Computational pastoralism: Fid-Bau Portal

Computational pastoralism

Herrington, Susan / Zielnicki, David

What we call ‘computational pastoralism’ visualizes cities as naturalized systems of provisional flows and cycles. We find this conception of cities problematic because it neglects the sociopolitical dimensions and human needs of cities. While landscape urbanism and later ecological urbanism initially criticized pastoral aesthetics, computational pastoralism has been increasingly advanced in the online environments of landscape and ecological urbanism. We speculate that this is due to the historical development of landscape and ecological urbanism and the rise of specific computational design methods. These approaches include computational design’s capacity to produce natural-looking forms, the generation of simulations of natural systems through relational models, the trend towards hyperreal images and the sheer reproducibility of digital images. We also argue that computational pastoralism has been exacerbated by landscape and ecological urbanism’s expansion alongside the spread of social media. Finally, we suggest that these historical parallels with social media may be a reason why computational pastoralism has become so widespread, while at the same time increasingly detached from the social and political lives of those who live in cities.