MA Creative Media, University of Brighton
(mjm20) Digital Cities
leeoneill2014@gmail.com

Lee O’Neill _mjm20.m4v from leeoneill on Vimeo.

“I am lost in the crowd, I am anonymous. In my phone, in my space, I matter.”

(Bassett, 2003:350)

This finalised piece is a short movie that uses geolocative augmented reality (AR) to illustrate the mutual constitution of software and socio-spatial practice. It could be argued that the immersive seduction of a digital co-presence mediates and re-codifies urban space through a process of negation and investment in an economy of sustained attention. Ubiquitous and pervasive mobile technologies are blurring the borders of time, community and space facilitated by gamification, quantification and surveillance; conflating online and offline identity and making it increasingly difficult to determine which side of the screen is which. The short film exploits the graphic infancy of contemporary AR technology to illuminate the sophistication of situational data aggregation and commodification. This critical reflection seeks to discuss the accumulation of intimate and long-term data of desires and behaviours in the context of civil liberty and freedom of mobility.

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references

appendices

During the week on ‘Smart Cities’ I quoted Townsend’s (2013) description of “urban space as an irredeemable patchwork”, 2013, p. 3. Over the module this metaphor of a patchwork can be further applied to the multiple academic disciplines that become stitched together in any critical analysis of Digital Cities, consequently leading to diverse responses each week, by the participating students.

Lee tended towards posts focused on the effects of digital technology on people, describing his own recurring theme as “the investigation of a significant opportunity for policy makers to consider how technology can improve the future lives for all citizens.” However, he generally has approached this from a position of caution over the possible outcomes and side effects of technology, commenting during the week on Smart Cities that, “The focus must not be dominated by economic goals of efficiency held ransom to capital mobility; automating proprietary and ubiquitous ‘big data’ at the expense of civil liberty; ultimately emasculating citizenship to be a consumer held hostage.”  He worries that software, “erodes the element of choice on how to engage or function as a citizen.” and describes ‘Layar’ as having “[a]n intimate and almost seamless experience” as it , “seduces the user to engage and share, daring to tell all.” When considering the effects of combining sensors with software and referencing Elliot, A., & Urry, J., (2010)  Lee suggests that when we start to see citizens as data there is no longer “room for affect, emotion or irrational desire for citizens are objectified as scrutinised data subjects, citizen becomes consumer identified by the narcosis of accumulating brands and experiences.”  I have found Lee’s perspective to be a useful one particularly as he has sought to find a global perspective, as a number of his examples highlight the effect of technology on citizenship, particularly those at the fringes of society.

Rachael started from a more optimistic point of view, hopeful for the opportunities facing digital cities. For example she ends the post on Augmented Reality by saying, “With the hope that in the future this might give way to more democratic, diverse uses and forms of engagement.” After investigating Rezone as an example for urban gaming, she exclaims excitement at the “potential for a more democratic and collaboratively built infrastructure between citizens, city planners, and politicians.” however, this excitement is tempered by a consideration of how citizens may make use of new technologies by asking “does this actually ensure a more democratic, connected and collaborative public, which contributes to the development of smart city infrastructures that benefits the needs of all?”.

James provided a number of sensory metaphors for digital space made real in the physical manifestations of technology. Going from “the work of Michelle Teran who used Stephen Flusty’s (1994) taxonomy of “interdictory spaces” to  show the ways that urban space is made defensible, often via code driven devices.”, and identifying that “Flusty’s (1994) account that makes code/spaces “jittery” spaces and in qualifying as “jittery” spaces this probably makes them quite “prickly” too.” through to prickly antennas. This continued into his  ‘jittery’ augmented reality experiments with physical objects and more recently the phone app experiments he demonstrated last week. All of which have led to some really interesting examples.

In re-reading my own posts, I notice that they have generally tended towards a reflection of personal experience based around the various topics. Starting from a position of concern over “the reliance on technology and how technology is used to try add levels of control to an ultimately chaotic system.” and identifying problems through barriers to access and participation, thinking specifically about the week on Smart Citizens and the Smart Citizen example. However, I have tried to find contextual examples that interpret the critical discussion within creative and/or commercial practice to aid a balanced view.

Links to even more projects and articles can be found on my Pinterest page, http://www.pinterest.com/teneuss/

I am regularly adding pins whenever I come across something interesting, if you are a Pinterest user you could always follow me 🙂

Neil Gershenfeld (2012) suggests a future where “[d]igital fabrication will allow individuals to design and produce tangible objects on demand, wherever and whenever they need them.” (p 43). A future where we will use personal fabrication processes to “make what you cannot buy” (ibid p49): bespoke solutions to specific needs rather than ‘off the shelf’ solutions, because, “the ‘killer app’ in digital fabrication, as in computing, is personalisation, producing products for a market of one person.” (Ibid p 46).

Nike Vapor Laser Talon: Football’s First 3-D Printed Shoes

We are all different shapes and sizes with individual needs, tastes and appetites, therefore we want products manufactured based on our individuality. Perhaps clothes or footwear printed based on our exact measurements, because “The most compelling possibility of such a new process is customization” (Wilson, 2014, no page)

The medical industry is one field where the individuality of 3D printing solutions is central to the technology. As treatment can be specific to a specific case and again “the biggest advantage is that everything is customizable,” Markus Fromherz, (Xerox’s chief innovation officer in healthcare) as quoted by Forbes.com.

Conceptual project for bespoke casts by Victoria University of Wellington graduate Jake Evill.

Currently 3D printing is offering personal solutions to those who can access it, afford it and know how to use it. Therefore, having an specific, individual solution can be socially exclusive to those without access to the technology, creating a new digital divide? Take as an example, the 3D printed hearing aid: CAMISHA, (‘Computer-Aided-Manufacturing-for-Individual-Shells-for-Hearing-Aids’), by Widex, a specialist hearing aid manufacturer.

CAMISHA: 3D Printed Hearing Aid

“the premium sound and comfort comes at a premium price. While you can get a conventional hearing aid for a few hundred dollars, the CAMISHA produced models range from about $1,000-$3,000 per device.” (www.3ders.org, 2013, no page)

MIT believe that, “the most sustainable way to bring the deepest results of the digital revolution to developing communities is to enable them to participate in creating their own technological tools for finding solutions to their own problems.” (Mikhak et al, 2002, no page) Their solution is for communities to have Fab Labs, containing collaboratively owned digital fabrication technology, with which community groups can be self-sufficient by starting small manufacturing businesses.

Fab Labs are described as a utopian idea to the small business ideal, by Eric Smally, who says they are “a gleaming vision of a sustainable and prosperous future that also turns the clock back centuries to a time when cities were self-sufficient and people had the means to build what they needed.” (Spectrum.mit.edu, 2014, no page)  Using a Fab Lab communities have the ability to create solutions to local problems rather than having products forced upon them by global businesses.

References

Gershenfeld N. (2012) How to Make Almost Anything: The Digital Fabrication Revolution Foreign Affairs Vol. 91, No. 6 http://cba.mit.edu/docs/papers/12.09.FA.pdf Accessed 12/05/14

Mikhak B, Lyon C, Gorton T, Gershenfeld N, McEnnis C & Taylor J. (2002) Fab Lab: An Alternative Model of ICT Development http://cba.mit.edu/docs/papers/02.00.mikhak.pdf

Smally E, (2014) Do-it-yourself Manufacturing, Spectrum, MIT Press, Winter 2014, http://spectrum.mit.edu/articles/do-it-yourself-manufacturing/ Accessed 12/05/14

Wilson M. (01/03/2013) Nike Vapor Laser Talon Football’s First 3D Printed Shoes http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672004/nike-vapor-laser-talon-football-s-first-3-d-printed-shoes Accessed 12/05/14

http://www.3ders.org/articles/20130103-3d-printing-helps-develop-the-world-smallest-hearing-aid.html 03/01/2013, Accessed 12/05/14

http://www.forbes.com/sites/xerox/2013/08/22/3-ways-3-d-printing-could-revolutionize-healthcare/ 8/22/2013, Accessed 12/05/14

The Jetsons. (1962). American animated sitcom.  Instant replicated food – out of this world!

Scanning in  2-D has bridged the physical, analogue world to the digital realm. A 3-D scanner crosses the border of the screen. It is only the ink of composite materials that acts as final parameter before the two worlds are ultimately blurred. In the final chapter of Fabricated, Lipson and Kurman (2013) suggest this first episode of control over shape and fabrication of any material has already been achieved. The second is composition of internal structure and the third is control over behaviour of meta-materials.

“…printing integrated, active systems that can sense and react, compute and behave.” (p.266)

The infancy of the technology revisits the former frontier freedom of the internet in its earliest days, when the ideals of open source and web 2.0 technologies promised an egalitarian digital world. Digital information has developed its own political economy. Freedom to share information will challenge not only intellectual property law but also the long tail of manufacturing. Policy makers need to consider the legality and ethical ramifications of instantly accessible drugs, weapons and custom body parts. A recent example is the online posting of the blueprints to manufacture a fully working gun, The Liberator.

If machines are ultimately to recreate themselves, then where does this leave us? A recurring theme in this Digital CIties blog, is the investigation of a significant opportunity for policy makers to consider how technology can improve the future lives for all citizens. With a focus on macro socio-political initiative the potential is to radically transform society, reduce poverty and improve peoples lives. However, if technology companies are obliged to compete in a market, then a more divisive and proprietorial future will further exacerbate inequality and social injustice.

references

LIPSON, H. & KURMAN, M., (2013). Fabricated: the new world of 3D printing, Indianapolis: John Wiley.

Söderberg, J., & Daoud, A. (2012). Atoms Want to Be Free Too! Expanding the Critique of Intellectual Property to Physical Goods.Triplec (Cognition, Communication, Co-Operation): Open Access Journal For A Global Sustainable Information Society, 10(1), 66-76.

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Urry and Elliot (2010) discuss a future scenario of the digital city which has used technology to respond to and combat the environmental issues brought about by human-induced global warming. A techno-optimist view widely held by publics, scholars, corporations and governments alike. Authorised by a dominant discourse advocating reliance upon conceptions of evidence and proof, science and technology, rationality and objectivity, we have convinced ourselves a detachment from, and an intelligence, power and technological control over the environment, our surroundings and ourselves (Adams 1998). By extending our human powers through science and technology, through digital sensor monitoring, we believe we can address, undo, and reverse the environmental damage we continue to cause.

Furthermore through individually quantifying behaviors and habits through ‘miniaturised mobilities’, Elliot and Urry argue that this “…enable(s) people to deposit affects, moods and dispositions into techno-objects – storing such emotional and aesthetic aspects of self-experience until they are ‘withdrawn’ for future forms of symbolic elaboration and interpersonal communication” (2010:6). Therefore, the role of sensors can be understood to ‘extend our human powers’ into digitally quantifiable formats. For health care for example, to quantify exercise achievements (miles run, fastest mile, heart rate, calories burned) (see below), calculating calorie consumption, or monitoring abstaining from smoking (see below).

(Image 1: Screenshot Personal Nike Running Application)

(Image 2: A Facebook Friends Post – ANON)

Fors and O’Dell (forthcoming) question the role and use of such sensors, used both by ‘quantified self-ers’, organisations to combat energy waste (see ELLIOT ‘Smart Office’ below), and by businesses (Tesco Clubcard) and governments to monitor demographic behaviors consumer/citizen patters/habits (Oyster), and ask what does all this data collected actually do? Does it help improve the environment, prevent climate change, encourage civic engagement or improve public health? Like the ‘digital networks’ scenario outlined by Urry and Elliot (2010), it is important to question the use in collecting such data, individually or on a mass scale?

“Recent technological innovations for logging, tracking, monitoring and digitally circulating the body calls for further investigations of how it alters the everyday actions, habits, and possibilities for social organisation” (Fors & O’Dell, forthcoming, p.20).

de Lange (2013) argues that in order to achieve action, and change we must take an affective view, one which considers and explores emotions and feelings; “cities must exhibit intense expressivity” ( Thrift in de Lange 2013:3). We can understand how current deployment and use of sensors exemplifies de Lange’s view that ‘smart cities’ remain conceptually ‘stuck’, bounded by limiting parameters of ontological data and information gathering. Taking an epistemological approach however, of tying together spatial, social and mental spheres, prioritising emotions and reflexivity, by considering how we relate to each other and our surroundings, we might better understand the city, and how environmental and individual developments can be actioned and achieved (de Lange 2013:2).

“We must shift attention from technologies that seamlessly blend in with everyday life, towards technologies that move people, and enable them to move others” (de Lange 2013:6).

Bibliography

Adam, B, 1998. ‘Nature Re/constituted and Re/conceptualized: Mapping the scope of industrial traditions of thought’, in Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards. London: Routledge

de Lange, M. 2013. ‘The smart city you love to hate: Exploring the role of affect in hybrid urbanism’. In The Hybrid City II: Subtle rEvolutions, edited by D. Charitos, I. Theona, D. Dragona and H. Rizopoulos. 23-25 May 2013. Athens, Greece.

ELLIOT ‘Smart Office’ 2010. http://vimeo.com/67715975 (Available at: http://www.elliot-project.eu/node/69, Last accessed 4.5.14).

Elliot, A., & Urry, J. 2010. Mobile Lives. Oxford: Routledge.

O’Dell, T & Fors, V. 2014. Body monitoring: on the need to put culture into the quantifying equation. Submitted to Culture Unbound (Available at: http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=12683&postid=4195709, Last accessed: 4.5.14)

Oyster ‘Access your data’ (Available at: https://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/privacy-and-cookies/access-your-data, Last Accessed: 7.5.14).

De Lange (2013) suggests that to optimise smart city technologies and urban processes we need “to be more sensitive to affect” (no page). Because  “[t]he smart city does not appeal to the emotions and as a result insufficiently engages citizens” (ibid). Added to this Fors and O’Dell (2014) state that, “Techniques for monitoring the body is in a phase of digitalization that makes new ways of measuring the self both possible and accessible” (p3)

Leading me to look for some examples of how technology be used to measure emotion by collecting data in various ways.

1. Mood Panda  uses a mobile app to allow the user to actively track their mood through a regular input of data and can produce graphs, calendars and shared maps of moods.

There are various similar services, all of which suggest a link to personal health monitoring, where mood is directly related to mental health and that these apps could “empower millions of people to improve and take control of their health and well-being.” https://www.mood247.com/aboutmood

Fors and O’Dell (2014) are sceptical about the usefulness of body monitoring stating that these technologies “merit a reflection over the degree to which technology guides individuals and in the process deprives them of agency” (p14) suggesting that people may not be impartial when using these technologies, placing too much trust in the data.

2. People often write about their mood on social media, and tag their posts with  geolocative technology. The Hedonometer and Urban Sensing’s ‘Twitter Sentiment Analysis Tests’ attempt to show patterns of emotions using Twitter over time and distributed by place. As “tweets can be regarded as temporally-authentic microscopic instantiations of public mood state.” (Bollen, Pepe and Mao, 2009, no page)

However, these projects gather data from a limited source i.e. those who have access to particular technology, therefore excluding many from being measured.

3. Surveillance technology with the capability to predict emotion through facial recognition software.

Realeyes is a commercial company who believe that “The more people feel, the more they spend.” They offer a service which tracks people’s facial expressions via webcam allowing businesses to track customer behaviour alongside their emotions. Turning tracking technologies into opportunities for increasing profits, and using webcams like web based cookies because, “emotions can profoundly affect individual behavior and decision-making.” (Bollen, Mao and Zeng 2010, no page)

References

Bollen J., Pepe A. and Mao H. (2009), Modelling public mood and emotion:Twitter sentiment and socio-economic phenomena. http://arxiv.org/pdf/0911.1583.pdf accessed 04/05/14

Bollen J, Mao H. and Zeng X.J. (2010), Twitter mood predicts the stock market. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1010.3003.pdf accessed 04/05/14

Clifford S and Hardy Q (14/07/13) Attention Shoppers: Store is Tracking Your Cell. The NY TImes, USA http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/attention-shopper-stores-are-tracking-your-cell.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

de Lange, M. (2013) The smart city you love to hate: Exploring the role of affect in hybrid urbanism. In The Hybrid City II: Subtle rEvolutions, edited by D. Charitos, I. Theona, D. Dragona and H. Rizopoulos. 23-25 May 2013. Athens, Greece. http://www.uu.nl/staff/MLdeLange/0 accessed 30/04/14

Datoo S. Friday (4/04/14), Smart cities: are you willing to trade privacy for efficiency? The Guardian, UK http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/apr/04/if-smart-cities-dont-think-about-privacy-citizens-will-refuse-to-accept-change-says-cisco-chief accessed 04/05/2014

O’Dell, T and Fors, V (2014) Body monitoring: on the need to put culture into the quantifying equation. Submitted to Culture Unbound. http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=12683&postid=4195709 accessed 30/04/14

Linked to the topic this week is the subject of ‘Big Data’, therefore, I have also included Jonathan Harris’ manifesto of the promises and perils of big data, commissioned by the NY Times

Ubiquitous sensors record and monitor, neural networked algorithms measure and calculate, integrated databases collate and classify. Smart rhetoric of a pre-given near future acts as normalising and facilitates the uncritical, the city becomes a passive canvas for individual needs; no room for conflict or debate to counter vested institutional interests. (deLANGE, 2013). No room for affect, emotion or irrational desire for citizens are objectified as scrutinised data subjects, citizen becomes consumer identified by the narcosis of accumulating brands and experiences. A disembodied cogito; predictable, fragmentised and dependent, upon complex systems of collective coordination and smart technological expertise, augmented by materiality and machine. (ELLIOT, A., & URRY, J., 2010).

A fear of scarcity and terror add to the always on, globally networked ‘liquid life’, miniaturised technologies act as containment for associated rising levels of anxiety and create a dependency on an immersive and virtual mediated reality to compensate for a disenfranchised and distanced life. (ibid. 2010)

The participatory bio-citizen is an early adopter of new forms of openness and disclosure, socially sharing calorific self-loathing, normalising the accumulation of gamified data trails for the quantified self. Agency is left to technology; no room for reflective learning, e-learning is analytical for the social tyranny of others. (O’DELL, T & FORS, V., 2014). Policed by peers and exploited by insurers, government and advertisers as immaterial labour. (EVANS, L. 2013)

ELLIOT, A., & URRY, J., (2010), discuss a ‘mobilities paradigm’ and networked capital in their predictions of a dystopian future based upon an energy and resources scarcity that ranges from a MadMax local warlord scenario to one of social inequity based upon mobility. deLANGE (2013), argues an emotional cartography is essential to engage the citizen around shared issues of concern, this is the form of networked capital that will engender a sense of ownership and grant agency and self-determination. For example citizens able to track their own carbon emissions may encourage economies in mobility and ownership of the local; political agency to challenge technocracy.

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references

de LANGE, Michiel. (2013). The smart city you love to hate: Exploring the role of affect in hybrid urbanism. In The Hybrid City II: Subtle rEvolutions, edited by D. Charitos, I. Theona, D. Dragona and H. Rizopoulos. 23-25 May 2013. Athens, Greece <Available at: http://www.bijt.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/01/Michiel_de_Lange-The-smart-city-you-love-to-hate-exploring-the-role-of-affect_Hybrid_City-Athens_styled_edit-v2.pdf> [Accessed 05may2014]

ELLIOT, A., & URRY, J. (2010). Mobile Lives. Oxford: Routledge.

EVANS, Leighton (2013) How to build a map for nothing: immaterial labour and location based social networking in: Govint, L. and Rasch, M. (ed.s) Unlike Us Reader: Social Media Monopolies and their alternatives. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. <Available at: www.networkcultures.org> [Accessed 05may2014]

O’DELL, T & FORS, V (2014) Body monitoring: on the need to put culture into the quantifying equation. Submitted to Culture  Unbound. <Available at: http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=12683&postid=4195709> [Accessed 05may2014]

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A precursor to googleGlass, Steve Mann pioneered cyborg logging wearable technology called Eyetap in 1980.

Golden Shield, or the Great Firewall of China is a censorship and surveillance project operated by the government of China, operational since Nov2003.

The Ghost in the Machine by Arthur Koestler (1967). Used as a metaphor in Elliot and Urry (2010) as a metaphor to describe the accumulation and integration of data trails. Interestingly Koestler discusses latent self-destruction.

An eMail to join an example of community ownership gamified. Reimagine South Central on Community PlanIt is LIVE! (05may2014). https://communityplanit.org/southcentral/