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Presentation concerning draft on findings of interventions done in the center of Rotterdam concerning the experience of different types of camera in that nigthscape.

(click on screenshot for download – 3.3mb pdf)

a new series of Processing visuals coming up!

——— the living city – urbagram  Anil Bawa-Vacia———-
- last fm
- analyze cities
- mostly invisible – physical networks there also made up of flows and interactions, of goods and peoples
- where and how to visualize the city?

interaction
- foursquare mapping of NY city
- walkable cell – 7 minutes of walking – the amount of logs in a couple of months. the city as used, not as planned.
- how walkability is important for our understanding of our cities
- how demographic uses a city (e.g. smartphone – users)
- urbanism via a quantitative turn (big data turn
- cities feel fragmented if you cant walk from a to b

boundaries
- invisible boundaries
- national scale
- MIT sensible city lab
- communicational turns – many policy boundaries
- mobile phone data of the UK – very nice! communcaion boundaries analytical and visualization task

flows
- digital traces that we leave
- a flowprint is shown
- complexity science
- you get a sense here of the complexity; you need microscopes – see the city as one thing
- flowprint prototype made in Processing
- london oyster network visualized (really nice visuals)
- construct the routes that people took
- if you these trips together, you get a bigger picture – big data again (2 million samples)
- also, a bike-chart is shown – bike flows
- a relational-space development chart is shown
- result: a phase-space
- complex and knowable but not predictable

see urbagram website

‘spice up your city’
- government data
- tonzijlstra.eu
- tools and skills in the hands of individuals
- government = boring , cities are creative melting pots
- reference to Wikileaks: boring – creating transparency to whom?
- they will need to open up or die (why?)
- one way is: participation + OpenData

- participation=talking or?
- participation can be much more – life!
- when you are actively involved in your neighborhood / livehood
- opening up government data
- big data is very different from small samples
- making this data readable: info’s
- PSI law; opening up data
- Open standards, machine readable, no legal strings attached
- the place to do that is in the place where you live.
- (possibly dangerous?)

- data use is flat. is used flat often.
- when does data become interesting? Dr snow example; combining data sources to find new knowledge.
- but why stop there?
- start adding your own data
- citizens-generated maps of sound in Holland
- competitive edge in data sharing, also big companies
- you could go further still?
- not only inform yourself, but also re-activate yourself
- yet another step further:
- start feeding into devices
- create sensors and actuators with this data
- we need to create a coding data literacy

sammy niemala – nordkapp talk in three phases:

- right now
- near future
- future

- example : display objects in Helsinki. It is a touch-screen with a touch-screen. It runs on windows.
‘ design for smaller context as well’
- designing urban informatics as a whole is complex. Infra, interface, data platforms, services, databases etc. and how do mobile devices connect to this. Also time becomes important.
- locals they do not need the screens at all, until they learn something new.
- iphone app : shadow cities ; layer upon city. it happens only on your device.
- this also provides psycho-geo info
- concepts of touchpoints ; what is the real use?

the near future: these objects are on their way – mobile phones, pads, urban screens…
- input devices – how o deal with these services
- time; how do you incorporate play in time ; for personal use screens on the street are not really inviting.
- personal space is an argument here. if you incorporate multiple users what happens then?
- the physical space can amplify this problem? Should we even consider having screen with both public, private and commercial data?
- the data points us where? Please consider our environment.
- example of a challenge; informatics in nature; we decided; not there. Peopla are looking for peace here.
- these things should be polite in their appearance and behavior.
- a do you design a system with a personality
- just enough is more (not less is more)
- there is a golden line in between proving information and being polite

the future:
- more human interfaces – anthropomorphism? (should we design this, or not, uncanny valley)
- service avatars live in smaller contexts
- “basal’ “be as smart a a puppy’ ; be intelligent enough.
- example ” car robot’ (it reacts)
- sometimes; low fi can be more polite
- can we make urban screens more in place if they have names and behaviors? nano as great enabler.

norkapp.fi

First notes lecture Adam Creenfield on Cognitive Cities

- networked object
- urban scale design for networked cities
- user-driven close to frustrations and difficulties interface of everyday life
- the connected city – rooted to the experience of everyday life in networked life
- techno- determinism vs social constructionism

- main question: whether artifacts have politics?
- Robbert moses – rammed through infrastructure
- Langdon winner – inscribed his ideas into artifacts. Bridge example
- Winner says : yes

- Latour: that is not example the case; maybe.. (ANT) user + tech
- what about akrich? script analysis? + anti-programs

- in between Latour and Winner
- cities in developed world are populated by physical objects that can manipulation of data/ information. New class of technologies. If winner is right, the impact is mayor.
- you better believe is going to condition our options and behavior
- examples:
- traffic sensor (a talkie)
- sensor-equipped add (a photo machine add: as you walk by, flash-cameras go off) I find this intrusive.
- touch-screen vending machine in Tokyo. A camera +analysis software will show products that link to your profile. This  does gather information. It is very normative
- Video billboard analysis software video reports. Deployed in public space. A billboard with a camera. It is not apparent  that the camera is there. It records responses and attention. You become furnishing data. This becomes problematic. You  are generating value for someone else by using public space. That is not oke with me. By using public sap, the data should be public. Again, it is normative. Public space is more important that advertisement
- networked access objects. The ability to control movement; the are an ensemble?
- we go to surveillance cameras + software!  People votes yes due to function of traffic control. However, function creep.
new analytics package – facial analysis package installed by the police; the physical camera does not change, but the     software was.

- Big flaw about thinking about public space ; it moves to code.
- Lessig; code-law; this is where the ability of the impact resides. Code is where the power and the influence are.  We need new law about public objects
- a set of attempts rules about public objects is mentioned (greenfield, 2008)
- they have to be designed in order to make data open (an api, read/write privileges, non-rivalrous and non-excludable)

there are limitation in thinking this way; if a city is open data objects; the attack service. you unavoidably, you make it more available for bad use. however, benefit is always larger than the risk.

- who gets to use these first; how are conflicts resolved, we have just begun. Case by case learning
- i will argue that we are at a point where public space is at risk. Our pueblos sphere to private, commercial interest. We have an important, generation ability to save public space for commercial
- non consumers, but constituents
- Sloterdijk; city as bubbles;
- fabric open data city – revitalized public sphere – new democracy.
- raise our voices in the networked age – not to extract value of us, but we need a new way of thinking.

- smart city that I would like to live in.

- examples in sharing resources in a positive way? Mega-cities as an example
- regulation  vs competitive rules of these objects.
- potential misuses vs latent value that is bound up in these objects

hier moet dus een flash filmpje te zien zijn zometeen

This application takes a snapshot every time a treshold of x pixels alters in the camera’s view.
In other words, when there is significant movement, this will be recorded and displayed accompanied by the time the snapshot is taken. This application is the first in a series of tests that aim to find out how and why certain reactions takes place when ‘surveillance’ images are feedbacked to the public. What happens when you are logged like this, in a certain location and time, for others to see? And what does this tell us about the experience and role of images in public space. More soon…

source code (Processing) can be found here:

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