where the AI becomes a co-author of urban futures. This decentering of human agency aligns with Braidotti’s posthumanist vision, which advocates for a relational ontology that includes non-human actors (Braidotti, 2019). However, it also introduces ethical dilemmas: who—or what—is responsible for the cities of the future, and how do we ensure they serve human needs rather than algorithmic imperatives?
A Critical Reflection on Creativity and Control
Frederik De Wilde’s xxx-cavat0r offers a profound meditation on the speculative futures of AI and machine learning in architecture, navigating the contested terrain of Big Postmodernism and the post-Anthropocene. Through its manipulation of point cloud data and real-time sonification, the artwork blurs the lines between human and machinic creativity, raising critical questions about control, automatization, and the archive. While its speculative cities envision a world beyond anthropocentric design, they also caution against the unchecked power of algorithms, echoing the struggle between modernist optimization and postmodern resistance. xxx-cavat0r stands as a timely intervention, urging us to confront the ethical and aesthetic implications of a data-driven urban future, where the boundaries of creativity and authorship are irrevocably redefined.
References
- Braidotti, R. (2019). Posthuman Knowledge. Polity Press.
- Goodfellow, I., et al. (2014). Generative Adversarial Nets. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 27.
- Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
- Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press.
- Morton, T. (2013). Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. University of Minnesota Press.
