Mosquitoes

I want to be a MOSQUITO. As Ken Kaplan and Ted Krueger suggest in their Pamphlet Architecture (#14) publication "Mosquitoes - A Handbook for Survival", mosquitoes "infect, inject, infest and inflame" - they "instill total raving panic from a series of harmless skirmishes" - they "reject steady-state politics for ideologies that are inherently incomplete, transient, and unstable, but that provide certain benefits over the short haul".

This was a very convenient and fitting read for me today. Just earlier during our afternoon lecture by the Head of Philosophy here at the U of M Carl Matheson, I came to a realization that (and I had believed this to a degree previously, just not positively) a sense of humour and a certain amount of humility is an important component in design and architecture. I mean humility not in the sense that you should not be proud of the work that you do, but rather that it is important not to take yourself too seriously. Kaplan and Krueger write with both a sense of urgency but also with a definite sense of humour. The projects displayed within their "handbook for survival" are often throbbing with irony and parody, and always full of socio-political commentary.

Written in '93 it is amazing to me the very accurate foresight that K/K had related to hacker culture and the importance of the internet in connecting MOSQUITOES. The Dedale Studio is a testament to their forsight.

I will have to have another read through of this "handbook for survival" before I can offer some more careful (and useful) insight. But what I will say is that I have heard K/K's wakeup call - the call to do away with any "dogmatic gases" (or at least attempt to filter it) and don't wait, just do... by any means necessary.

(A funny side-note: I read this book in the time that it took my Dad to get home from the University, realize he had forgotten me there, call me to tell me that he had forgotten me, drive back to the University to pick me up and take me home.)