serial consign

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  Serial Consign at Database City

  Posted: 27-October-2008, 6:44pm CET by Greg J. Smith

  

  [Steph Thirion / Cascade on Wheels / produced at Visualizar'07]

  When I first heard about VISUALIZAR'08: Database City I couldn't believe how on point the scope of the workshop was with my research interests. The call for proposals described the focus of the event as follows:
  

  Urban environments, which are becoming increasingly dense, complex and diverse, are one of contemporary society?s largest ?databases?, daily generating volumes of information that require new methods of analysis and understanding. How can we use the data visualization and information design resources to understand the processes governing contemporary cities and better manage them? What can we learn from studying traffic and pedestrian movement flows through the streets of Madrid? What would happen if we filled the streets with screens providing information updated each moment about water and electricity consumption?

  Given that my writing here on Serial Consign explores the intersection of information, interface, design and urban experience I knew that I had to submit a proposal. Although I had hoped to develop a project proposal, I only ended up pitching a paper - one that was accepted. So this Saturday I'll be leaving for Madrid to spend three weeks at Medialab-Prado. I recently did the math and somehow I haven't been to Europe for a decade, so this is a really big deal for me.

  My paper is entitled Beyond the Edifice: Architectural Visualization Reconsidered and in it I'll outline how architectural representation could inform urban informatics. This research project is a great opportunity to consolidate my sprawling interest in architectural drawing with some of the "city thinking" evident in the work I curated for TAGallery. The seminar will only span a few days and then the focus will shift to the incubation and rapid development of several urban visualization projects, one of which I'll be working on. For the interested, here are links to the full list of project abstracts and a schedule of the seminar proceedings.

  I guess it goes without say that I'll be blogging about the proceedings as they occur. I'll definitely try to soak up as much of the seminar as possible and provide a window into the resulting visualization projects later in November. Medialab Prado will also be publishing my paper, so I'll have more news on that in the coming weeks. Hasta mañana!

  
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  .txt/081026

  Posted: 27-October-2008, 1:41am CET by Greg J. Smith

  

  Recently enjoyed:

  • Damien James' The Magic Easel is a fascinating piece in the Chicago Reader on a viewing machine by artists Ryan and Trevor Oakes. The pair (literally, they are twins) have developed the above viewing machine to aid them in creating detailed concave perspective drawings. [via metafilter].
  • On the topic of drawing, I've been revisiting Mason White's Making Plans, a speculative text on the role of the plan in architecture. This thoughtful essay contextualizes contemporary thinking about plans through concise commentary and some great precedents.
  • The Interscale: Art after Neoliberalism is a text inspired by theorist Brian Holmes' visit to The Sixth Taipei Biennial. What starts out as a critique of a several featured pieces at the politically themed Biennial quickly unfurls into a history of neoliberalism complete with nods to Archigram, commentary on the economy and observations on tension between regional and transcontinental programming.
  • Leave it to nettime to be the first place for an English translation of Paul Virilio's recent interview in Le Monde to pop up. In this discussion with Gerard Courtois and Michel Guerrin Virilio frames the recent economic meltdown in relation to his ongoing research into catastrophe aesthetics and speed.
  • From one form of bankruptcy to another, Facebook in a Crowd is a fun article by Hal Niedzviecki in this weekend's New York Times. The text documents a self-esteem train wreck whereby the the author decides to host a party for all 700 of his "facebook friends" - and only one person shows up. In these tumultuous times if we can't count on our facebook friends, where does that leave us?
  • Authors Martin Dodge and Rob Kitchin just released a free PDF of their 2002 book Atlas of Cyberspace. The text was just plugged by Andrew Vande Moere at infosthetics as an "interesting overview of the early years of (more popular forms) of data visualization, including chapters about mapping Internet infrastructure and traffic flows, mapping the Web, mapping online conversation and community, imagining cyberspace in art, literature, and film."