CITYVERSE – A SPECULATIVE UTOPIA UNDER DATAVEILLANCE

“Every click, every move has the potential to count for something, for someone somewhere somehow” (Gitelman 2013). We’re currently experiencing a “Data Renaissance,” where data is seen as a “gold mine” and referred to as “the new oil of the Internet and the new currency of the digital world,” fueling our latest speculative bubble (Gitelman 2013). Presenting the illusion of individualism, our urban spaces and daily lives are being shaped by highly standardized transactions and multiplied solutions. Google Maps navigates us through the complexity of geolocations, providing information on traffic congestion in return. Lime e-scooters accelerate our walking tempo, collecting private movement patterns in exchange, while vacuum cleaning robots perfect our living spaces for the cost of a floor plan. Mass-scale data exchange profoundly influences city planning, with companies like Google and Meta emerging as major players in a capitalist-driven urbanization. Yet, this influence operates on their terms and conditions. Do you consciously choose to live in a Truman Show or BarbieLand?

PLATFORM URBANISM

Urban living has been profoundly reshaped by data technologies and platform services, fundamentally altering our city experiences. Access to digital platforms is increasingly crucial for participation in key aspects of urban life, with a few platform companies monopolizing the benefits of this connectivity, exerting unprecedented control (Mörtenböck, Mooshammer 2021). This shift is contrasted with the thesis that the rise of platform industries not only impacts the organization of urban life (the software of cities) but also extends to the material design of urban spaces (the hardware of cities). Considering the central role of data collection and pattern recognition in these processes, a potential avenue for public discussion emerges- using a visual language rooted in spatial patterns to explore these new urban forms (Mörtenböck, Mooshammer 2021).

Artistic Project Visual Culture
Univ.Lekt. DI Joanna Zabielska MA

Thursdays, 14:00-19:00
Start: 14 March 2024
Location: Seminarraum AC0440

For further details please see link below