The mechanical and electronic processes of Rotterdam
Having speed few days in Rotterdam makes me realize how this European city was a very interesting example of how the spatial environment can show heavily-visible signs of mechanical and electronic processes. And this, with different levels of interaction with regards to whom (or what) can influence this process. Let’s pick up son pictures from my urban safari to illustrate this.
Given its geographical location, Rotterdam has a big port. Therefore, you have plenty of devices that are related to how a port process material. Cranes for example are omnipresent but other devices are just remnants of past activities (and machinery to activate them)
Still in terms of mechanics, bridges can be moved above canals (as in other cities in the Netherlands) and automation seems to be pervasive as indicated by those signs:
But the environment can also be responsive, as attested by these red crane-like objects on Schouwburgplein square. Designed by West8, theses hydraulic cranes can be controlled by a panel situated on the square so that anyone can set the position of the light.
Of course, this is also reflected in the architecture through very classical ambient displays such as the cladding of Renzo Piano’s building for KPN Telecom. It acts as a giant billboard that displays patterns that change throughout the day.
Back on Schouwburgplein square, very curious clock-like shapes are adopting dancing patterns in a somewhat ambient display-like ballet:
At the individual level, there are also lots of examples of spaces from everyday life that becomes reliant on software (sort of what Kitchin and Dodge refer to as “code/space”). See for instance, the use of chipkaart (metro pass), the omnipresence of chipknip or how the inhabitants can use their cell-phone to deal with parking lots:
That is even more intriguing when you encounters buildings whose shape adopt the form of machinery:
Why do I blog this? To some extent, I’ve been amazed by how wandering around in the city gave a feeling of “urban computing” at the lower level sense. As if there was some background sense of systems operating implicitly, quietly in a sort of ballet of movements and displays more or less controlled by the inhabitants. IMHO, it definitely exemplify the city as a dynamic process with changing shapes. My examples are of course not exhaustive, and some of them can also be found elsewhere but the combinations there seemed to be utterly explicit.
In addition, beyond “urban computing” notion such as location-based services or touch-interactions, it’s rather when I encounter street signage about “automation” that I feel the digital city.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:20 am
” it’s rather when I encounter street signage about “automation” that I feel the digital city.”
An interesting observation: >
In film theory there is a term called ‘foregrounding’ - this means that the filmmaker disturbs the narrative illusion of being immersed in a a fictional world, by including hints to the audience that he is watching a constructed and mediated reality. This can be done quite explicetly - by a direct address of one of the movie’s main characters. Or it can be done more subtle: a vague reflection of the camera in a shopwindow.
I was wondering wether this in one way could translate to the design of urban computing. As Stephen Graham has pointed out during the Mobile City Conference, we are often unaware of the role that software plays in constructing the reality of our city. Now this is of course an important design question: should we design our technologies to be as ambient and unobstrusive as possible, or is there a certain quality - both politically but also experientally - in the foregrounding of these technologies?
Now signs like you saw in Rotterdam, or warnings like ‘This city is software sorted’ are blunt examples of the foregrounding of urban computing. But could we perhaps think of including more subtle acts of foregrounding of urban computing? One that is unobtrusive, yet does give the ‘user’ a sense of how his reality is being constructed for him through the use of software? More like the reflection of the camera in the shopwindow than a direct address by an actor.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:23 am
Nicolas, for some reason the quote form your post on which I based my reaction didn’t come through, it should start with:
” it’s rather when I encounter street signage about “automation” that I feel the digital city.”
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
[…] attending The Mobile City, panelist Nico Nova wandered through Rotterdam and made some interesting observations: Beyond “urban computing” notions such as […]
March 13th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
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April 4th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
It’s a question that puzzles me too. In their article “Technology paternalism - wider implications of ubiquitous computing” Sarah Spiekerman and Frank Pallas point at how it’s really quite silly to want to make everything invisible. Heidegger’s “ready to hand”, where we are unaware of the tool we are using because we are so accustomed to using it, like a pen, seems to be confused with literally making the technology invisible. Spiekermann and Pallas advocate a “right of the last word”, meaning that people should always have the last say.
Weiser himself called it the dichotomy between “simplicity and control”.