(This text is a short summary of my Master’s degree thesis entitled with the same topic above in 2003.)
Digital technologies in tendency to transform all values and criteria that are valid until now, also transforms the main facts and concepts of architecture. The space that is one of the main facts of architecture, entered the process of redefinition under the effects of digital technologies. The interaction between architecture and digital technologies is quite complex because space is the facts not only of architecture but also explored in science and social, human sciences. The space claimed to be freed from limitations like time, place and distance, will have a different kind of presence from its earlier one in the new context.
Most of the ideas produced about the interaction of space and digital technologies claim that electronic or digital space will have the place of physical space. In the thesis you are to read - against the idea about the freedom of space by leaving its physicality, the space will transform with its physical presence in the interaction with the digital technologies is discussed.
The body, an interdisciplinary fact like space, has the leading role in the transformation of the space with digital technologies. From the beginning of its presence which is closer to space, the body has an important role in this transformation. In the borders of this thesis, the body has a defining function because it deals with the same values and criterions as the space does. To interpret the transformations of the body by digital technologies helped to define the transformation process of space. There appears a new kind of relationship between the body and space that are redefined because they had the similar transformation processes. It is not appropriate to explain this relationship with dualist relations or interaction. Body and space, like all dualities whose differences disappeared and boundaries between them got indefinite by the effects of digital technologies, got closer and imploded so they transformed into a singular hybrid form. Not only the body but also the space exists with their original values in new context, by now the characteristics of hybrid form are valid.
Autonomous histories of body and space – separately and in relation to each other, have been interpreted from a perspective admitting that it is not necessary to abandon the old for the new. In both the digitalization of the body and its transformation into a cyborg; a holistic perspective has shaped both the mediatization and virtualization of physical space. In the whole process of formation of the thesis; biological body – postbiological body, human – cyborg, physical space – virtual space, etc., are not tried to be reduced to one another. All opposites; they have existed through mutual interactions in an oscillating movement that complements each other.
The new context came into existence by digital technologies is not concerned with only becoming digital or electronic. It also consists of biological and anatomical notions. The new context is postorganic paradigm. Postorganic paradigm indicates a new turn by hybridization and functions as a threshold in the hybridization of body and space.
In conclusion; the thesis you are to read discusses the transformation of space with its physicality in the interaction with digital technologies. In this transformation process, the body that is in the same context with space, defines space as an “other”. The body and the space redefined by the same values and criteria in the same context hybridizes by interaction and redefining each other with ongoing feedback.