hi marc!
On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 12:58 PM, marc garrett <
[email protected]> wrote:
> "As we see, it’s not by avoiding to visualize these kind of public data
> that prevents us from any mis-use by the authorities or the company;
> everybody already has access to these data and that’s because they’re
> public! Obviously the debate around what’s private and what is not is
> very slippery at the moment; we deeply believe though that people
> involved in urban planning and decision making should start taking into
> account that those data exist, that there’s a new layer of information
> that we cannot turn our heads away from."
>
>
first a short note on the collaboration with Density Design: as some of you
might know, Density Design is a lab at the Polytechnic University in Milan
in which the idea of information visualization is investigated in order to
invent radically new ways of representing data and, thus, make it more
accessible and useful.
Their approach is on "design", where "design" is intended in its most
direct interpretation: have a problem (be it known or unknown), find a
solution.
While many of the things the lab does have direct, important impacts on the
lives of many people, they don't have a truly "critical" approach. They
embrace "positive" attitudes (sustainability, environment, social
innovation, societal change are among them) but they are not an
organization which might be identified as having a "critical approach".
In our experience, which is much more radical than theirs, we have learned
the positive aspects of collaborating with many types of people, skills and
objectives. This project is one of them.
I personally feel that Maps of Babel as a whole, as much as it is and will
be a wonderfully interesting project, does not share the depth of critical
analysis which brought to life our previous "VersuS" and "ConnectiCity"
projects.
But, in a way, this is exactly part of our "job" in this project: to bring
our vision and critical approaches to it.
> That now we are all content providers just by our very existences, as
> networked nodes supplying data to anyone, and machines harvesting our
> 'digital' noise - has it now gone so far, that the only way to remain
> 'authentically' autonomous as individuals is for us to just get off our
> computers and throw away our mobile phones?
>
>
well, let's put it this way: i guess that wouldn't solve the problem,
either, as you generate digital, collectable information as soon as you
turn a light switch on, or when you feel sick and go to the hospital, or
with almost everything you do in your daily life. I bet you can't find a
single tomato which, in a way or another, does not have a record on a
database which speaks about it.
>
> What are the best shifts towards a re-forking and re-hacking an active
> resistance to data infiltration on our everyday lives?
>
>
so, in the end, the real question (which i share) is: what can we do?
i hope not to disappoint you with my answer, which is: "i don't know" :)
meaning that: what i personally think is that we are deep in the middle of
a transformation
and a transformation of a peculiar kind: it continuously evolves and
"transforms the transformation" (have i heard this somewhere before?)
so it is really difficult to understand, and even more to forecast and
predict.
people "giving answers" are not to be trusted too much, i guess. it seems
as if answers on these topics serve more the objectives of people who
provide them than the desires of the people who receive them.
what i think is a viable, sustainable way to move forward is to experiment
and try out as many scenarios as possible, and to spread the knowledge (and
the software, and the methodology, and the evaluations of the outcomes, and
the images, and videos etc...)
in this, art proves to be a fundamental value: it allows to confront with
imaginaries and visions in effective ways; it promotes collaboration among
disciplines that, otherwise, would have nothing (or too little, or too
little will) to say to each other; it allows being explicit and transparent
in relation to objectives, techniques, tools and expectations.
so, going back to the project: we are finding great insights in this kind
of process. The idea that it is possible to observe the life of a city, and
to understand what people express, wish, desire, expect, complain about is
of great power, for multiple reasons and for multiple possible types of
subjects.
while we can easily imagine the value that this possibility has for
admnistrations and companies (and, by the way, they have much more powerful
ways to observe what we do, as they have access to our mobile phones, our
bills, our bank accounts, our tax reports, our everything... and without
the need to "interpret" too much) what we're finding out is that these
tools can bear great power for processes that come "from the bottom".
For example: in italy we have a really explicit problem with racism, even
of the "politically correct kind". "i have nothing in contrary with arabs
(or blacks, or anything else which is "different" in some way), but i don't
want them in my neighborhood". This kind of thought is (really sadly) very
common in italy.
And yet we found ways to visualize how multiple cultures find their own,
beautiful, ways of being present in the same public space.
It is what i referred to when i wrote " the same corner of the street
became a place for quick traversal, a place for worship, a location for
business, a meeting place and a community node according to the people,
times and modalities through which it was used in the various hours of the
day, day of the week or period of the year"
it is a real-case we verified while performing the analysis we used for the
VersuS presentation at the Piemonte Share Festival in Turin. Arab-speaking
people describe a city which is completely different than the one which
people speaking in italian describe. Yet the "two versions of the city" are
superimposed, simultaneously.
This offers great opportunities in terms of both ho to design public space
(can i gather information about what people are doing and transform public
space in an infrastructure that allows them to do it better, easier and
maybe support intercultural experiences to come up? of course i can!) and
to help people identify opportunities, collaborations, and new ways of
doing things. And also to evaluate what are the effects of what they do, if
there are other people sharing their views, or even other people with
different views which would be interesting to interconnect with, to broaden
horizons and change the ways in which things work out.
In Rome we did an experiment: we created a urban screen which simply
grabbed all the social networking messages generated in the neighborhood
and displayed them, in real-time. It was a fantastic experience, as people
actually stopped by, read them, tried to understand who was writing ("oh, i
know this nickname! he lives right around the corner!") and engaged all the
topics which came up on the screen, from the simplest ones ("that bastart
supports that other football team! i knew it!") to the most complex ones
("oh, she lost her job... could we call Mario and ask him to hire her?" or
"air is horrible in this area! we should organize and speak to the
administration!")
gossip quickly turned into methodological p2p welfare and p2p community
design :)
and that's something
all the best!
salvatore
Wishing you well.
>
> marc
>
> > this might interest some of us on the list
> >
> >
> http://www.artisopensource.net/2012/03/20/maps-of-babel-at-human-cities-symposium/
> >
> >
> > we presented Maps of Babel in Buruxelles at the Human Cities
> > conference, bringing up scenarios through which the digital forms of
> > expression of people in cities using social network can be harvested
> > and used to create new practices for urban planning, community design,
> > city governance, tending to p2p models in which citizens and
> > administrations take active part in the same process. And, in the
> > meantime, raising ethical issues on the transformation of public space
> > and privacy.
> >
> > Salvatore
> >
> >
> > ---
> > Salvatore Iaconesi
> >
> > prof. of Interaction Design and of Digital Design at
> >
> > La Sapienza University of Rome
> > ISIA Design Florence
> > Rome University of Fine Arts
> > Istituto Europeo di Design
> >
> >
> > [Art is Open Source]
> > http://www.artisopensource.net
> >
> > [FakePress Publishing]
> > http://www.fakepress.it
> >
> >
> >
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>
>
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--
Salvatore Iaconesi
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t. ++39 0697600324
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
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---
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