From Interactive to Intra-active Body

Towards a New Organic Digital Architecture

Abstract

The 60s was the age of freedom and boldness. According to John Lennon, the legendary singer-songwriter, who said in his last interview for RKO, “The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility”.10 Various technologies and cultures were developing boundlessly at an unprecedented speed during this time. Movements for civil rights due to racial discrimination, movements for women’s rights due to feminism, liberation movements for bodily autonomy, and student movements (Mai 68) in France due to the education system, influenced and challenged the conservative thought and systems in the society which people were used to. With the flourishing development of high-end technology, during the cold war period, the US and Russia were still competing to be the world leaders in technological development. The battlefields of the well-known space race included not only the terrain of the earth but also the surface of the moon. For the general public, the impact of rapid technological development, plus the discovery of chaos theory in Science and the gradual advancement of computer technology, opened the door towards all kinds of imagination about how the future world will look. The influential pop art movement, gave new birth to art which was no longer bigwigs’ assets hung on the walls of a royal palace and high-end art galleries, but relatively closer to people’s daily lives by using common substances and materials for creating art pieces. In addition, with the growth of the underground hippy culture and rock ‘n roll music, it was the golden age when people gradually had the courage to explore, to experiment, to express personal opinions, and dare to imagine and expect a future life of their own. And this was also the time when Archigram was born.