The Network Society

Space of Flows and Space of Places

I will present…

Biography of Manuel Castells

The Network Society: Basic Theory

Spatial Dimensions

Concept of Space of Flows

Final Remarks and Recommendations

Manuel Castells

Born in Spain 1942

Grew up in Valencia and Barcelona

Studied economics at UB 1958-1962

Student activist against Franco‘s dictatorship

Fled to Paris, continued to do his PhD there

Interest in technologies, cities and Marxist theories

1972: The Urban Question – A Marxist Approach

Moves to USA in 1979

Manuel Castells

1989: The Informational City

1996: The Rise of the Network Society

1997: The Power of Identity

1998: The End of Millenium

Teaching positions: Berkeley, Oxford, MIT etc.

Member of various advisory boards and councils

Receiver of various honorary doctorates and prices

Theory of the Network Society

“ ... a network society is a society where the key

social structures and activities are organized

around electronically processed information

networks.”

Modifications in: Production, Economy,

Experience, Power, Society and Culture

New Organization of Economies

Main economic drivers:

Advanced services:

finance, real estate, insurance, consulting, legal

services, advertising, design etc.

► knowledge generation and information flows

Telecommunication services: scattered locations

around the globe

The „Information Technology Paradigm“

of the Network Society

1. Transformation of location patterns

of core economic activities

Complexity and Unpredictability increase

Demand for a more flexible labour force

2. Transformation of social structures

3. Transformation of living spaces and cities

New networking logic

Pervasive Logic

But: No vision of technological determinism

“It's about social networks which process and

manage information and are using micro-

electronic based technologies.”

The role of the City in the Network Society

Saskia Sassen: Four major functions of cities

1. Command points in organization of world economy

2. Key locations for finance and advanced services

3. Sites of production and innovation

4. Markets for products produced

Castells: Cities will continue to grow in

importance because…

Attract and Concentrate high skilled labour

Lifestyle of the managerial elites:

Shopping, culture, entertainment, real estate

and good education for their children

Companies rely on prestige: valuable real estate

Face- to-Face contact remains crucial

And our cities change…

„ I shall argue that, because of the nature of the new

society, based upon knowledge,

organized around networks,

and partly made up of flows,

the informational city is not a form but a process,

a process characterized by the structural

domination of the space of flows“

(Castells, 1996, p.429).

What is this Space of Flows?

Space of Flows =

„..is the material organization of

time-sharing social practices (space)

that work through flows.“

Flows = sequences of exchange and interaction

between physically disjointed social actors

Three layers of Space of Flows

1. Technological infrastructure

of circuits of electronic impulses

(micro-electronics, telecommunication,

hardware in general)

Facilitates the flows...

2. Geographical topology of the space of flows

formed by its nodes and hubs.

Hubs: exchange and communication points

Nodes: strategically important centres around

the key functions of the network (centres of

power)

3. New Social and Spatial Organization :

Managerial Elites

Space of Flows

People

Space of Places

Cosmopolitan

Mobile

Local

Place based

Homogenization of lifestyles

Identification with managerial

elite

Idenitification

Local identity

Community

Culture

Space of Flows Space of Places

Meanings,

Functions and

Dynamics of Places

change

People live in Places:

Human experience is place based

The Net Self

Ahistorical and Acultural

architecture

Architectural uniformity

Repression of historical specificity

of local places

Experience a blurred relationship

between architecture and society

Traditional Architecture

vanishes (primitive and naked)

Changes in the city landscape…

Cities main functions concentrated in

their business oriented centres

Whole parts of the cities and their

population become irrelevant and often

dysfunctional

What we get is…

„The dominant tendency toward a horizon

of networked, ahistorical space of flows,

aiming at imposing ist logic over scattered, segmented

places, increasingly unrelated

to each other, less and less

able to share cultural codes“

(Castells, 1996, p.459)

What we need is…

Reconciliation:

Culture and Technology

Tradition and Innovation

Cultural, political and physical bridges

between networked space and local places

Reunification through Design and Architecture

Recommendations:

Conversations with History: Manuel Castells

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GBB7U5mv0w

Manuel Castells at Occupy London:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS82Do3bU-w

Thank you for your attention!

Any Questions?

Bibliography

(1996) Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd Edition.

Mainly Chapter 6 The Space of Flows (pp.407-459)

Biography:http://annenberg.usc.edu/Faculty/Communication%20and%20Journalism/CastellsM.aspx

Blogg: http://cbratsos.wordpress.com/

Felix Stalder on Space of Flows:

http://felix.openflows.com/html/objects_flows.pdf

http://felix.openflows.com/html/space_of_flows.html

Felix Stalder, The Logic of Networks:

http://www.ctheory.net/printer.aspx?id=263

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_society#Manuel_Castells

Review: http://www.johncartermcknight.com/blog/?p=506