Cryptome’s digital multimedia presentation of original cartography, animations, video, and architectural documentation will explore the urban implications of the NYPD One Police Plaza Security Plan - a.k.a. Ring of Steel - which locked down Lower Manhattan after 9/11, transforming its Civic Center into a threatscape centered on NYPD headquarters. With its militarized jurisdiction mobilizing through technologies of command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, the Ring of Steel has declared itself an iconic public space for our time.
Debra and John are both practicing architects as well as security culture critics, so their discussion the encroachment of the (physical) public domain by the security system adds a rich dimension to a discussion which is often carried out in rather abstract terms.
The speech is interesting, but requires a lot of attention to follow due to the strange cadence and intonation - it sounds like she's reading a poem, sometimes - and the excessive verbiage; there are a LOT of sentences like this:
"... no reasonable expectation of privacy exists in spaces where bodies politic assemble to perform transparent choreographies of public democracy".
Listening to it reminded me of reading Umberto Eco.
Seems like ArchitectSpeak. I used to hang out with architecture students, they are indoctrinated to write and talk like this. And thus they can't help but sound like literary critics who give talks by reading their own papers. Contrast this with scientists who try to make their talks sound as informal as possible.
I imagine they fancy themselves a cross between an elder statesman and V.
Between the presenter's poor reading and the overly verbose prose I tuned out after a few minutes. Bit of a shame since this is an interesting subject.
Cryptome’s digital multimedia presentation of original cartography, animations, video, and architectural documentation will explore the urban implications of the NYPD One Police Plaza Security Plan - a.k.a. Ring of Steel - which locked down Lower Manhattan after 9/11, transforming its Civic Center into a threatscape centered on NYPD headquarters. With its militarized jurisdiction mobilizing through technologies of command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, the Ring of Steel has declared itself an iconic public space for our time.