Momentum

Infrastructures build momentum over time, gathering mass, speed, and force of impact along the way. Originating at times as spontaneous sparks and at others as strategized master plans, initiatives steadily ossify as and result in physical, relational, linguistic, and/or political configurations.

From the number of followers of hash tag revolutions and social movements to the distribution of demand for consumer goods and the mass conditioning of behavior, amplifications in the scale, scope, and effect of systems furnish them with an operative life and logic of their own.

While momentum is characterized by a vector or direction – whether actual or metaphorical, developmental or ideological, unlike in classical mechanics, the future of infrastructures – though imaginable – cannot be formulaically determined or wholly foreseen.

Further, in highly activated or agitated states, systems in motion exhibit inertia – resistance to change, which makes their orchestration, disruption, and/or termination difficult to achieve.