[The photography of Toshio Shibata has made its way around before, but, as but does it float reminds us, it is well worth second and third gazes.]
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Do those seemingly hard (ie: concrete, engineered in place) infrastructures really qualify as “soft-systems”?
Certainly the majority of what Shibata photographs is quite hard (and its beauty comes from hardening specific moments in fluid and unstable soil/water systems into concrete geometries), but a few of the photos (like this one) seem to me to be of soft counterparts to hard stabilization.
I suppose in the case of this specific photoyou are referrng the apparent ability to restructure the intervention,(see the hanging weights) netting/tarp which can be re-engineered or adapted to new cicumstances. Versus the more in place permanent concrete versions of control?
Right. The speed at which the stabilization can be put into place. Its capacity to be restructured easily (flexibility). Its relative lack of permanence. Construing soft broadly, these things are soft qualities.