How do new media change the urban public sphere? An analysis by looking at 4 historic case studies and 3 from the future.

1. How Mobile and Digital Media
are Changing Our Cities
Martijn de Waal
www.martijndewaal.nl
www.themobilecity.nl

2. Scenario 1: Softwaretopia
Bill Gates, The Magic of Software
The continued growth of processing power,
storage, networking, and graphics is making it
possible to create almost any device imaginable.
But it's the magic of software that will connect
these devices into a seamless whole, making
them an indispensable part of our everyday lives.
Bill Gates, Information Week

3. Wait-a-minute: Magic?
Phil Aigre:
Technology at present is covert philosophy. The
point is to make it more openly philosophical

4. Scenario 1I:
Technopolitopia
[Telelogs] could serve as a medium through
which individuals can communicate their
thoughts and ideas with others within their
environment
This would result in a better sense of
community solidarity.
Telelog Research Project, 2005

5. Scenario III: Urbocalypse
‘... the street is the ultimate public space and
walking along it is the defining urban experience.
It is all of us--different people who lead different
lives--coming together in the urban mixing
chamber.
But what if half of them are elsewhere, there in
body but not in any other way?’ ‘..
Paul Goldberger

6. Introduction: What is a City
4 Case studies from the Past
3 Case Studies from the Future
Conclusion: what’s up?

7. Introduction: What is a City

8. Chicago School (1920s): A City Is
Heterogenity & Density
Mike Davis reworking the Chicago School’s Concentric Zones Theory

9. Great Cities are not like
towns only larger;
They are not like suburbs
only denser.
Jane Jacobbs The Death and Life of Great American Cities
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gerardstolk/

10. They differ from
towns and suburbs in
basic ways,
and one of these is
that cities are by
definition full of
strangers.
Jane Jacobbs The Death and Life of Great American Cities
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dimorma

11. How do we Cope?
The Urban Public Sphere
as a site for encounter, trust-
building & confrontation

12. Historic Case Study 1
The 17th Century Coffee House:
the emergence of
the Modern Public sphere

13. Habermas: Public Sphere emerges
in C17th Coffee Houses

14. Habermas: Discussion emerged
around Cultural Objects
Newspapers address
‘issues of concern’

15. C17th Newspapers included
‘User Generated Content’

17. C17th Geography of
the Public sphere

18. Historic Case Study 2
The 19th Century BLVD

19. Paris BLVDs by Haussmann (1852-1870)
Motives:
Sanitation
Modernization
Crowd Control
(Canon shot boulevards) Optimizing
Traffic
Paris BLVD network by Haussmann - http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/whimsicality/urban-fabric-form-comparison/

20. Paris BLVDs by Haussmann (1852-1870
Outcome:
Meeting Ground
Cafe Culture & Terraces
Mingling of
Classes
Pissaro Avenue de l’Opera (Musée des Beaux Art, Reims)

21. The Boulevard is the Communication Line
of the 19th Century
Marshal Berman All that is Solid
Pissaro Avenue de l’Opera (Musée des Beaux Art, Reims)

22. BLVD as ‘Confrontation Scene’
The setting that magically inspired the romance now
works a contrary magic and pulls the lovers out of
their romantic enclosure, into wider and less idyllic
networks.
In this new light, their personal happiness appears as
class privilege. The boulevard forces them to react
politically
Marshal Berman All that is Solid
Louis Léopold Boilly

23. BLVD as ‘Recognition Scene’
On the morning of December 4, 1876, several
hundred of the miscellaneous people on the Nevsky
will suddenly coalesce into a crowd and converge
collectively on the magnificent baroque colonnade in
front of the Kazzan Cathedral
History’s First Flash Mob?
Marshal Berman All that is Solid
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=431156&page=57

24. Walter Benjamin
Flaneur vs Etui-mensch

25. Historic Case Study 3
Pendrecht,Rotterdam, 1946
The Neighborhood Planning Principle

26. ‘Zijn onze groote steden nog wel stedelijke
gemeenschappen?
Zijn zij eigenlijk niet langzamerhand geworden tot
groote agglomeraties van afzonderlijk levende
menschen, die wel het verband voelen tot de sociale
groep waartoe zij behooren, doch die zich buiten
deze groep verloren wanen in de massa??
Burgemeester Oud, De Stad der Toekomst (1946)

27. Voor deze boodschappen kunnen de vrouwen even
uitlopen in hun werkkleding (zij het zonder
schort) ... het menselijk contact is voor haar hierbij
van de grootste betekenis, zij stelt belang in de
gebeurtenissen in de kring van mensen met wie zij
dagelijks in aanraking komt en zij speurt naar de
samenhang en controversen tussen de winkels en
bewoners van de buurt.
Commissie Bos De Stad der Toekomst (1946)

28. Lotte Stam Beese:
De moderne stad ... moet de mens het gevoel
van vrijheid van keuze uit vele mogelijkheden
geven
Ons democratisch bestel sluit de uitzondering,
het niet deel zijn van, bij voorkeur uit. Wij staan
in de ruimte en maken er deel vanuit

32. In eerste instantie werd niet naar een incidentele
esthetische oplossing gestreefd
maar de structuur van een maatschappelijke
constellatie zelf als vormgevend element gebruikt.
Lotte Stam Beese

33. Historic Case Study 4
Archigram 1960s/70s
The Plug-in City

34. ‘If only we can get to an architecture
that really responded to human wish as
it occurred’

35. Computer City
who likes it straight?
who will buy what?
who believes which?
who lives or dies?
thought, action
chain response
life forces balanced
in tension
the urban community
the city
CROWD
Archigram, image: Seek / Software Exhibition Jewish
Museum New York, 1970

36. [the City is a place]… where so much
is happening that one activity is
stimulated by all the rest. It is the
collection of everything and everyone
into a tight space that has enabled the
cross stimulus to continue. Trends
originated in cities. The mood of cities
is frantic. It is all happening – all the
time
Archigram

37. ‘There is no desire to communicate
with everybody, only with those whose
thoughts and feelings are related to
our own’
Archigram

38. What have we learned?
4 Examples in which ‘urban publics’ emerged
City is a platform on which citizens make their lives public
Infrastructure (by design or by
accident) brought together citizens of
different backgrounds
Design & Infrastructure also act as ‘filters’

39. Now, Towards the Future
Which new infrastructures?
How do they allow us
To make our lives publics
And form Urban Publics?

40. WIFI
RFID
GSM
GPS Augmented
CCTV
Reality
senseable.mit.edu

41. New Infrastructure paradigm:
Smart City
U-City
Sentient City
Real Time City
IBM Smart Cities

42. Smart / Sentient / Real Time Cities:
Sense what’s going on
Aggregate, Store &
Distribute these data
Operate and Actuate
IBM Smart Cities

43. Future Scenario 1
The Software Sorted City

44. Chris Oakley The Catalogue

45. who likes it straight?
who will buy what?
who believes which?
who lives or dies?
thought, action
chain response
life forces balanced
in tension
the urban community
the city
CROWD

48. Future Scenario 2
The ‘Me’ City

49. http://grindr.com/Grindr_iPhone_App/What_is_Grindr.html

50. CitySense
Sensenetworks.com

51. CitySense
‘Home’ through personalization
Business Week http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnCbZmhMGjg
www.sensenetworks.com

53. Flaneur vs Etui-mensch

54. Future Scenario 3
The ‘We’ City

55. Urban Tapestries
Urban Tapestries

57. i500
Arch Os i500

58. ‘The visual and auditory function of the
artwork reveal to the chemists a
qualitative temporal experience of their
research.
for the chemists flâneurs, enabling them
to amble through the space whilst
perceiving subtle rhythms or
recognising complex patterns.’
Paul Thomas -Arch Os i500

59. BLVD as ‘Recognition Scene’
Marshal Berman All that is Solid
Monet, Boulevard des Capucines

60. We are like you: people, who get up
every morning to study, work or find a
job, people who have family and
friends.
No political party, association or trade
union represents us. Nor do we want
them to, because each and every one
of us speaks for her or himself
Urban Tapestries

61. Marshal Berman All that is Solid
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=431156&page=57

62. Habermas: Discussion emerged
around Cultural Objects
Newspapers address
‘issues of concern’

63. Using
The Internet of Things
To bring out these
‘issues of concern’
Senseable City Lab Trash Track
Trash Track MIT Senseable City Lab

64. Conclusions:
Capsularization through Software Sorting
Living Together Apart
Perhaps also new ‘hybrid’ sites for
‘overlap’, ‘recognition’, ‘communal issues’

65. Thank You!
The Mobile City www.themobilecity.nl
Events Blog - Research Network
martijn@themobilecity.nl
flickr.com/photos/rawmusic/