“Pa­thetic Fal­lac­ies and Cat­e­gory Mis­takes: Mak­ing Sense and Non­sense of the (near-fu­ture) Sen­tient City” presented by Shepard

Symposium:

• ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art

• Hybrid Spatial Experiences

• Pa­thetic Fal­lac­ies and Cat­e­gory Mis­takes: Mak­ing Sense and Non­sense of the (near-fu­ture) Sen­tient City

• Mark Shepard

Venue(s):

• Sabanci Center, Istanbul, Turkey

• Panel: Hybrid Spatial Experiences

  As com­put­ing leaves the desk­top and spills out onto the side­walks, streets and pub­lic spaces of the city, we in­creas­ingly find in­for­ma­tion pro­cess­ing ca­pac­ity em­bed­ded within and dis­trib­uted through­out the ma­te­r­ial fab­ric of every­day urban space. Ar­ti­facts and sys­tems we in­ter­act with daily col­lect, store and process in­for­ma­tion about us, or are ac­ti­vated by our move­ments and trans­ac­tions. Ubiq­ui­tous com­put­ing evan­ge­lists her­ald a com­ing age of urban in­fra­struc­ture ca­pa­ble of sens­ing and re­spond­ing to the events and ac­tiv­i­ties tran­spir­ing around them. Im­bued with the ca­pac­ity to re­mem­ber, cor­re­late and an­tic­i­pate, this near-fu­ture “sen­tient” city is en­vi­sioned as being ca­pa­ble of re­flex­ively mon­i­tor­ing its en­vi­ron­ment and our be­hav­ior within it, be­com­ing an ac­tive agent in the or­ga­ni­za­tion of every­day life in urban pub­lic space. This talk will un­pack some of the tacit as­sump­tions, la­tent bi­ases and hid­den agen­das at play be­hind new and emerg­ing urban in­fra­struc­tures.

Category:

• Panel