Hostile Environ
The idea of 'hostile environs' are known on earth as usually bearing extremes of climate or terrain. As discussed in John McHale's article 2000+, hostile environs deals directly with the sea and in relative ways outer space. McHale writes, "Our knowledge of the oceans is rudimentary. As man's locally most hostile environ for centuries, only the surface was travelled upon and its depths not investigated till recently. Barely one percent of all sea organisms have been studied and the cyclic migrations of its larger creatures have been little chartered."1
Both deep sea and outer space as hostile environments are separated out from the land-based hostile environments of desert or tundra because of the inability to understand either of these mysterious places. Simply, both of these environments prohibit oxygen from human beings. An exo-suit of some making whereby constant oxygen would be mandatorily necessary to explore either deep sea or space is vital for survival in either of these hostile environs. Without a suit, a human would be denied oxygen, dying in minutes. Whereas in a desert or tundra, oxygen is available, the harsh climate and the need for food and/or water would be of optimal concern but all of these issues can be avoided or defended against with greater ease than what is necessary to provide oxygen artificially.
In 2000+, undersea vehicles, robots, and exo-suits - all inventions to help combat the hostile environment - are of prime topic throughout. However, in Margaret Cohen's "Fluid States", hostile environs, mainly the sea, are described under three concepts: craft, the edge, the glow and the haze.2 Cohen explains the early exploration of the sea and these three separate concepts as aspects of how 'man' both combats and understands the hostile environ of the sea. For instance, the craft was the know-how of man when confronted with trouble whilst at sea - an analogy to Odysseus and his boat passing between the six-headed monster, Scylia.3 The edge, the point where the sea meets land, "makes apparent the extent to which novelty, that cardinal value of modernity, entails risk, danger, and violence."4
Lastly, Cohen points out that the sea as a sublime subject changes between modernity and up to the present understanding. The depiction of each era's understanding of the sea consequentially changes due to the knowledge acquired over time. "Because the edge is characterized by not only unknown and extreme, but unimaginable conditions, there the craft of the mariner unfolds in a distinctive atmosphere of epistemological uncertainty."5 The glow and the haze, is the sublime, the possibility of danger which is amplified by the unknown.
1 Mchale, John. "The Future of the Future: Inner Space." Architectural Design 37 (February, 1967), 78.
2 Cohen, Margaret. "Fluid States". Cabinet 25 (Winter 2004/5) Web. 28 April 2014.
3 Cohen, Web. 28 April 2014
4 Cohen, Web. 28 April 2014
5 Cohen, Web. 28 April 2014
J. M. W. Turner, Snowstorm-Steamboat off a Harbour's Mouth Making Signals in Shallow Water, and Going by the Lead, 1842.
Citations
Margaret Cohen, "Fluid States" in Cabinet, Issue No.16: The Sea (Winter: 2004/2005), pp.75-82.
Keller Easterling, "The Confetti of Empire," in Cabinet, Issue No.16: The Sea (Winter: 2004/2005).
Wolf Hilbertz, "Electrodeposition of Minerals in Sea Water: Experiments and Applications," IEEE Journal on Oceanic Engineering, Vol. OE-4, No.3 (1979), pp.94-113.
Wolf Hilbertz, "Toward CyberTecture," Progressive Architecture (May 1970), pp.98-103.
McHale, John. "The Future of the Future: Inner Space." Architectural Design 37 (February, 1967), pp. 64-95.
Katavolos, William. "Organics," in Ulrich Conrads (Ed.), Programs and Manifestoes on the 20th Century Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970), pp.163-165.
Gordon Pask, "A Proposed Evolutionary Model," H.von Foerster and G.W. Zopf, Jr. (Eds.), Principles of Self Organization: Transactions of the Illinois Symposium, (New York: Harper, 1961), pp: 229-254.