https://johannespointner.cargo.site Johannes Pointner Fri, 26 May 2023 07:31:20 +0000 https://johannespointner.cargo.site en https://johannespointner.cargo.site/New-Home Fri, 26 May 2023 07:31:20 +0000 Johannes Pointner https://johannespointner.cargo.site/New-Home Johannes Pointner I am a researcher, designer and teacher concerned with space, technology and knowledge. My main interest is how digitalization transforms spatial logics and creates more complex spaces based on interaction and collaboration. Currently, I am working as a research associate at New Practice / Design &amp; Computation, a new transdisciplinary master's program at the University of the Arts Berlin and the Technical University of Berlin. There I am leading the research project Raumlabore (funded by Stifterverband&nbsp;) in which a flexible, interactive and hybrid working environment is implemented to respond to the dynamic demands of transdisciplinary teaching and learning. Parallel to these practical implementations, I write papers on how the digital transformation affects knowledge spaces and libraries (Research Gate ). The foundation for these investigation were laid in my MA thesis&nbsp;Ideathek, which explored the question of how design can create complex knowledge spaces based on hybrid collaboration. While still a student, I initiated and coordinated several formats at the University of the Arts Berlin that were dedicated to interdisciplinary exchange between faculties (UdK Open Call or here&nbsp;). ︎ ︎ https://johannespointner.cargo.site/f01-Ideathek Mon, 13 Dec 2021 20:46:20 +0000 Johannes Pointner https://johannespointner.cargo.site/f01-Ideathek Ideathek ƒ01 What does the digitization and mediatization of space mean for our physical and virtual knowledge spaces. How can architectural and interface design promote innovation and creativity through their spatial configurations and protocols? Which new approaches need to be deployed so that complexity is created instead of reduced?&nbsp;↓ https://johannespointner.cargo.site/1-preface Tue, 08 Feb 2022 17:56:13 +0000 Johannes Pointner https://johannespointner.cargo.site/1-preface ƒ01&nbsp; ︎ MA-Thesis , UdK Berlin &nbsp;︎SoSe 2021 0 Preface Complexity has become a key concept in the sciences. It contradicts the linear and schematic way of approaching the world around us through static and universal knowledge, but rather promotes the fluid and networked entanglement of phenomena. The approach of complexity is based on the insight that each analyzed situation is multidimensionally and transdisciplinarily informed by a multitude of agencies, contradicting the one-dimensionality of conventional knowledge conceptions. But to remain in a position to understand and actively shape our more and more complex realities, spaces are required that can equally (re)produce these convoluted relations. The way how we deal with knowledge today, our educational and learning spaces but also our working environments in general, dramatically lack these qualities. Also, because they insufficiently incorporate the tools we have at our disposal, namely our contemporary digital technologies, which are the instruments that opened the door for us to detect and analyze complexity on a broad scale in the first place. To think complexly means to think with the help of technology, or put differently: technologically mediated. My project is the attempt to therefore actualize one of our most central spaces of knowledge-interaction: a library. How can we as designers and architects create shared spaces that enable complex modes of knowledge retrieval, exchange, or generation and that frame collaborative cross-border work settings? When I started my master’s studies at the University of the Arts Berlin in fall 2018, I got into a project group that intended to research possible synergies of digital technologies implemented in spaces of education and learning. Of course, we were aware that this task could hardly be answered by us architects alone, and so we initiated an open format of events and seminars for interdisciplinary encounter and the exchange of knowledge within UdK (Digital Salon). Out of this discourse the question arose how architecture can contribute to more complex modes of learning and working together. In the early stages of the project, I purposely let my attention and interest wander and dug into different fields of research that seemed related. This “undisciplined” way of connecting contents was the basis for the development of the transdisciplinary approach outlined in the following thesis. Correspondingly, in the project different textual lines from different disciplines (inter alia: architecture, philosophy, cultural studies, computer science) converge to form this heterogeneously informed argument. However, the project is neither a conventional architectural project nor a scientific paper. I like to see it as an “architectural essay” that blends conventional forms of presentation into a web-optimized experience. &nbsp; Contents 1 Research: A media revolution 1.1 Tree-knowledge 1.2 Thinking paper-based 1.3 Hyperlinked reality 2 Interface: computing complexity 2.1 A hybrid data pool 2.2 Networking knowledge 2.3 Mock-up 2.4 Curriculum 3 Architecture: A platform for knowledge 3.1 Virtual and real-world platforms 3.2 Architectural interventions 3.3 Learning-clusters 3.4 Augmentation through apps 4 Conclusion <img width="1100" height="1825" width_o="1100" height_o="1825" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1477a297692ef6b4015868f5f13db4891bc074aa918ff14036d89d3671c028c9/P2P-Grafik.jpg" data-mid="135817522" border="0" alt="Contrary to the hierarchical Client-Server-system, in a P2P-network users act simultaneously as receivers and active transmitter of content." data-caption="Contrary to the hierarchical Client-Server-system, in a P2P-network users act simultaneously as receivers and active transmitter of content." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1477a297692ef6b4015868f5f13db4891bc074aa918ff14036d89d3671c028c9/P2P-Grafik.jpg" /> https://johannespointner.cargo.site/1-1-RESEARCH-A-media-revolution Mon, 13 Dec 2021 20:46:20 +0000 Johannes Pointner https://johannespointner.cargo.site/1-1-RESEARCH-A-media-revolution 1 Research: A media revolution 1.1 Tree-knowledge In the aftermath of the enlightenment the emerging sciences were based on a particular form of thought – a conceptual figure for the fundamental organization of the world that can be summed up with the visual metaphor of the "tree". Central in this conception is the hierarchical structuring of knowledge. Thereby a small number of statements defines and controls vast quantities of statements on all subjacent levels – from highly abstract at the bottom, to very concrete pieces of knowledge at the top. This modern knowledge organization seems to be intuitive – even obvious. But this way of making sense of the world is a constructed one. It doesn’t represent a seemingly natural order but rather enforced a very much human made logos on natural phenomena. It’s needless to say that this epistemological regime was and is highly productive, but there was a price to be paid for this hierarchical order.  The genealogical organization only allows linear, one-dimensional relations and thus introduced a binary mode of classifying knowledge separating all entities of the modern knowledge system into fragmented, specialized branches. Therefore, every entity had a fixed position within the overall structure of the tree, its branches, and their inner ramifications/differentiation. In this logic horizontal or cross connections weren't possible. And out of this urge to keep things (literally) in line and therefore manageable, disparate silos of thought and practice (hence knowledge) emerged that then defined the disciplinary landscape of modern sciences. Another, even more important implication for our case is that with this hierarchical mode of organization the contents of knowledge consequently had to be reduced when referred to on their way down. Since superordinate points received many streams of information coming from above but could only pass on one channel further downwards, the contents had to be merged, synthesized and/or subsumed before. In this process a high percentage of what was written on higher levels got inevitably lost resulting in an accumulative reduction: the further down in the tree-diagram, the higher the level of abstraction and the more detail and nuances are filtered out. &nbsp; This epistemological reductionism resulted in a form of thought that tended to homogenize and abstract. The universal formal structure was always already there, just waiting for the bits of knowledge to be fitted in. But obviously, the world is and always has been more complex than a simple tree diagram could suggest. Then why was it organized in this reductionist manner? There is of course not one single answer to this question. Many influences contributed to the emergence of this in itself highly complex situation. There is the generally hierarchical/monarchical design of most 19th century societies for example which are themselves based on the far-reaching religious belief of a god-created, natural hierarchy. But I want to suggest that there might be another complementary argument that gives attention to the technological circumstances of the time. Namely that the reduction of complexity and differences was partly inevitable because the systemic, technological parameters didn’t allow for any higher extent of information processing and consequently had to result in a systemic reductionism. <img width="579" height="900" width_o="579" height_o="900" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/94bd06ea7afe1ec12bf10be33ea700e18494bb4313506835468c082f4c028c86/Haeckel_arbol_bn.png" data-mid="130047548" border="0" alt="Genealogical tree with representation of the three kingdoms of life, from Volume II of &quot;General Morphology&quot; by Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, 1866 Source" data-caption="Genealogical tree with representation of the three kingdoms of life, from Volume II of &quot;General Morphology&quot; by Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, 1866 &lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_arbol_bn.png&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/579/i/94bd06ea7afe1ec12bf10be33ea700e18494bb4313506835468c082f4c028c86/Haeckel_arbol_bn.png" /> https://johannespointner.cargo.site/3-diagrams Mon, 13 Dec 2021 20:46:20 +0000 Johannes Pointner https://johannespointner.cargo.site/3-diagrams <img width="800" height="694" width_o="800" height_o="694" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bfb2532d574d9102ee6caa989dfbdebdb37d941c43e7a750c3617975f1e0af9f/Dewey1_heller.gif" data-mid="130044650" border="0" data-no-zoom="true" alt=" The Dewey Decimal Classification is the world&rsquo;s most widely used library classification system. It is progressively ordered in ten classes on each level and can be extended indefinitely to lower, fractional hierarchical levels. The ten main classes are supposed to correspond to the disciplines." data-caption="&lt;br&gt; The Dewey Decimal Classification is the world’s most widely used library classification system. It is progressively ordered in ten classes on each level and can be extended indefinitely to lower, fractional hierarchical levels. The ten main classes are supposed to correspond to the disciplines." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/bfb2532d574d9102ee6caa989dfbdebdb37d941c43e7a750c3617975f1e0af9f/Dewey1_heller.gif" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0580ecee1c26201884e67ea9c8dbf0921f4c6d7f0efe8cd76943d1d22c58e677/Dewey-2_heller.gif" data-mid="129973662" border="0" data-no-zoom="true" alt="The linear progression is represented by a numeric notation system in which numbers are added to incrementally specify a subject. In this example the path to the class &ldquo;Guitar&rdquo; (787.87) is depicted." data-caption="The linear progression is represented by a numeric notation system in which numbers are added to incrementally specify a subject. In this example the path to the class “Guitar” (787.87) is depicted." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0580ecee1c26201884e67ea9c8dbf0921f4c6d7f0efe8cd76943d1d22c58e677/Dewey-2_heller.gif" /> https://johannespointner.cargo.site/4-1-2-Thinking-paper-based Wed, 12 Jan 2022 23:09:20 +0000 Johannes Pointner https://johannespointner.cargo.site/4-1-2-Thinking-paper-based 1.2 Thinking paper-based The hypothesis is as follows: The formation of the reductionist tree-knowledge can only be understood by considering the specific socio-technological conditions of the 19th century – a period in which the tree-knowledge got widely distributed in academic spheres and beyond. It was the material milieu for this particular mode of knowledge organization to emerge. The central technological and cultural artefact that shaped the emergence of those systems was the book. Around it social practices and protocols evolved that formed interdependent assemblages of both, technological and social. As the primary mean for knowledge communication and storage the 19th century academic societies created themselves with all their intricate procedures, rituals, normativities around the technological medium of the book. It limited the memory size of the single data carriers. It defined the speed of “reading” or retrieving the data. Its reproduction was tied to the performance of the industrial letterpress printing. The postal sector [defined] the speed of data transmission. An academic library of the time couldn’t be imagined without any ink on paper. Consequently, librarians had to face the incoming stream of knowledge/books with the tools and the organizational protocols (e.g., the library catalogues) available at hand. All these factors defined the overall capacities and performance of the information-processing system. Humans themselves were only one component in the complex of technological, economic, and political conditions in total. And regarding the relatively limited means the librarians had no other choice than applying the method of reduction to make the sheer infinite amount of knowledge manageable or even navigable in the first place. My suggestion is therefore as follows: Knowledge can’t be understood independently from its material context. For the 19th century the increasing imbalance between the quantities of knowledge and the possibilities to process it led to the emergence of an epistemological structure based on reduction through labelling. The contingent metaphor of the tree was just one possible form of structuring. Taking the historical circumstances into account the tree was just more obvious than others.&nbsp; <img width="800" height="523" width_o="800" height_o="523" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ac1d7d576737f592d093535ec9a636e70c1f22d32fbce8b9400d4e615dd93f75/800px-Rotations-Buchdruckmaschine_Aufri.jpg" data-mid="130049699" border="0" alt="Rotary letterpress. Designed by Maschinenfabrik Augsburg for printing Meyer's Konversations-Lexikon, mid 19th century. Source" data-caption="Rotary letterpress. Designed by Maschinenfabrik Augsburg for printing Meyer's Konversations-Lexikon, mid 19th century. &lt;a href=&quot;https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Rotations-Buchdruckmaschine_Aufri%C3%9F.jpg&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/ac1d7d576737f592d093535ec9a636e70c1f22d32fbce8b9400d4e615dd93f75/800px-Rotations-Buchdruckmaschine_Aufri.jpg" /> <img width="1516" height="1029" width_o="1516" height_o="1029" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/093d808cb362938bb14c994944470915670d812147a389aa4a62656c25bdedbe/Buerkel-Poststation.jpg" data-mid="139524917" border="0" alt="Heinrich B&uuml;rkel, ca. 1863. Beggars attack a mail coach in front of a post station in the Pontine Marshes. Source" data-caption="Heinrich Bürkel, ca. 1863. Beggars attack a mail coach in front of a post station in the Pontine Marshes. &lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buerkel-Poststation.jpg&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/093d808cb362938bb14c994944470915670d812147a389aa4a62656c25bdedbe/Buerkel-Poststation.jpg" /> https://johannespointner.cargo.site/5-1-3-Hyperlinked-reality Thu, 13 Jan 2022 16:53:12 +0000 Johannes Pointner https://johannespointner.cargo.site/5-1-3-Hyperlinked-reality 1.3 Hyperlinked reality Today, our social as well as technological conditions drastically differ from the time when our still often prevailing epistemological structures were formed. Only a few decades ago every analog medium (newspaper, radio, television, etc.) was organized rather independently. Due to their differing medial properties, there was only limited communication between them so that they functioned complementary. By the notion of digitalization this medial compartmentation is now replaced with a vast, homogeneous, digital infrastructure that tends to combine all symbolical transactions into one single medium. With the help of computers, the whole world gets seamlessly translated into digital signals. And thanks to the internet these bits and bytes are then automatically circulated, processed, and networked back into the system. The resulting extracts of data are often so big that they can’t be analyzed anymore by us humans alone, but only with the aid of computers again. &nbsp; Any media has always been an “extension of man”, extending not only our physiological but also our cognitive features. With the rise of digital media, a new door seems to have opened to formerly unknown depths of reality. Reduction was and still is inescapable. The world simply holds too many wonders for us to even register them, let alone understand. But what is different today is that we have new allies to meet our “wicked” presence. Not only can amounts of data be processed in seconds that would have taken several human lifetimes in the analogue age. But also, through the networking capacities of contemporary technology, silos of thought found a common, communicative infrastructure which used to be separated into disparate social and epistemic disciplines. As a result, a multiplicity of new connections is made bridging the demarcations and creating new fields of joint research. Slowly, a new understanding of knowledge emerges that works transdisciplinary and pays close attention to those intricate entanglements.&nbsp; Tree-knowledge is not able to represent these kinds of non-linear constellations because of its very limited organizational capacities. In this way, material reality has already transcended our conceptual and terminological framework. And contrary to the simple principle of linear reduction of the tree-knowledge there is an emerging awareness for complexity. A system can be identified as complex if its causal categories are intertwined in a non-linear manner so that their sum is greater than the single components. This means that the movements and flows in the system aren’t predetermined and can’t be fully predicted. Complex systems resist the idea of a preexisting and stable formal structure. The lateral interaction between the entities leads to modifications of their own qualities and the relations between them. Accordingly, their ontological functioning is based on emergence and self-organization. Tree-knowledge works in a much different way. In its hierarchical structure there are only linear relations possible meaning that every property of an entity must be easily deducible from its superior. In this system therefore the whole corresponds exactly to the sum of its parts. It postulates an ever static and stable framework with which every knowledge entity must coincide because of the assumed essentialist nature of things. &nbsp; Today, there is a discrepancy between our still traditional understanding and organization of knowledge and a completely different technological reality. Therefore, I think that from an epistemological standpoint there is no technological need any more to rely on the reductionist principles of the modern knowledge classification. Back in the day there was no way to work with multidimensionally complicated data the same way we do it now with the help of algorithms that run on our personal computers. Also, something as fundamental as change was so challenging to be taken in into account so that it had to be suppressed to a minimum. Contrary to that, the networked computational power of contemporary digital technologies allows for non-linear modes of organization that have structural instability and change at its very basis. We are now able to extract more and different kinds of data, circulate those huge amounts with highspeed and process all this material with much higher degrees of complexity. Against this backdrop, complexity here means that the enormous leap in terms of greater quantities also comes with altered qualities. We now see ourselves confronted with the multifaceted nature of things that necessarily had to be ignored because they were structurally so difficult to handle for predigital epistemological communities. The non-trivial, the wicked problems, the hybrids and non-binaries have come to the forth. Complexity is not a problem anymore, but a challenge. <img width="757" height="599" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" data-src="//freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/37bcceea4a0ad9bcf6c285e691a953b3c943cb6c450af4538ef6ecbc427227a3/757px-Artikel_44571_bilder_value_8_Posttelegrafen5.jpg"> <img width="403" height="599" width_o="403" height_o="599" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d8b3357ba7c7df240e49e5b3474eed578d51881e6380b9da13705586165285e2/403px-Strap-Ons_are_being_integrated_with_Core_Stage_of_GSLV-F09_at_the_Vehicle_Assembly_Building.jpg" data-mid="130057330" border="0" alt="Television and communication satellite GSAT-9, 2017. Photo: ISRO. Source" data-caption="Television and communication satellite GSAT-9, 2017. Photo: ISRO. &lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Strap-Ons_are_being_integrated_with_Core_Stage_of_GSLV-F09_at_the_Vehicle_Assembly_Building.jpg&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/403/i/d8b3357ba7c7df240e49e5b3474eed578d51881e6380b9da13705586165285e2/403px-Strap-Ons_are_being_integrated_with_Core_Stage_of_GSLV-F09_at_the_Vehicle_Assembly_Building.jpg" /> <img width="800" height="533" width_o="800" height_o="533" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e083ae5a55aa23cc87170665a6dd83b42f577d711fad5b3c7f21033dedc41957/CERN_Server_03.jpg" data-mid="130057332" border="0" alt="Server room in CERN. Photo: Florian Hirzinger, CC-BY 3.0. Source" data-caption="Server room in CERN. Photo: Florian Hirzinger, &lt;a href=&quot; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.de &quot;&gt;CC-BY 3.0&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:CERN_Server_03.jpg&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/e083ae5a55aa23cc87170665a6dd83b42f577d711fad5b3c7f21033dedc41957/CERN_Server_03.jpg" /> <img width="501" height="350" width_o="501" height_o="350" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c3b27fd94f87743c69d7893b68d42e2459984e66c51440291e316c602e0b9f03/800px-SourTyre_FemaleLebaneseProtestor-MobilePhone_RomanDeckert22102019.jpg" data-mid="130057331" border="0" alt="A protestor is filming during a demonstration against government corruption in Lebanon, 2019. Photo: Roman Deckert, CC-BY 4.0. Source" data-caption="A protestor is filming during a demonstration against government corruption in Lebanon, 2019. Photo: Roman Deckert, &lt;a href=&quot;http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.de&quot;&gt;CC-BY 4.0&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;a href=&quot;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SourTyre_FemaleLebaneseProtestor-MobilePhone_RomanDeckert22102019.jpg&quot;&gt;Source&lt;/a&gt;" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/501/i/c3b27fd94f87743c69d7893b68d42e2459984e66c51440291e316c602e0b9f03/800px-SourTyre_FemaleLebaneseProtestor-MobilePhone_RomanDeckert22102019.jpg" /> https://johannespointner.cargo.site/6-diagram Tue, 18 Jan 2022 18:46:55 +0000 Johannes Pointner https://johannespointner.cargo.site/6-diagram <img width="1920" height="685" width_o="1920" height_o="685" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e7a2b884971fe8403674347958603ffd24630f63572ba944e8596379152d62f2/data_journey.jpg" data-mid="132745649" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e7a2b884971fe8403674347958603ffd24630f63572ba944e8596379152d62f2/data_journey.jpg" /> <img width="600" height="12" width_o="600" height_o="12" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6450e8417a059abc491692cc1bf10e5a633b01a3a45c2f4a5eb3b693a1dabb40/grauer_streifen.jpg" data-mid="132746356" border="0" alt="The diagram shows my own attempt to reorganize a data drop from VW Bib in a non-hierarchical way. 30k entities from the library system were analyzed on basis of their assigned abstracts and meta data. Depicted is the &ldquo;journey&rdquo; of the data. From the initial import on the left to different interpretation and visualization variants on the right. It was my own introduction to programming and admittedly, due to of the lack of skill the results are of limited significance. But it helped a great deal to transfer certain concepts of computer science, like the problem of dimensionality reduction, to then deal with them in a interdisciplinary and adapted manner. " data-caption="The diagram shows my own attempt to reorganize a data drop from VW Bib in a non-hierarchical way. 30k entities from the library system were analyzed on basis of their assigned abstracts and meta data. Depicted is the “journey” of the data. From the initial import on the left to different interpretation and visualization variants on the right. It was my own introduction to programming and admittedly, due to of the lack of skill the results are of limited significance. But it helped a great deal to transfer certain concepts of computer science, like the problem of dimensionality reduction, to then deal with them in a interdisciplinary and adapted manner. " src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/6450e8417a059abc491692cc1bf10e5a633b01a3a45c2f4a5eb3b693a1dabb40/grauer_streifen.jpg" /> https://johannespointner.cargo.site/7-2-INTERFACE-computing-complexity Fri, 14 Jan 2022 15:38:36 +0000 Johannes Pointner https://johannespointner.cargo.site/7-2-INTERFACE-computing-complexity 2 Interface:Computing complexity 2.1 A hybrid data pool There is no overarching, stable order of the world. And if there was one, we shouldn’t imagine that we could ever be able to grasp it in its full complexity. But we can try to approximate it, get closer to it, and take as many significant influences as possible into account. In this way every real-world phenomenon becomes a unique network of mutually informed agencies. To scientifically deal with those singular assemblages, we shouldn’t press them into an already existing scheme until they fit but need to come up with a tailored approach for each of the analyzed situations. What does all this mean for the example of the library? Every person, every organization, every culture has individual and distinct preconditions for acquiring and maintaining its knowledge. This circumstance makes it impossible to generally speak about the entirety of all libraries. Rather, I decided to choose one as my object of investigation: the Volkswagen University Library [VW Bib] in Berlin combines the collections of the library of the Technical University [TU] and the University of the Arts [UdK]. Therefore, it compounds a heterogeneous pool of knowledge and provides a space where students and researchers of diverse backgrounds go to. Furthermore, as a university library it distinctly functions as a service institution for the retrieval of knowledge supplementing academic work and research. Lastly, this library has been accompanying myself for a while. As a regular user I developed an elaborate relationship with it that can be considered as a sort of expert knowledge from a user-experience point of view. I have a sense about the spatial characteristics and the behavior the building promotes or tends to prevent. In my opinion this insider perspective is very much needed to create sustainable findings. But to go into the depths of the knowledge system of VW Bib it requires more than analyzing it on an architectural level. Rather, this surface level of spatial materialization was formed around the underlaying systematization of knowledge. Or put differently: to understand the physical, architectural level you first must understand the knowledge system it was built for. Let’s therefore have a look at the library catalogue and how it functions. Like the big majority of German-speaking libraries VW Bib’s catalogue uses the Regensburger Verbundsklassifikation [RVK]. It can be regarded as the German variation of the Dewey-Decimal-Classification [DDC] which is the most utilized knowledge classification system for libraries worldwide. Established in the mid-19th century by Melvil Dewey, a librarian working at a college library in Massachusetts, it can be considered the representative peak of the tree-knowledge. Out of an excessive rationalist manner it organized the entire “universe of knowledge” in a decimal logic. The ten main categories are each organized into ten further subcategories, which subsequently have ten subordinate categories, and so on. From today’s standpoint the rigidity of that approach seems bizarre, but the relevance of the DDC can’t be underestimated in my opinion. If we think of a library today, we implicitly think of these sorts of classification systems. The RVK follows its original’s conceptual guidelines and only introduced small adjustments. For example, the strict organization in decimals was abandoned: Instead of ten main categories the RVK has 34. But the differentiation into strictly separated and hierarchically organized categories works just the same and therefore represents the linear and static tree-knowledge, too. This organizational approach wasn’t restricted solely to the management of knowledge but rather represented a general mode of thought throughout the modern era. With the transition from a paper-based-society to a digit-based-society I want to propose that this form of thought is now undergoing a transformation. <img width="3096" height="4128" width_o="3096" height_o="4128" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c93eff1710b37fbd0b76777afc20adba131643462ccd30d7dd7a527ded5a1583/20220412_180411.jpg" data-mid="139521668" border="0" alt="Library interior. Foto: Johannes Pointner, CC-BY 4.0." data-caption="Library interior. Foto: Johannes Pointner, &lt;a href=&quot;http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.de&quot;&gt;CC-BY 4.0&lt;/a&gt;." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c93eff1710b37fbd0b76777afc20adba131643462ccd30d7dd7a527ded5a1583/20220412_180411.jpg" /> <img width="3648" height="5472" width_o="3648" height_o="5472" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fc0639853444f7cd51f08e826e7e89f9841ec05a8f5b3c5d66b9f546fe658646/IMG_7222.JPG" data-mid="130645218" border="0" alt="Library interior. Foto: Johannes Pointner, CC-BY 4.0." data-caption="Library interior. Foto: Johannes Pointner, &lt;a href=&quot;http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.de&quot;&gt;CC-BY 4.0&lt;/a&gt;." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fc0639853444f7cd51f08e826e7e89f9841ec05a8f5b3c5d66b9f546fe658646/IMG_7222.JPG" /> https://johannespointner.cargo.site/8-2-2-Networking-knowledge Tue, 18 Jan 2022 19:16:22 +0000 Johannes Pointner https://johannespointner.cargo.site/8-2-2-Networking-knowledge 2.2 Networking knowledge So, how could a different method for organizing the knowledge pool of VW Bib look like that makes use of the processing power of digital technology and potentially escapes the reductionist predicament to create higher degrees of complexity? Let’s recap that librarians had to resort to reductionist strategies because the sheer amounts of knowledge that entered their libraries in the form of books exceeded the processing capacity of the system – humans, with the help of their limited technological facilitators could only go through them on a superficial level resulting in the labelling of their contents. Digital technologies are no longer subjected to limitations like these. Not only can algorithms that run on potent hardware go through way bigger amounts of data in much shorter time, they also can analyze it in a very profound or multidimensional manner. The way I use the term multidimensional in this context originates from how natural language processing [NLP] algorithms work which are commonly used to extract the semantic meaning of text documents. These software packages are trained through machine learning to translate words and sentences into mathematical vectors, which are then embedded in a geometrical space of several hundred dimensions. The higher the amount of dimension, the higher the amount of analyzed linguistic features and the better the capture of textual nuances. Suppose we feed all the data from the existing library system into these algorithms: the publications could be arranged only regarding their similarity to each other on the semantic level without the need for a static framework.&nbsp;The more similar their contents are, the closer elements are to each other within the multidimensional space. Because every entity’s position is defined by its relationships to all the other entities of the system the resulting configuration then can be called a network. Whenever you add or change one of the singular parts the entire network accordingly would change its form. In this sense the tree-logic is inversed: not the whole vertically defines its parts, but all the parts horizontally determine the whole. And through the constant modification of the knowledge pool this whole is everchanging, never has a stable form. That approach also doesn’t rely on reproducing the reductionist categorization into scientific disciplines. Instead of a binary logic (in which an entity is either part of a category or not) it introduces a facetted distribution (in which every entity has graduated degrees of similarity to all other entities). Against this backdrop, transdisciplinarity therefore becomes a mandatory requirement. Similar approaches were already implemented by others and as the two examples on the right demonstrate visually compelling results can be reached. They show very well how much these representations differ from the conventional kinds of knowledge structures. But apart from the fact that they both are still images that don’t really depict the dynamic flux every network is characterized by, there is a more fundamental concern that can be critically remarked. It addresses the issue of dimensionality reduction. In the explanations above regarding the NLP algorithms I mentioned that they operate in mathematical spaces of several hundred dimensions. A graph (like the two examples) obviously only has two dimensions. How do you then get from let’s say 500 dimensions to 2? This issue is trickier and more significant than it might appear at first, so let’s have a look. Our point of departure is the high-dimensional space that the NLP algorithms leave us with. In all these dimensions, the full relational richness of the publications is stored. Now, there are different ways to access this highly complicated data. The most common approach is to reduce the dimensions so that we can graphically represent the space with 2 or 3 dimensions. The simplest way to do that is by the geometrical operation of projection. To make this clearer we can use the example of projecting 3d-data on a 2d-plane, as the graph (V1) shows below. The dimensionality will be successfully reduced from 3 to 2, but in the process distortions between the original higher-dimensional relation occur. Consequently, the outcome will lose a good part of its validity. For the method of dimensionality reduction this circumstance is almost unavoidable. Of course, there are more sophisticated stochastic methods than simple projection (e.g., t-SNE) that try to keep more relational information through clustering the data. But even in this case much of the original complexity and textual equivocality is lost. The urge to boil vast collections of publications or other knowledge representations down to a 2d plane is very much understandable (and has a long tradition). We want to rationally and individually (therefore reductively) make sense of these sorts of epistemic collections because we are used to do so. But in my opinion, intelligent algorithms introduce something that goes beyond the single brain. Let’s illustrate that with a different way of how we could deal with the high-dimensional dataset. It proposes another mode of relating to knowledge that corresponds to the postulate of complexity and manages to escape reductionism: Let’s call it the situational approach. Suppose we select a point on the sphere and try to determine its nearest neighbors (V2). Using a simple mathematical operation (Cosine similarity), we can calculate how close the other points on the sphere are to the selected point. These distance relations can be then represented in two (or three) dimensions. The same operation can be performed for other points, resulting in a multitude of singular individual representations, each of which viewing the system from its own "perspective". Within these situational constellations, however, the considered facets of the original complexity remain. The result is a kind of scan of the 3D sphere. Its individual, situational representations summed up approximate the total, higher-dimensional complexity. This method, however, refuses to be represented in only one totalizing map as in the examples before, but requires a new situational configuration and processing for each query.&nbsp; <img width="922" height="672" width_o="922" height_o="672" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c66ce6dea8a826e809bca3ea60fd3a942759f5223433a9f82d46f72a5c1022e9/paper-screenshot_darker.jpg" data-mid="130648727" border="0" alt="Out of 263,550 documents from an online library 694 classes (nodes) were extracted based on similarity. The colors indicate their originally assigned class in the DDC. Graph from Jae-wook Ahn, Xia Lin, Michael Khoo. Dewey Decimal Classification Based Concept Visualization for Information Retrieval (KMIR, 2014), 4. Accessed 18.01.21, PDF." data-caption="Out of 263,550 documents from an online library 694 classes (nodes) were extracted based on similarity. The colors indicate their originally assigned class in the DDC. Graph from Jae-wook Ahn, Xia Lin, Michael Khoo. Dewey Decimal Classification Based Concept Visualization for Information Retrieval (KMIR, 2014), 4. Accessed 18.01.21, &lt;a href=&quot;http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1311/paper1.pdf&quot;&gt;PDF&lt;/a&gt;." src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/922/i/c66ce6dea8a826e809bca3ea60fd3a942759f5223433a9f82d46f72a5c1022e9/paper-screenshot_darker.jpg" />