Ceu de Janeiro

On January 1,1502, a Portuguese expedition first anchored by Guanabara Bay. They named this land Rio de Janeiro, meaning River of January. And people settled down. The society of settlement started to form in Rio. Settlement life existed long ago in human history. In a stable natural environment, people chose to settle down on certain land, to manage the society more efficiently with a centralized power. Rio was such a centralized-organizing and fast-running society that consists of a different hierarchy like a treelike, top-down network. Such ends up some vulnerable members among society, like the favela. They are always struggling for life improvement and conflicting with the local police or army. Also, the efficient settlement society led to the massive invasion to the natural environment. The environment become more and more unstable. It was so changeable that we could not lie in the settlement any more. As Rio was overwhelmed by the sea, it sinks in history forever. The brink of ruin always catalyzes the new hope. The unstable environment drives them to turn to another mode of society—nomadism. Because the sea has overwhelmed the land, the sky becomes the last domain for nomads. People renamed Rio de Janeiro as Ceu de Janeiro, which means the January Sky in English, to celebrate the rise of a brand new world. They bravely build up the floating houses, which can move from place to place as they loose anchor and camp again, to break away with the strong tie to the land and power, and to seek for a relatively resourceful and stable environment. First, different from settlement society, the nomadic Ceu is the being of multiplicity, from centralized management of power to self-organization, from priority for efficiency to coexistence of harmony, from layers of subordination to equality of pluralism. It doesn’t focus on monopoly or unity, but an interchanging environment or integration. Each one is heterogeneous but equal. They interact with each other and exist as an exterior connection. Second, Ceu is anti-pedigree and anti-center. In past, there is always a dependence between settlement and land, like the property system. In contrast, Ceu does not attach itself to the land or depend on any power. It is just like the game of Go or the universe, rather than the chess, the solar system or the tree. One belongs to himself, without any subordination. It is never a defined city, state or kingdom. Third, the science development,such as the material and information, provides the fundament for nomadism. Connected with super infrastructure and public facilities, people share resources from physical society, virtual cyperspace and natural storage. The fixed infrastructure points become a transfer platform for them. They will not obtain benefit or be deprived from it by old economical mode, such as land-rental or production-profit mode. Like the seeds in wind, to be spread and to sprout in different fields, they find a way to continue their story.