Infrastructure is not solely associated with hardware, actually it never was. All infrastructures are in fact socio-technical in nature. It was like a net on which every elements is co-working and exchanging with each other. It was a dynamic net that every knot of the net is in the flow. This flow is a man-made process which continuously and collaboratively produce and distribute essential goods and service.
The infrastructure is an invisible background of modernity. Some scholars argued that this gigantic system both enable and constrain human beings. The author had the automobile/ road infrastructure as an example, but here, I want to develop further this idea. I would like to abstract some ideas from Paul’s article, in which he said that computation begin to manifest itself as an aspect of everyday environment. And he argues that this transformation is move from a concern with virtual spaces to a concern with physical one. He actually focus on the embodied action and bodily encounters between people and technology here, but I think this “virtual-physical” transformation can be applied to other things, such as the transformation of infrastructure.
Before technology revolution and the popularization of internet, infrastructure may mostly refers to those giant project undertook by the government. However, with internet becoming part of our life, this meaning of infrastructure is widely expanded. Since this word ultimately describe a flow of essential goods, the internet came on the stage which provides people with a platform to do economic, social and historical exchange with each other, no matter the user of it is an individual, an organization or a state. Zoom in the contemporary world, where computation and algorithms are almost the dominate power of our society, which lead to a new situation that the infrastructure is focusing more on silicon and electronic cables.
Back to the initial meaning of infrastructure, which often refers to important, widely shared, human-constructed resources. And according to the dictionary, it refers to the basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a community or society. In this sense, mobile food delivery system, which built on computation and big data and relied on the function of internet and electricity, is growing to be the new kind of infrastructure, especially during the pandemic. When the city is hit by the pandemic, the delivery guy acts as a ferryman to keep the city running. They connected quarantined businesses and consumers, the online and offline. They are part of the infrastructure, the delivery infrastructure. This inorganic system finally meet with organic lives. Infrastructure is not only associated with concrete, cement or silicon, but also the flesh and blood. As Paul mentioned in his article that certain infrastructure could be considered to be a force or time amplifier, the delivery system was more like a speed and connection amplifier.
However, as an infrastructure, it surely has its constrains. We can see that in mega city like Shanghai, the consumption of delivery food is awfully high, which means most people in the city rely on the delivery system. But if a restaurant does not register on the delivery platform, the business and income it has will decline, to some extent. It is not about business and income only. It is about exposure on the internet, which has a profound influence on its business. To costumers, we are blind and disabled without this food delivery system. We can see the sales volume and comments on this food store to decide if we are going to order this. The delivery system facilitate us in some way, but it also give us constrains.
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