Encountered yesterday on my way to a meeting, this nice street camera has been protected but some people have found a more interesting side-effect of the protection. The accumulation of bottles might, down the road, influence what the camera is watching.
Finally managed to read the oversized Paris ville invisible book by Bruno Latour and Emilie Hermant (1998). The whole thing is an amazing photographic essay on the “social” and technical aspects of the city of Paris (”social” in Latour’s sense). It’s a bit like Susan Star’s article called The Ethnography of Infrastructure but definitely in Latour’s words (and yes it’s definitely french). There is also a web version, defined as “a sociological web opera”.
For this post, I am mostly concerned by the notion of traces, their visibility and their implications. An important part of the book is about various “channels of signifiers”: from collected data like temperature or time to their computation by intermediaries (sensors, computers) and the map and model outputs employed by institutions such as telecom operators or police departments
Some excerpts from an english translation by Liz Carey-Libbrecht:
“Megalomaniacs confuse the map and the territory and think they can dominate all of Paris just because they do, indeed, have all of Paris before their eyes. Paranoiacs confuse the territory and the map and think they are dominated, observed, watched, just because a blind person absent-mindedly looks at some obscure signs in a four-by-eight metre room in a secret place. Both take the cascade of transformations for information, and twice they miss that which is gained and that which is lost in the jump from trace to trace – the former on the way down, the latter on the way up. Rather imagine two triangles, one fitted into the other: the base of the first, very large, gets smaller as one moves up to the acute angle at the top: that’s the loss; the second one, upside down in the first, gets progressively bigger from the point to the base: that’s the gain. If we want to represent the social, we have to get used to replacing all the double-click information transfers by cascades of transformations. To be sure, we’ll lose the perverted thrill of the megalomaniacs and the paranoiacs, but the gain will be worth the loss.
(…)
The more information spreads and the more we can track our attachments to others, since everywhere cables, forms, plugs, sensors, exchangers, translators, bridges, packets, modems, platforms and compilers become visible and expensive – with the price tag still attached to them. the reader will perhaps forgive us for our myopic obsession with the trails of traces“
About how to reveal the invisible and the role of this book:
“the visible is never in an isolated image or in something outside of images, but in the montage of images, a transformation of images, a cross-cutting view, a progression, a formatting, a networking.
(…)
In photos and text we’ve attempted to highlight the role of the countless intermediaries who participate in the coexistence of millions of Parisians. In the series of transformations that we followed with myopic obsession, we would have liked to have kept each step, each notch, each stage, so that the final result could never abolish, absorb or replace the series of humble mediators that alone give it its meaning and scope. “
Why do I blog this? The book is a very intriguing read for anyone interested in contemporary cities and their underlying activities/infrastructures. If you liked Italo Calvino’s “invisible cities”, that book written by Latour (with pictures from Emilie Hermant) is a must read. The notion of traces described here is very Latour-ian to some extent and it’s interesting how he uses it to describe what happens in a contemporary city such as Paris. What I find relevant here is this idea of “intermediaries” and the observation of the transformation he discusses.
If you’ve read Dan Hill’s post “The Street as a Platform”, that book is a theoretical exploration of the issue of technologies in city space. There is of course much more to draw from this book, which I will explore in following blogposts.
Weird post-it encounter in Puebla, Mexico last summer. On the street, looks as if it was a secret code of some sort.
Seen last week in Geneva, next to temporary constructions for immigrants.
What can we see here in this interesting “point of contact”
- almost all have the same orientation (= same channels? same cultural group of viewer?)
- they are grounded, do not at their regular position on the roof (= left here in a a hurry? not possible to climb to the roof)
- they are very close to the sidewalk where people pass by (low number of people passing here anyway)
Encountered this morning in Geneva.
The splatters of paint are actually gorgeous, as a sign to reveal a digital-physical friction
When it comes to mobility, people are in general mesmerized by Velib or Zipcar lately but there are there sorts of devices that I find very intriguing: aluminium scooters or K-2 Kickboard Scooter. Some people would argue that this for start-up pricks (because real value is in pure P&P skateboarding gear) or that it is childish and useless but I don’t think so. I don’t have any scooters but what I find interesting here is the notion of “micro-mobility” and the balance of cost: the cost to use the device is low (lower than unfolding the A-bike Adam gave me for instance). And it’s way cheaper than a Sidekick. Another characteristic is that it can be used indoor/outdoor.
Invented around 2000 by dutch/swiss banker Wim Outboter, these scooters are still very popular. His point at that time was to solve this concrete problem:
“When Wim was 30 years old and living in Zurich, he came across a problem. His favourite sausage shop was too far away to walk, yet not far away enough to take the car out of the garage. ‘I called it a microdistance,’ he says. ‘I made a primitive scooter using the wheels of some inline skates and it worked. The only problem was that when I went down town on it, people laughed at me.’ With his characteristic mixture of a kid’s desire to be cool and a grown-up’s application of technology, Wim worked at the scooter until it was small enough to hide in his backpack. It still took another 10 years (and the constant encouragement of his wife) to get the invention on the road.“
Why do I blog this? interest in less common means of transport and their implications in terms of design (of the device itself as well as the infrastructure to support it). Micro-mobility devices also seems to be a bit dismissed in the discourse about the future of mobility in urban environment, although scooters, lifts, elevators, electric sidewalks, etc are prominent in our everyday life. And high-rise architects surely have to deal with that.
Pneumatic tubes and networks (as the one described in Boris Vian’s novels) have always fascinated me. The name itself is gorgeous and it really looks like a strange vehicle. Although there are sometimes still use to transport cash and documents (transparent supermarkets pneumatics are intriguing), their usage has often stop or led to new possibilities: using tubes to put optic fibers to serve as internet infrastructure OR use both technology and pneumatic to vehicle paper documents which still matters in the 21st century.
Also of interest is the mapping of pneumatic networks, see for instance the Paris network as shown in this article:
Why do I blog this? What is interesting here is not that you can get web-based remote control of an electro-pneumatic (nor the impact on net neutrality) but rather the existence and sometimes the resilience of this communication network. An old version of the “city of flow” sort-of.
The other day I mentioned this short article I wrote in JCDecaux trend report. It was about how skateboarders “read” space, make decision about where they do skateboard or to hang out with peers. In a sense, it’s about “social navigation” and what sort of “footprints in the snow” matter for skateboarders. I dug up some examples from my city ventures below.
Choosing a skateboard spot according to the physical aspect of the place
For instance, in Niteroi (Brasil), that curved sidewalk is definitely an invitation to skate it:
This bench in Zürich (Switzerland) is also an obvious point of interest (from the physical point of view) but the presence of wax also attests that OTHERS are using it as a spot. The place can also be more than a physical spot as the presence of wax indicates it marking by a community. It reveals the appropriation by a click of skateboarders (and the likelihood to find them here on saturday afternoon)
Skatespot approval or how places are validated for certain activities
This “thumb-up” stickers found in front the of the University of Geneva indicates the approval of the spot by a community of skater (in that case a local shop/community):
Skateboard map
The usual paper map, for example in Lyon (France) found in a shop called Wallstreet, that depicts interesting spots to do skateboarding:
And of course, there is an on-line/participatory version, named freeyourspot, see the example of London (which not really reveal about skateboarding potential there):
Why do I blog this? of course one could use lots of other examples but I find skateboarders a very interesting target group to study spatial behavior, and how they use various techniques (from wax to participatory websites or cell phones). In this post, I tried to update some examples of how skateboarders read/navigate in space.
I find them really interesting examples IMHO of what some would refer to as “situated technologies”.
Some tough but relevant issues presented in Backbone about how technology help solve the problems of city dwellers (”Or even just tell them when a bus is coming?). An excerpt that is particularly strong (about a Microsoft urban computing project)
“ So what impact does this sort of thing really have on a city?
Not much, according to Austin Williams, technical editor of the Architects’ Journal and director of Future Cities, a forum that critically explores city issues. Williams, who calls such technology-driven projects indulgent, points to more urgent urban problems awaiting solutions, such as the loss of social connections between city dwellers. “The people who are inventing these technologies are creations of this fragmented society. They don’t want to have a hard argument. You need a proper political analysis,” he said. “A lot of these things are public art projects. It relates to people on an individual emotional level rather than on a group political level.”
(…)
What irks Williams could be the sense of playfulness in many of these urban computing projects, which is at odds with the hardheaded policy building that is the mainstay of think tanks like Future Cities. But playfulness lies at the centre of Eric Paulos’ work. (…) A trash can that regurgitates its own garbage. Cute, but how useful is it? “You can look at some of the things you do as being efficient and productive and getting things done, while some things are about wondering and reflecting and daydreaming,” Paulos said. “I am fearful that ‘city’ plus ‘technology’ equates to Wi-Fi cafés. [It should be] more about letting us radically rethink what’s possible.” “
Why do I blog this? a very interesting and critical discussion of urban computing form different angles. Especially about the techno-driven argument. That said, I am not sure it’s efficient to oppose two tracks (politics/instrumentality versus art/emotional/playful) in such a caricatural way. There are big problems but instrumentality is always relevant, and some urban computing projects tackle them as well.
Also there is this interesting issue in the conclusion:
“ Pollution sensors bluejacked the Bluetooth radio interfaces of nearby cell-phones with unsolicited information and Web links on pollution levels in the surrounding area. (…) because people walk quickly through city streets, by the time the device set up a connection with a nearby phone, most people had already walked out of range, eager to reach their destination. And that is a reminder for urban technologists: the biggest challenge of all is to keep pace with a fast-moving and multitasking population.“
Recently wrote a short article for a trend report of urban company JCDecaux. The whole book is called Les Audiences dans la Ville (The Audiences of the City) and addresses the new practices of people in contemporary cities. Other writers include: Fabien, Adam Greenfield, Frederic Kaplan, Daniel Kaplan, Bruno Marzloff and lots of others interesting people from the media/design/urbanism community. It’s in french though.
My contribution called “social navigation in urban space” starts by describing skateboarder as an interesting metaphor for making spatial decision in the city (i.e. choosing where to go, which area to visit and “do something there”). Skateboarder indeed rely on: looking for physical spots (implicit traces like grinded or waxed sidewalks/benches), active tagging (stickers which are explicit traces), social knowledge of spots or often maps found in magazines or on the Web (community traces). Looking for a spot is, in essence, looking at the physical environment, relying on one’s community or finding resources. I then describe how technological devices (gps, cell phones, digital cameras…) allow the same functions as they produce electronic traces that we can read/analyse to make spatial decisions (through social navigation). We can use the same typology:
The article goes on by discussing what does that mean to have traces and what sort of urban services we can think about that can take advantage of them.
Seen in Verona, Italy last week-end. Different layers of information, some official (regular signage), some more informal (badly written with Tipp-Ex, to state that drugs can be find on the right).
Another way to communicate that information is to use shoes hung onto a telephone wire as seen on the picture taken in San Francisco few years ago (but this is not more a sort of urban legend):
Anyway, this is part of an ecosystem of signs in contemporary cities that are more less perceived or understood by city-dwellers.
(clean San Diego, a vision form the future)
As stated by Mike Crang:
““as robins (1999) has pointed out, too often futuristic accounts of the electronic city are driven by a resurrected modernism that, like the Saint Simonian’s of the 19th century, looks to offer transparency, efficiency, and thus social harmony. Indeed visions of the city in accelerated time-space very often assume the desirability of instantaneity and speed, in the ‘real-time city’. Robins (1997) has called for a revaluation of Byzantine complexity, and social complexity rather than transparency in thinking through the city - rather than the often unthinking celebration of ordered, purified digital space that is somehow friction-free and the assumption that the absence of dirt and disorder is a good thing.”
(In Crang, M. Urban Morphology and the Shaping of the Transmissible City. In: Graham, S. The Cybercities Reader. London: Routledge; 2004:129-132.)
(Puebla, Mexico)
Why do I blog this? the contradiction between the clean and almost aseptic vision of modern city (or what modern cities should be) is well described in this quote from Mike Crang. Especially when it comes to digital/physical interlinkages. Too often, it’s represented as on the first picture and not as on the second one.
A different way to experience the city (seen in Paris last monday). A non-frequent posture.
The “lagoon emergency button” is surely one the most interesting interface I’ve seen recently. I’ve stumbled across it few days ago, close to LucasArts offices in San Francisco.
The red button basically controls the (nice and fake) waterfall that operates on the left of the picture. What I find impressively curious (and odd I would say) is the notion that the whole semi-natural feature represented here can be “turned off” by pressing a button. Interesting enough is the gap between that small red thing and the big environmental surrounding. Can this be a “responsive environment” where the interaction is basic but still possible.
Furthermore, the name of the button itself is fantastic (”lagoon emergency button”) and I don’t know if there are other combinations of the word “lagoon” and “button” in the same phrase (well…) but that sounds almost paradoxical.
That being said, the “blue lagoon button” sort of belongs to the technologies and infrastructures described in the “street as a platform“, in a sort of weird way. And it’s definitely related to the automatic component of the city mentioned the other day about Rotterdam.
One of the best book I’ve read recently is certainly “The Cybercities Reader (Routledge Urban Reader Series)”, a collection of articles selected and commented by Stephen Graham. The whole thing is about the ICT’s influence on forms, processes, experiences and ideas of urban life. To some extent, it’s one of the most important resource to frame “urban computing“.
The introductory chapter (and the introduction to Section 2 ) is of great relevance to describe the debate about the relationships between ICTs and urban realities. Graham presents the 3 dominating types of conceptual and theoretical discourse that analyses the inter-relationships between cities and ICTs:
- substitution and transcendence: human territoriality and space/place-based dynamics can and will be replaced by using new ICT technologies. Authors in that vein: thinkers like Toffler, Virilio and technologists like Negroponte, Kelly.
- co-evolution: both digital spaces and territorial spaces must be produced together as part an on-going process (which is capitalism). Authors in that vein: Castells.
- recombination: there is a fully relational view of the links between technology, time, space and social life. Authors in that vein: inspired by Latour and Haraway, Thrift, Bingham, Graham, etc.
The “substitution” model is the one that received the most attention, implying that space will disappear, distance will disappear, cities will vanish and that cyberspace would replace it. And also it was the model that seems to be recurring over the years (was what happened last year about Second Life). Graham describes the 4 characteristics of this discourse:
- he speaks of a “Post-Urban fantasy”, Bolter and Grusin use the term “Theology of Cyberspace” for the “stream of excited, romantic and often utopian accounts of the ICT-based demise of cities”.
- it’s generally about having a “friction-free” capitalism, with “perfect transactional fluency”.
- ICTs are expected to meld communities and mediate democratic processes.
- a strong libertarian component.
What is implied by this substitution model is the technological determinism assumption, an “hyperbole of unlimited power” of ICTs and cyberspace. The most striking example here is the use of the “impact” metaphor: something (internet/mobile phone) that comes out from the blue, like an asteroid would arrive “out there” and influence everything in a very straight-forward or linear cause-and-effect chain. This view is wrong and it’s funnily not the first time that I hear a critique of the word “impact” (the other person who mentioned it to me was the anthropologist Daniela Cerqui). What is important here is to keep in mind that innovation do not comes from disembodied asteroids and that it’s definitely part of a socio-political process. Of course, it’s not the first time in history that substitution model are called upon, TV, magazines, radio, telephones, publishing, photography, etc were also mistaken.
This is why Graham, after Bolter and Grusin, prefer to talk about “remediation“:
“not as a revolution but as a complex amalgam of new technologies and media fused on to and ‘remediating’ old ones. (…) we are experiencing a complex and infinitely diverse rang of transformations where new and old practices and media technologies become mutually linked and fused in an ongoing blizzard of change.“
Graham identifies 6 majors flaws in the “substitution” discourse that predict the end of the city/distance/space:
- being wrong empirically: data shows that urbanisation and ICTs goes hand in hand: mobility is not reduced.
- ignorance of the material realities that make the cyberspace supposedly “virtual” possible: infrastructures are needed and often noticed when broken.
- over-generalization and not locally-described: the vision imply that all experiences are the same anywhere and that ICTs relate to all cities in the same way.
- tendency to overestimate the capabilities of ICTs to mediate human relationships and underestimate the richness and power of co-presence of human bodies.
- promotion of simplistic, biased and glossy ideology of the “information age” (as a camouflage for neo-liberalism)
- show depoliticised depictions of cities being “impacted” by waves of “autonomous” technologies arriving out from the blue as if there were not place for policy innovation in cities or higher-level institutions (regions, states, supranational).
That said, the book itself does not dismiss current transformations but rather describe the complexity of the inter-relationships between ICTs and urban environments.
Why do I blog this? that sort of discussion is an important framing for current research about urban computing, also at a high-level, it’s an interesting overview of the different models promoted about how technologies and human activities are inter-related in a more nuanced way than what we read here and there. Will probably re-use this material in course and talks.
