The Medium is the Metropolis

neb — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:55:27 +0000

The age of ubiquitous computation is condensing around us even as you read this. The various systems throughout a modern city that you probably interact with everyday are beginning to maintain persistent memories of their own use, communicate with each other about their status, and even reconfigure themselves based on your dynamic needs.

In the same way that social networks and digital representation have had profound consequences on the cultures of print, music, and video, so too will the urban fabric of the city itself be transformed into an information layered, collaboratively shapable medium.

Urban Interface Policy

neb — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:51:36 +0000

As the city becomes the site of dynamic systems that can provide services and transform environments in public space, it is imperative that we consider carefully the ethics and politics of these infrastructures. In the smart city, what is written as programmatic software ‘code’ can easily become defacto ‘law’ as it imposes permissioning schemes and identity regimes on it’s participants. So far, the internet, and the open source software that powers much of it, has remained remarkably adaptable to the ideals of democratic and egalitarian societies. Every infrastructural advance, however, goes through a watershed moment where the governing design principles of the technology itself begin to influence the types of societal experiences they might produce. We need to attempt to understand the cultural ramifications of such infrastructural design decisions in this context.

VURB » Urban Interface Policy

The Medium is the Metropolis

Urban Interface Policy