Darwin Among the Machines

In the mid‐19th century, Samuel Butler in his article ‘Darwin among the Machines’ provided a theory for the iterative development of machines over time. Here, London‐based architect, theorist, editor and writer Jack Self casts ‘the modern city’ as ‘a multiplex superposition of network infrastructures’, defined by hierarchical systems of information and material exchange. He argues that current informational technologies have the power to conversely hyper‐centralise or hyper‐localise the city, thus either encouraging disengagement or nurturing engagement with the emergent social practices of the city's inhabitants.