After the torch-light red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places–T.S. Eliot, from The Waste Land
At the scale of a cell, drones are deployed. A swarm of ‘smart’ cells coursing through the bloodstream, engaging the “massive-addressability” of our physiology. Health status is monitored in real time, managed and evaluated by a local network. Changes in blood pressure, heart rate, nutrient quantities, bacterial and viral exposure, and so on are tracked constantly. The average citizen can check their daily health status as easily as they check their email. Many traditional physical medical diagnostics are replaced by expert analysis of changes in data gathered over a lifetime. The majority of health problems are detected and treatment begins long before symptoms manifest. Drugs are designed with chemical tags — drones pick up the drug, access corresponding directions uploaded to the network, and deliver them to the specified body systems. In a society where smart particles measure and archive the health data of most citizens, the biology of entire populations can be managed. The detection of outbreaks occurs within two degrees of infection. Heart attacks are detected instantly — help is dispatched before symptoms even arise. At any given moment, the health and location of each inhabitant is known. Life expectancy and general health skyrocket.
Traffic systems are managed by city-wide networks, using location data gathered from cell-scale drones to optimize travel routes. Urban systems designed to manage waste, electricity, water, transportation, crime, fire, disease, etc, are carried out largely by drones, constantly connected to each city’s network mind. The both the physical and network infrastructure of the city is transformed to accommodate what is, essentially, a new species living in symbiosis with the human population. The majority of human societies are freed from the burden of labor-intensive tasks. The fundamental architectural question — what does it mean to live together? — is evolving at break-neck pace.
Like Archigram’s Walking City, human settlements are mobile, no longer bound to geography. Entire cities can migrate in response to changing climate, resource needs, population fluctuations, and so on. The settlement growth and needs, tracked in detail by each city, inform the movements of macro-scale drones. Hyper-efficient bodies, perhaps at the scale of entire planets, orbit and gather energy from the sun. The future earth has many moons — designed, built, deployed, and populated. Future exploration and colonization occurs as entire cities migrate outward into the void.