The following review provides a personal account of Visible Cities #01 at De Verdieping on February 3 with Euro Beinat of theCurrentCity Foundation, and Ronald Lenz of the Waag Society and 7Scenes. The review was written by Edwin Hans, student at the TU Delft. Faculty of Architecture, Hyperbody department and a frequent visitor at De Verdieping.

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REVIEW Visible Cities #01

Perhaps it is time to say goodbye to all those rainy or sweaty days analysing public behaviour on the streets. While William H. Whyte already made the effort of using a time-lapsed camera in his urban survey’s back in the ‘80s there are still new technological methods emerging to engage with our surroundings.

You might not see it, but there is a constant flow of data surrounding you. Radio signals, Wi-Fi, telephone signals and magnetic fields are just only a few to mention. Euro Beinat of the Currentcity Foundation keeps track of all those telephone signals via telecom providers and transforms them in tera bits of data statistics. When they link this data back to their original physical location where the signals got picked up they speak of data-mapping. Such a data map represents a vast group of people passing through a certain location. While it is technically possible to track single users by their mobile phone (very hard, but the C.I.A can do it) this is not the occupancy of the Currentcity. Their focus lies on group behaviour. Euro Beinat showed images of the usage of the Rembrandtplein in Amsterdam during the day but also the lack of space usage in Amsterdam’s WTC business district in the weekends. While the results of certain of these data-maps are before hand quite predictable, the method certainly shows its accuracy.

Gathering data is a means and no end but it seems that the Currentcity started warming up in analysing and getting to the essence of their visualisations. How comprehensive and difficult they may seem to be, there are certain patterns. Examples as the rise in cell phone usage during certain events and where these usages where the most dense were shown, but these still remain on a well understandable level. It really got interesting when Euro Beinat started talking about monitoring human behaviour patterns in time and space. Tourist movement flows were shown and the commercial value of these data-flows were instantly apparent. Instead of just visual wallpaper, we’re talking about intelligence here. Not the kind of intelligence the C.I.A. spends millions for, but maybe even that won’t take that long.

It seemed to be that Euro Beinat is sitting on a golden egg but doesn’t know it yet. Predicting certain changes in urban flow and laying out usage patterns are very nice, but key to this development seems to me understanding a part of city life itself: public behaviour. Why do we move around the way we do? Why are certain places cool and other places dumpsters? Why do we always seem to take the same routes all over again? Many of these kind of questions have already been more or less answered by researchers, but those results have always regarded the individual as a starting point. This new way of looking to things through data might be able to let’s us learn of people behaviour in groups, what is called swarm behaviour with animals.

Besides this observing and analysing we can actually also intervene in the behaviour of people by interactive digital media. This was illustrated by Ronald Lenz of the Waag Society. Projects with game element using mobile devised passed the revenue. With the skill of expertise still broadening, from augmented reality to user generated content, he understands the value of interactive behaviour between surroundings and users. While the view on data by Euro Beinat seems to be quite Top Down, Ronald Lenz is using a Bottom Up approach. From groups back to the individual, active individuals that can leave their marks in the city. Instead by doing this in the physical old fashioned way of graffiti, these new users can leave their marks on the digital replication of the city. This digital layer is nothing new, but the possibilities of linking the digital layer and the physical layer are endless. Imagine a world where every object around you is somehow tagged and you can scan them with a mobile device. Instant info pops up: Specifications, costs, owners, age, comments or maybe even love notes. A certain filtering might be handy if you have more things to do than checking everybody’s marks and you only want to see your friend’s. But one key issue remaining in this approach is the element of probability. In a layer perfectly designed and organised how do we get in touch with the unknown? The unknown has been one of the main factors of creating desirability and curiosity in cities and do very well in cities. If I would be a great hacker I would certainly try to hack one of Ronald Lenz’ games and insert a huge green trolley crushing buildings and vehicles. This kind of reminds me on Sim City’s option to allow natural disasters to happen and other weird things like alien abductions.

The more people mingle in this group of new digital media the more interesting it gets. But besides smart programmers and city planners we also need random people picked out of the supermarket to tell us what they think they should benefit from it. Because creating something to use the creation as a end use in itself is overrated consumerism ideology dating back to the 19th century if you ask me. Nowadays people talk about added value, secondary use and more of the like. But what if we can finally learn how we really behave and respond on that, maybe its about building cities, houses, game design or the map for the quickest route planning in IKEA, we have to benefit from it on multiple levels.

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Visible Cities is a monthly series of lectures, in collaboration with the VURB Foundation, focusing on how emerging technologies are changing the cities we live and work in.The widespread employment and adoption of ubiquitous computing, sensor networks and mobile media into the urban environment have unforeseen implications for how our cultures might come to use networked digital resources to change the way we understand, build, and inhabit cities.

RATIO?
Live: Sublevel – Doc Martin feat Lilia (San Francisco)
DJ’s Doc Martin (Sublevel, Classic, Fabric, San Francisco), Melon (Ratio?, Amsterdam) // Entrée €12 // Trouwe Honden €10

www.sublevelcalifornia.com