Situated Technologies: Toward the Sentient City – An exhibition critically exploring the evolving relationship between ubiquitous / pervasive computing and urban architecture; curated by Mark Shepard.

In September 2009, the Architectural League will present Situated Technologies: Toward the Sentient City, a major exhibition that will imagine alternative trajectories for how various mobile, embedded, networked, and distributed forms of media, information and communication systems might inform the architecture of urban space and/or influence our behavior within it. Continue reading

Intelligent Agent Magazine Issue 9.1: Art in Virtual Worlds & The Age of “All at Once” :: Call for Scholarly texts, essays, artist’s works and missives :: Deadline for Proposals: February 15, 2009.

Since the turn of the millennium, an increasing amount of effort has been placed in the exploration of art in virtual worlds from first-person shooters to Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games like World of Warcraft and worlds such as Opensim and Second Life. Even in the last year, Artists like Cao Fei and Stephanie Rothenberg have exhibited Second Life works in the Venice Bienniale and Sundance New Horizons, to name a few. Continue reading

The Internet of Things – Network Notebook Launch :: October 28, 2008; 5:00 pm :: Waag Society, Theatrum Anatomicum, Nieuwmarkt 4, Amsterdam :: Free entrance, send an email to reserveren [at] waag.org if you want to attend.

The Internet of Things is the second issue in the series of Network Notebooks. It’s a critique of ambient technology and the all-seeing network of RFID by Rob van Kranenburg. Rob examines what impact RFID and other systems, will have on our cities and our wider society. He currently works at Waag Society as program leader for the Public Domain and wrote earlier an article about this topic in the Waag magazine and is the co-founder of the DIFR Network. The notebook features an introduction by journalist and writer Sean Dodson. Continue reading

“Since the late 1980s, researchers have been working on a “post-desktop” paradigm for human-computer interaction, known as “ubiquitous” or “pervasive” computing. Combining any number of mobile, networked and context-aware technologies, pervasive computing involves the embedding of computational capacities in the objects and environments that surround us. When this research began to spread from university and corporate labs to the popular imagination, there was an almost immediate and negative reaction, marked by anxieties around the idea of technologies penetrating into everyday life. In North America and Europe in particular, privacy concerns came to the fore as commentators envisioned a world of absolute surveillance. Conversely, the more recent emerging research agendas in “urban computing” and “locative media” present a strongly utopian vision. Continue reading

Fibreculture Journal Issue 13: After convergence: what connects? :: Edited by Caroline Bassett (University of Sussex, UK), Maren Hartmann (University of the Arts Berlin, Germany), Kate O’Riordan (University of Sussex, UK)

After convergence: what connects? Making this question the subject of this special issue we set out to address two questions at once. The first was: ‘Are we after convergence?’ and by this we meant to invite explorations of the exhaustion of the original convergence model. The second was: ‘What kind of convergence are we after?’ Which is to say what kind of convergence do we want? These were at heart of our concerns in developing this issue, and, in posing them we also asked a series of subsidiary questions: Continue reading

Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing – A Special Issue on Material Computing :: CALL FOR PAPERS :: Deadline: October 1, 2008.

A fantastic class of new materials is blurring the boundaries between computation and physical form, and as a result bringing computer science into the realms of a host of other disciplines, among them architecture, biology, chemistry, fashion design, and mechanical engineering. Responsive and computationally controllable materials — shape-changing polymers, e-textiles, and nano-scale electronics, just to name a few — are positioned to provide the underpinnings of truly ubiquitous interactivity that extends invisibly across body, architectural and urban scales. Continue reading

Situated Technologies Pamphlets 2: Urban Versioning System 1.0 :: Matthew Fuller and Usman Haque (Illustrations by David Cuesta).

The second volume of the Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series asks the question: what lessons can architecture learn from software development, and more specifically, from the Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) movement? Written in the form of a quasi-license, Urban Versioning System 1.0 posits seven constraints that, if followed, will contribute to an open source urbanism that radically challenges the conventional ways in which cities are constructed. Continue reading

I’ve finally managed to find the time to read Mike Crang and Stephen Graham‘s recent paper, Sentient Cities: Ambient intelligence and the politics of urban space — and it’s really good!

As I’ve said many times, Graham’s work on networked urbanism is superb, and Crang’s work on space, culture and ethnography is also exemplary. Compared to American accounts that draw on cybernetics and systems-thinking in architecture and urban planning (think Bill Mitchell, Malcolm McCullough, etc.) I find the British cultural geography approach (following Nigel Thrift, Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge) far better attuned to the variety and complexity of everyday lived experience, and the connections between place and identity (i.e. power) over time. Continue reading

e-MobiLArt: European Mobile Lab for Interactive Artists – Call for Artists and Scientists :: Deadline: March 16, 2008.

e-MobiLArt is a project tailored around the process of creating collaborative interactive installation artworks. Such interactive mediated environments may involve the use of multimodal interfaces, ubiquitous computing and mobile or locative media technologies. The e-MobiLArt project aims to provide selected participants with an ideal context, that will allow them to travel, collaborate and exhibit their work. During this project, artists and scientists who are active in creating interactive media art or pursuing innovative interdisciplinary research will have the opportunity to: Continue reading

Urban Informatics: The Internet, locative media and mobile technology for urbanites by Marcus Foth – Cities are exciting. Cities are buzzing. They are alive with movement. A rapid flow of exchange is facilitated by a meshwork of infrastructure connections: road systems, building complexes, information and communication technology and people networks. In this environment, the Internet has advanced to become the prime communication medium that connects many threads across the fabric of urban life. Continue reading