Keynote lecture by Mark Shepard
Nov 5th 2009 20:00 hrs
NAi Auditorium
Euro 3-5

Cities today are complex hybrids of both physical and informational space. Brought into being through common everyday techno-social practices, these hybrids rely on a wide range of networked media, information and communications systems that continually make and remake the spatial conditions of urban life. Take for example the pervasiveness of mobile phones capable of not just synchronic voice communications but also asynchronic data transactions – text messaging, web browsing, photo sharing, to name just a few. These mobile computing devices have introduced new ways by which we connect with each other and interact with and within our shared urban environment.

This lecture will present a survey of recent work in urban computing, ambient informatics and locative media, and examine its implications for architecture and urbanism. How is our experience of the city and the choices we make there transformed by these new spatial practices? How do they reconfigure traditional urban relationships between privacy and publicity within urban public space? To what extent can we deploy them toward a form of open and participatory space-making within these new and emerging urban topographies? How do we – as architects and urban planners – begin to think about our role in shaping the immaterial architecture of software infrastructures and influencing their performance or enactment of new urban organizations and spatial experiences that are diverse, sustainable and dynamic?

The Mobile City’s Martijn de Waal and Michiel de Lange will introduce the lecture and discuss its themes with Mark Shepard. Moderator is Jaap Jan Berg.

About Mark Shepard
Mark Shepard is an architect, artist and academic. He has founded the Media Architecture educational program at the Univeristy of Buffalo, and organized the exhibit ‘Sentient Cities‘ with the Architectural League in NYC . He is also one of the editors of the The Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series.

You are cordially invited to attend the public presentation of the workshop results and the opening of Mark Shepard’s Sentient City Survial Kit, Friday November 6th 17:00, Netherlands Architecture Institute Rotterdam.

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On Friday Nov 6th The Mobile City organizes the Sentient Rotterdam Workshop, in collaboration with Mark Shepard. The workshop takes place as part of the Connectivity Program at the International Architectural Biennale at the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

where: Netherlands Architecture Institute Rotterdam

when: Friday November 6th 2009

12:00-17:00 Workshop introduction and sessions

17:00-19:00 Public presentation + opening exhibit Sentient City Survival Kit.

registration deadline: Monday October 27th 0:00 hours GMT

background

Computing has left the desktop and spills out onto the sidewalks, streets and public spaces of the city. Information processing is increasingly embedded in the material fabric of everyday urban space. We approach an age of urban information systems capable of sensing and responding to events and activities transpiring around them. This is the ‘Sentient City‘. What does this emerging Sentient City mean for urban culture? Few people will quibble about ‘smart’ traffic light control systems that more efficiently manage mobility. Some may be irritated when discount coupons for their favorite espresso drink are beamed to their mobile phone as they pass by Starbucks. Many are likely to protest when they are denied passage through a subway turnstile because the system ‘senses’ that their purchasing habits, mobility patterns and current galvanic skin response (GSR) reading happens to match the profile of a terrorist.

workshop

How might we envision new technologies and ways of using them that are capable of enacting new urban organizations and spatial experiences that are diverse, sustainable and dynamic? This workshop aims to develop situated approaches toward urban computing and locative media applications, systems and infrastructures for near-future urban life in Rotterdam. Participants will work towards a scenario that involves a product, an intervention or process that is based on (or purposely evades or diverts) a (expected?) sentient technology. The scenarios depart not from the technology itself, but rather from imagined goals, desires or issues of urbanites. Participants (from various field such as new media design, architecture, urban planning, and academia) are asked to bring in one or more issues from their own professional practice. Ideally, these scenarios depart from the actual local context of Rotterdam. The workshop ends with a public presentation and display of results at the ‘Open Podium’ of the Architecture Biennale.

method

Methodologically, we encourage the approach of a ‘critical design’. The scenarios do not have to be immediately practically feasible, as long as they invite reflection on commonly understood preconcpetions and expectations and provoke new ways of thinking about the objects or process central to the scenarios, the cultural practices that shape them and the larger issues of urban culture they address. Mark Shepard’s own Sentient City Survival Kit which is exhibited at the NAi can be referred to as an example of this approach.

how to apply

Registration for this workshop has closed. It is no longer possible to register for the workshop.

About Mark Shepard
Special guest of our workshop is Mark Shepard.Mark Shepard is an architect, artist and researcher. He directs the Media Architecture Computing program at the Univeristy of Buffalo, and recently curated the exhibit ‘Toward the Sentient City‘ that was organized by the Architectural League of New York . He is also one of the editors of the The Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series.

Earlier this year The Mobile City published an interview with Mark Shepard.

More about the IABR
The theme of the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam is the Open City, a city that is diverse, lively and socially sustainable, where people can productively relate to each other culturally, socially, as well as economically. More specifically, with the theme Open City: Designing Coexistence, the 4th IABR raises the question of social cohesion in the city from the point of view of its designer: how can architects and urbanists make realistic contributions to the sustainable quality of the urban condition.

About the Connectivity Theme
With the theme ‘Connectivity’ the IABR examines the role of digital media technologies in urban culture. Can these technologies be applied to contribute to the Open City? Or are they endangering its ideals? How can architects and designers anticipate and take advantage of these new technologies?

Apart from the workshop The Mobile City is involved in three other activities:

• November 5th 20:00 Keynote with Mark Shepard
  NAi Auditorium Rotterdam
• November 6th 17:00 19:00 Opening of the Exhibition The Sentient City Survival Kit. The opening events includes a public presentation of the workshop results
  IABR Open Podium, NAi Rotterdam. The Exhibition will last until November 12th. This event is followed by a Pecha Kucha Program at 20:20.
• November 7th Day of the Young Architect – keynote lecture by The Mobile City. Accessible to members of the Bond Nederlandse Architecten (Royal Institute of Dutch Architects) only.

See our Connectivity@IABR page for more information.

About The Mobile City
The Mobile City is a knowledge network founded by Martijn de Waal & Michiel de Lange, focussing on the question what happens to urban culture when physical and digital spaces blur? See: http://www.themobilecity.nl. For more information contact info@themobilecity.nl