Thérèse Tierney: "Networked Urbanism: Geographies of Information" - Response by Peter Thompson
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
posted under
by Unknown
"Networked Urbanism:
Theory and Practice"
Written by Peter Thompson (History)
The 1980s and 90s saw an increased interest in space and
place among leading critical theorists. As Professor James Hay (Media &
Cinema Studies) pointed out in his opening remarks, the works of Michel de
Certeau and Henri Lefebvre were major motivating factors in this move toward
spatial thinking. This critical turn inspired the critical Marxist geography of
David Harvey as well as the conception of space and design developed in
Frederic Jameson’s well-known definition of postmodernism. A little later, in
the mid-90s, Doreen Massey advanced a feminist critique of spatial concepts,
while Meaghan Morris asked how these ideas of space played out in cinema and
literature. In various ways, these scholars argued that space is produced both
physically and semiotically, thus both shaping our material world and the way
that we discursively understand it. Professor Hay asked us to keep this field
of theoretical work in mind as we consider the (possibly) new ways in which
urban design and information technology are being integrated in the 21st
century.
Thérèse Tierney’s presentation, “Networked Urbanism:
Geographies of Information,” examined and historicized the integration of new
technology into the development of urban spaces. With her academic home in the School
of Architecture, she applies her practical knowledge of architectural design to
examine the recent development of “smart cities.” The merging of contemporary
information technology and architecture is broadly reflected in her previous publications:
New Urban Mobilities as Intelligent
Infrastructure (2015), The Public
Space of Social Media (2013), Abstract
Space: Beneath the Media Surface (2007), and Network Practices: New Strategies in Architecture and Design (2007).
Tierney first discussed the ways in which the conception of
“the city” is in the midst of change. Challenges such as climate change,
migration, population growth, and advanced telecommunications have encouraged
architects, governments, and corporations to rethink the definition of the
city. Previous studies of urban development employed statistical studies of
fixed locations. However, considering the newly mobile (or flowing) nature of contemporary
city dwellers, the urban theorist Edward Soja has argued that cities should be
studied as systems in what could be termed as “networked urbanism.” The urban
designer William Mitchell echoed this idea and furthered the integration of
careful sociological study, architectural planning, and advanced computing.
The smartphone is the primary factor in the mobilization of
urban spaces. Thus, smartphones can be viewed as the various nodes that create
the urban system. Wireless apps for banking, car sharing, paid transportation,
etc. further contribute to the expansion of this mobile network. The increasing
development of these kind of technologies suggest that the 21st
century “smart city” will be dependent on information technology. And while
smartphones are privately owned technology, community WiFi and Hackathons can
expand access to this kind of mobile network.
 |
| “Nodes of the urban system.” From The New Yorker |
Professor Tierney argued that the utopian nature of the
“smart city” is not a new phenomenon. In the 1950s and 60s, modernist designers
and theorists hoped to improve city infrastructure through massive building
projects such as Disney’s Project X. However, these projects were
simultaneously progressive and conservative in their utopian visions.
Architects conceived of new designs and utilized new technologies, but they
assumed traditional and fixed lifestyles for the people who would populate
their cities. The sense of a failed alternative future that is often associated
with these midcentury designs can perhaps be attributed to the inability of
designers to account for cultural change and human agency.
 |
| “Renderings of the city center in Disney’s Project X.” From Esquire |
This should be a historical lesson for architects and urban
planners who are currently developing the “smart cities” of the 21st
century. According to Tierney, new designs should consider and incorporate the
ways in which people utilize the city. In this vein, the integration of new
information technologies should strive for a truly democratic process, one in
which all inhabitants have equal access and cultural power. For this reason,
governments might be better at developing the new “smart city” than private
corporations, which generate new networking technology for their own ends
(including tracking and targeted sales). The self-interested desires of these
private corporations also raise the issue of privacy and data mining. We must
ask ourselves who should control such massive amounts of private data and to what
ends should this data be used.
 |
| “The Digital Stewards set up DIY WiFi in Detroit for community access.” From Commotionwireless.net |
Professor Tierney’s talk exposed the ways in which “smart cities” are being imagined and developed in order to raise these kind of questions. While there are no easy answers to the problems of restricted access and corporate use, Professor Tierney hopes to raise awareness of these problems in order to inspire an inclusive collective imagination of our own future cities. Tierney hopes that this collective imagination will use information technology to encourage an idealized civitas, or a community bound by an expansive conception of citizenship.
Professor of New Media, Kevin Hamilton, gave concluding
remarks. He viewed Professor Tierney’s presentation as the bridging of theory
and practice that the Unit for Criticism has long championed. Ideally, urban
designers are now incorporating the theoretical work on human subjectivity that
has long guided sociological concerns. This would lead to a view of the city
itself as ontologically dynamic. However, the historical view of this research
raises questions about whether or not the technological integration into lived
experience is especially new in any way. Perhaps we would prefer to decenter technology
in our vision of the future city, and rather start from the human ontological
definition(s) of technology. Perhaps we should consider what we are actually
striving for in the reimagining of urban spaces: are we trying to envision “the
good life” or are we simply aiming for basic survival?
1 comments:
Pg slot แตกง่าย เกมแจ็คพอต PG SLOT เป็นอีกหนึ่งต้นแบบเกมทำเงินยอดนิยมเยอะที่สุดในปี 2021 นี้ มีเรื่องราวชักชวนติดตาม และก็มีภาพกราฟิกที่ชัดเจนงดงามสูงที่สุดอีกด้วยเล่นเลย
Post a Comment