Issue #0 Annotations
Lionel Manga
6 Jul 2022
(3min)

“Since the urban is a lattice, I do think we need to apply to this object methods deriving from the physics of complex adaptive systems. We must reduce the level of entropy.”
—Lionel Manga

(FIG. 1)
“In my country, Cameroon, the city is vile, and more and more bogus since the urban started there at the hinge of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries under the sign of dispossession thanks to German merchants.” Lionel Manga, annotation of forA on the Urban issue #0, 2022
(FIG. 2)
Question 1: “It was in 1993, getting into the heart of Amsterdam by boat from Schiphol.” Question 2: “From a thermodynamic point of view, ‘the urban’ is a stronghold of entropy, considering for instance the global albedo. But not only...” Question 3: “Since the urban is a lattice, I do think we need to apply to this object methods deriving from the physics of complex adaptive systems. We must reduce the level of entropy.” Question 4: “1 / PATTERNS Whatever scale science looks at the living realm...” Lionel Manga, annotation of forA on the Urban issue #0, 2022
(FIG. 3)
“..it is ruled by regular organizing schemes and this provides an overall coherency/harmony. As a shape/frame, the urban should follow that model for the sake of health and tackling entropy. 2 / MORPHOLOGY Historically, the urban ‘design’ has been driven mostly by Euclidian views and this has led to the sharp issues we are facing. Shifting towards fractals is the next journey. 3 / AGENCY Given the move that has linked the kilogram standard to the Planck’s constant, I do consider that we are somehow WAVES. In this light, our ability to exert the status of altricial requires to depart from the Newtonian epistemology. Before the so-called modernity, human settlements displayed the narrative of how the world came to existence through a range of accurate isomorphisms. Time has come for contemporary design to take that path again.” Lionel Manga, annotation of forA on the Urban issue #0, 2022

Annotations is an ongoing project initiated by the editors of forA on the Urban which seeks to extend and deepen the ideas and discussion that emerged in issue #0. New and previous contributors to the journal are invited to reflect on the subjects of the publication by engaging directly with the printed object, whether by writing in the margins of the page or transforming the journal into something else entirely. Annotations is meant literally: that is, issue #0 becomes a working document (and surface) for collecting reflections and thoughts. In doing so it allows the conversation on the urban to move in new and surprising directions.

Lionel Manga lives in Cameroon and is the author of “L’Ivresse du papillon” (2008), an essay that journeys through the local and contemporary visual arts scene. He is a regular contributor on various subjects to a number of magazines.