Rob Kitchin, PI Programmable City Project, NIRSA, NUIM An overview of The Programmable City project, the ideas underpinning the research and the prospective case studies.

1. The Programmable City
Rob Kitchin
NIRSA, NUIM
Launch Event

2. The Programmable City
• A European Research Council (ERC) and
Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI) funded
• SH3: Environment and Society, €2.3m
• Based at the National Institute for Regional and
Spatial Analysis (NIRSA), NUI Maynooth
• Team of 10 researchers
• 1 PI; 5 postdocs; 4 PhD students
• Key themes: software, ubiquitous computing,
locative media, big data, smart cities

3. Aim
To extend a decade of work that
culminated in the book,
Code/Space: Software and
Everyday Life (MIT Press) through
a detailed set of detailed
empirical studies.
Apply a Software Studies
approach to cities

4. Code/Space book
• Over time everyday life has become increasingly reliant on
software
• ... work, play, consume, travel, govern, communicate ...
• It is almost impossible to live outside the orbit of software
• Many systems would largely malfunction without software
• Software, to varying degrees, conditions existence
• Life and places are increasingly full of coded objects and
coded infrastructures that support coded processes and
combine to constitute coded assemblages

5. Coded objects
• Nature of objects changing
• Machine-readable objects
• Coded objects
• Codejects (DVD player, washing machine, digital thermostat)
• Logjects
• Impermeable logjects (MP3 player, GPS, camera)
• Permeable logjects (mobile phones, satellite television)

6. Coded infrastructures
• Coded infrastructure refers both to networks that link together
coded objects and infrastructure that is monitored and
regulated, either fully or in part, by code
• Such coded infrastructure include:
• computing networks (e.g. Internet, intranets)
• communication and entertainment networks (e.g. mail, telephone, mobile phones,
television, radio, satellite)
• utility networks (e.g. water, electricity, gas, sewerage)
• transport and logistics networks (e.g. air, train, road, shipping)
• financial networks (e.g. bank intranets, stock markets)
• security and policing networks (e.g. surveillance cameras)

7. Coded processes
• Coded processes refer to the transaction and flow of digital data
across coded infrastructure
• Particularly important when they access, update, and monitor
relational databases that hold individual and institutional data
• Such databases can be accessed at a distance and used to verify,
monitor (say for billing purposes) and regulate user access to a
network, update personal files
• Many such coded processes relate to bank accounts, mortgages,
shares, taxation, insurance, health, crime, utility usage, service
usage

8. Coded assemblages
• Coded assemblages are where several different coded
infrastructures converge, becoming integral to each other in
producing particular environments, such as office complexes,
transport systems, shopping centres, etc
• For example, the coded infrastructures of water, electricity, gas,
banks and mortgage lenders, commodities, Internet, telephone,
mail, television, state database systems, etc, work together to
create an assemblage that produces individual households
• The power of assemblages is their interconnection and
interdependence creating systems whose complexity and power
are much greater than the sum of their parts

9. The Transduction of Space
• Code makes a difference to everyday life because it transduces space –
modulates how space is bought into being ‘as an incomplete solution to
a relational problem’
• Relational problems include undertaking domestic tasks, travelling
between locations, conducting work, communicating between people,
and practicing consumption
• Code/spaces are spaces dependent on code to function - mutually
constituted
• The relationship between code and space is dyadic – that is, without
code the space would not be transduced as intended
• Coded space is a transduction that is mediated by code, but whose
relationship is not dyadic
• Software mediates the solution to a problem, but it is not the only
solution

10. New Modes of Governance
• Software is employed as an regulatory agent
• Directed surveillance
• Automated surveillance that seeks to enforce more effective
(self)disciplining
• Capture systems that actively reshape activity
• Voluntary systems/sousveillance
• The regulatory environment of code/space is increasingly
that of automated management
• Automated in the sense that it is enacted by technologies
and are automated, automatic, autonomous in nature

11. The Data Revolution book
• a synoptic overview of big data,
open data and data infrastructures
• an introduction to thinking
conceptually about data, data
infrastructures, data analytics and
data markets
• a critical discussion of the
technical issues and the social,
political and ethical consequences
of the data revolution
• an analysis of the implications of
the data revolution to academic,
business and government practices

12. Data Assemblage
Attributes Elements
Systems of thought Modes of thinking, philosophies, theories, models, ideologies, rationalities, etc.
Forms of knowledge
Research texts, manuals, magazines, websites, experience, word of mouth, chat
forums, etc.
Finance Business models, investment, venture capital, grants, philanthropy, profit, etc.
Political economy Policy, tax regimes, public and political opinion, ethical considerations, etc.
Govern-mentalities /
Legalities
Data standards, file formats, system requirements, protocols, regulations, laws,
licensing, intellectual property regimes, etc.
Materialities &
infrastructures
Paper/pens, computers, digital devices, sensors, scanners, databases, networks,
servers, etc.
Practices Techniques, ways of doing, learned behaviours, scientific conventions, etc.
Organisations &
institutions
Archives, corporations, consultants, manufacturers, retailers, government agencies,
universities, conferences, clubs and societies, committees and boards, communities
of practice, etc.
Subjectivities &
communities
Of data producers, curators, managers, analysts, scientists, politicians, users,
citizens, etc.
Places
Labs, offices, field sites, data centres, server farms, business parks, etc, and their
agglomerations
Marketplace
For data, its derivatives (e.g., text, tables, graphs, maps), analysts, analytic
software, interpretations, etc.

13. Objectives of Programmable City Project
How is the city translated into software and data?
How do software and data reshape the city?
Translation:
City into Code/Data
Transduction:
Code/Data Reshapes City
THE CITYSOFTWARE
Discourses, Practices, Knowledge, Models
Mediation, Augmentation, Facilitation, Regulation

14. Sub-Projects
Translation:
City into code
Transduction:
Code reshapes city
Understanding the city
(Knowledge)
How are digital data generated
and processed about cities and
their citizens? Tracey (PDR)
How does software drive public
policy development and
implementation? Bob (PhD)
Managing the city
(Governance)
How are discourses and practices
of city governance translated
into code? Sophia (PDR)
How is software used to regulate
and govern city life? Jim (PhD)
Working in the city
(Production)
How is the geography and
political economy of software
production organised? Alan (PhD)
How does software alter the
form and nature of work?
Leighton (PDR)
Living in the city
(Everyday Life)
How is software discursively
produced and legitimated by
vested interests? Darach (PhD)
To what extent does software
change how places function and
how people behave? (Sung-Yueh,
PDR)
Creating the smart city: Dublin Dashboard Gavin (PDR)

15. Approach & Case Studies
• Case studies, interviews, ethnographies,
genealogies, PAR, audits ...
• Dublin, Boston and elsewhere
• Interested in talking to potential partners

16. Rest of the Day
• 10.30-11.30: Software and Cities
Matthew Wilson (Harvard University) Quantified Self-City-Nation
Martin Dodge (University of Manchester) Code and Conveniences
• 11.30-12.30: Data and Cities
Tim Reardon (MAPC, Boston) Putting Data to Work in Metro Boston
Tracey P. Lauriault (NUIM A Genealogy of Open Data Assemblages
• 12.30-13.30: Lunch
• 13.30-14.00: Launch
Sean Sherlock, TD., Minister for Research and Innovation and Prof. Bernard Mahon, Vice-
President for Research NUIM
• 14.00-15.00 Smart Cities
Siobhan Clarke (Trinity College Dublin) ICT-Enabled Behavioural Change in Smart Cities
Adam Greenfield (LSE) Another City is Possible: Networked Urbanism from Above and
Below
• 15.00-15.45: The Programmable City project
Snapshots of Programmable City PhD/Postdoc projects
Gavin McArdle – Dublin City Dashboard
• 15.45-16.00 Closing remarks
Peter Finnegan, Director of International Research and Relations, Dublin City Council

17. Thank you
Rob.Kitchin@nuim.ie
@robkitchin
http://www.nuim.ie/progcity/
@progcity #progcity
MIT Press, 2011 Sage, Aug 2014