Using digital media technologies for collective urban issues
Our everyday lives are increasingly shaped by digital media technologies, from smart cards and intelligent GPS systems to social media and smartphones. How can we use digital media technologies to make our cities more social, rather than just more hi-tech?

This international conference brings together key thinkers and doers working in the fields of new media and urbanism. Keynote speakers such as Usman Haque, Natalie Jeremijenko will speak about the promises and challenges in this newly emerging and highly interdisciplinary field of urban design. The keynotes will be accompanied by presentations of ‘best practices’ from various disciplines, such as architecture, art, design, and policy.

Join us in February 2012 at Amsterdam’s Westergasfabriek to explore how urban designers, interface developers, app builders, policy makers, housing coorations, artists, scientists and others can use digital technologies to organise citizen engagement, and to contribute to our social cities of tomorrow.

Visit the event website here: www.socialcitiesoftomorrow.nl

November 22 2011 Broodje Kennis at Spui 25 (University of Amsterdam)

More information >>

December 8 2011 Place-Mat talk at Ymere housing corporation for Placemakers.

The announcement should be published soon on the Placemakers website >>

In addition, November 23 2011 I’m participating in an e-tourism strategy day organized by LAgroup and Waag Society in Pakhuis De Zwijger.

More information >>

Download introductory presentation (PDF, 2.3 MB in Dutch)

Download full course instructions (PDF, 220 KB in Dutch)

Course schedule:

week1, Sept 22 – Introduction (Michiel de Lange)

week2, Sept 29 – ‘Hybrid space’: the relation between digital and physical space (Eric Kluitenberg)

week3, Oct 6 – New media and urban publicness (Martijn de Waal)

week4, Oct 13 – Privacy & surveillance in the media city (Sander Flight)

week5, Oct 20 – Media art and the urban experience (Annet Dekker)

week6, Oct 27 – Urban play & gamification (Kars Alfrink)

week7, Nov 3 – eParticipation and co-design: designing cities with new media (Carl Lens)

Course literature:

week1 – Introductie De Mediastad

- Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., & Williams, J. M. (2003). “Making good arguments”. Chapter 7 in: The craft of research(2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago press. (pp. 114-123) http://boelter.krischeonline.com/lispdf/pdf/BoothW et al 2003 ch 07.pdf

Waarom lezen? Algemene voorbereiding op hoe je een sterk academisch argument neerzet in een debat. Booth et al. beschrijven op toegankelijke wijze vijf regels waaraan een goed argument voldoet. Vooral bedoeld voor geschreven argumentatie maar ook goed bruikbaar voor verbale discussies. [Deze tekst hoef je niet te bespreken voor de weekopdracht].

- Hill, D. (2008). The street as platform. City of Sound weblog, http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2008/02/the-street-as-p.html

Waarom lezen? Deze tekst biedt een zeer toegankelijke blik op wat er gebeurt nu de stad in toenemende mate doorsneden raakt met allerlei digitale mediatechnologieën. De tekst schetst twee scenario’s en roept een aantal vragen op waarover gedebatteerd kan worden.

- Wirth, L. (1938). Urbanism as a Way of Life. The American Journal of Sociology, 44(1), 1-24. http://www.jstor.org/pss/2768119.

Waarom lezen? Deze klassieke tekst gaat over de vraag: wat is een stad? De gegeven definitie fungeert als achtergrond waartegen veel andere teksten gelezen kunnen worden.

- Graham, S. (2004). The Cybercities Reader. London; New York: Routledge. Introduction: “From dreams of transcendence to the remediation of urban life” (pp. 3-23). Download van: http://boelter.krischeonline.com/lispdf/pdf/Graham%20S%202004%20in%20Graham%20S%20ed%202004.pdf.

Waarom lezen? Deze introductie biedt een overzicht van verschuivingen in hoe de relatie tussen stad en digitale media geconceptualiseerd is.

Optioneel:

- Townsend, A. (2000). Life in the Real-Time City: Mobile Telephones and Urban Metabolism. Journal of Urban Technology, 7(2), 85-104. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/713684114

Waarom lezen? Een invloedrijk vroeg artikel over de invloed van mobiele technologieën op stedelijkheid.

week2 – ‘Hybrid space’: de relatie tussen digitaal en fysiek

- De Souza e Silva, A. (2006). From Cyber to Hybrid: Mobile Technologies as Interfaces of Hybrid Spaces. Space and culture, 9(3), 261-278. http://sac.sagepub.com/content/9/3/261.full.pdf+html (alternatieve link: http://tvdigital.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/mobile-2006-adriana-silva.pdf).

Waarom lezen? In dit artikel behandelt De Souza het begrip ‘hybrid space’ als de versmelting van fysieke en digitale ruimte. Ze stelt in reactie op Manovich dat ‘hybrid space’ niet begrepen moet worden als extra laag bovenop de fysieke ruimte maar als wederzijds constituerend.

- Kluitenberg, E. (2006). The network of waves: living and acting in a hybrid space. Open, 11, (pp. 6-16). http://www.skor.nl/download.php?id=3231

Waarom lezen? Kluitenberg gaat met name in op veranderingen in sociaal gedrag die mogelijk gemaakt worden door de hybridisering van stedelijke ruimte en digitale mediatechnologieën. Ook gaat Kluitenberg in op strategische vormen van agency in hybrid space.

- Ito, M., Okabe, D., & Anderson, K. (2009). Portable Objects in Three Global Cities: The Personalization of Urban Places. In R. S. Ling & S. W. Campbell (Eds.), The reconstruction of space and time: mobile communication practices(pp. 67-87). New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers. Te downloaden van: http://www.itofisher.com/mito/portableobjects.pdf.

Waarom lezen? Ito et al. presenteren een op veldwerk gebaseerde typologie van drie concrete manieren waarop stedelingen met draagbare technologieën ‘interfacen’ met de stad.

Optioneel (sterk aanbevolen!):

- Simmel, Georg (1903) The Metropolis and Mental Life. In: Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, eds. The Blackwell City Reader. Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002, (pp. 11-19). http://www.esperdy.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Simmel_21.pdf.

Waarom lezen? Dit een andere must-read actuele klassieker over stedelijkheid. De tekst vertoont sterke gelijkenissen met de tekst van Louis Wirth, maar zoomt verder in op stedelijkheid als socio/psychologisch fenomeen. Simmel wijst erop dat de moderne stedelijke ervaring gemediëerd is (middels geld en kloktijd) en in die zin al veel langer ‘hybride’ is.

week3 – Nieuwe media en stedelijke openbaarheid

- Holmes, D. (2005). Communication theory: media, technology and society. London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE. (pp. 67-82)

Waarom lezen? Holmes geeft een overzicht van de discussies rond computer mediated communication (CMC) en publicness, deels in relatie tot de stad. Holmes beperkt zich tot discussies over ‘cyberspace’ en besteedt geen aandacht aan mobiele media.

- Frei, H., & Böhlen, M. (2010). Micropublicplaces. In O. Khan, T. Scholz & M. Shepard (Eds.), Situated Technologies Pamphlet series. http://www.situatedtechnologies.net/files/ST6-MicroPublicPlaces.pdf. (eerste gedeelte, pp. 12-28).

Waarom lezen? De auteurs bespreken twee belangrijke denkers over (stedelijke) openbaarheid – Arendt en Latour – en verbinden dit thema met actuele discussies over de mediastad.

- De Waal, M. (2011). The Urban Culture of Sentient Cities: From an Internet of Things to a Public Sphere of Things. In M. Shepard (Ed.), Sentient city: ubiquitous computing, architecture, and the future of urban space. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. http://www.martijndewaal.nl/?p=236.

Waarom lezen? De Waal bespreekt kort enkele klassieke denkers over openbaarheid en voegt een actuele visie toe vanuit de discussie over ubiquitous computing.

Optioneel:

- Graham, S., & Aurigi, A. (1997). Virtual cities, social polarization, and the crisis in urban public space. Journal of Urban Technology, 4(1), 19-52. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10630739708724546.

Waarom lezen? In dit wat oudere artikel bespreken de auteurs een actuele discussie uit die tijd, namelijk de mogelijkheid van een online publieke sfeer geënt op stedelijke principes. Interessant voor een historische achtergrond van de discussie.

- De Waal, M. (2008) “Locative media and the city – from BLVD-urbanism towards MySpace urbanism” In: Vodafone Receiver Magazine. http://www.receiver.vodafone.com/locative-media-and-the-city.

Waarom lezen? De Waal benoemt een aantal nieuwe kwesties die gepaard gaan met de opkomst van technologieën in het stedelijk landschap.

week4 – Privacy & surveillance in de mediastad

- Crang, M., & Graham, S. (2007). Sentient Cities: Ambient intelligence and the politics of urban space. Information, Communication & Society, 10(6), 789-817. http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/13691180701750991

Waarom lezen? In dit artikel zetten de auteurs uiteen hoe nieuwe technologieën verbonden zijn met pogingen om steden te controleren en tot ‘frictie-vrije’ consumptie-zones om te toveren. Ook besteden ze aandacht aan pogingen van media-activisten om hier tegenin te gaan.

- Jacobs, J. (1992). The death and life of great American cities(Vintage Books ed.). New York: Vintage Books (originally published in 1961). Hoofdstuk 2: “The uses of sidewalks: safety” (pp. 29-54) http://www.gwu.edu/~art/Temporary_SL/177/pdfs/Jacobs Part 1.pdf.

Waarom lezen? In deze klassieker laat Jane Jacobs zien dat surveillance een intrinsiek onderdeel is van stedelijke interacties, een manier om met vreemden te kunnen samenleven. Dit nuanceert de instinctieve reflex dat surveillance iets inherent ‘slechts’ zou zijn.

- Mann, S., Nolan, J., & Wellman, B. (2003). Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments. Surveillance & Society, 1(3), 331-355. http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles1(3)/sousveillance.pdf.

Waarom lezen? Het concept sousveillance is bedacht om aan te geven dat hedendaagse vormen van surveillance niet langer institutioneel zijn maar veeleer gedistribueerd en peer-to-peer. Dit artikel ziet sousveillance als mogelijkheid tot ‘empowerment’ van onderaf.

Optioneel (aanbevolen i.v.m. tussentijdse opdracht 2):

- Deleuze, G. (1990). Postscript on the Societies of Control. L’autre journal. Retrieved from http://www.nadir.org/nadir/archiv/netzkritik/societyofcontrol.html.

Waarom lezen? In dit korte artikel signaleert Deleuze de opkomst van een nieuw type controle. Dit is de opvolger van Foucault’s institutionele surveillance in ‘disciplinary societies’.

- Solove, Daniel (2005) “Of Privacy and Poop: Norm Enforcement Via the Blogosphere”. (June 30, 2005). http://balkin.blogspot.com/2005/06/of-privacy-and-poop-norm-enforcement.html.

- Krim, Jonathan (2005) “Subway Fracas Escalates Into Test Of the Internet’s Power to Shame”. In: The Washington Post (July 7, 2005). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/06/AR2005070601953.html.

Waarom lezen? Deze korte online artikeltjes over sousveillance als nieuwe schandpaal biedt een mooi contrast met de empowerment-stelling van Mann et al.

week5 – Mediakunst en stedelijke ervaring

- Tuters, M., & Varnelis, K. (2006). Beyond Locative Media. http://networkedpublics.org/locative_media/beyond_locative_media.

Waarom lezen? In dit artikel wordt een aantal ‘locative media’ projecten besproken, kunst die gebruik maakt van GPS locatie-bepaling om ruimtelijke ervaringen te ‘mappen’.

- Benjamin, W. (2008). The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility (second version). In M. W. Jennings, B. Doherty, T. Y. Levin & E. F. N. Jephcott (Eds.), The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility, and other writings on media(pp. 19-55). Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. http://www.arts.rpi.edu/century/nmt11/Benjamin%20Art%20in%20Age%20of%20Its%20Reproducability.pdf.

Waarom lezen? Dit is een klassieke tekst over de opkomst van het elektronische kunstwerk en de verschuiving in stedelijke ervaring.

- Paul, C. (2008). Digital art (2nd ed.). London ; New York: Thames & Hudson. (pp. 216-237) “Technologies of the future: Mobile and locative media”.

Waarom lezen? Dit hoofdstuk biedt een overzicht en bespreking van een aantal locatieve media kunstprojecten.

Video’s (te vertonen tijdens werkcollege):

- Mark Shepard – Sentient City Survival Kit (5 min.) http://survival.sentientcity.net.

Waarom zien? Middels hypothetische ontwerpinterventies poogt Shepard de discussie rondom stedelijke technologieën aan te zwengelen en publiek te maken. Dit is tevens een goede voorbereiding voor de eindopdracht.

[afhankelijk van de tijd]

- Dunne & Raby over ‘critical design’ (7 min.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bns4qcRRYY.

- RedSheep – Critique on Critical Design (5 min.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FTTamBXo_w

week6 – Urban play & gamification

- Licoppe, C., & Inada, Y. (2010). Locative media and cultures of mediated proximity: the case of the Mogi game location-aware community. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28(4), 691-709. http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=d13307.

Waarom lezen? In dit artikel bespreken de auteurs hoe de Japanse locatieve game Mogi de ervaring van sociale nabijheid bemiddeld via de connectie met fysieke plaats.

- McGonigal, J. (2010). Gaming can make a better world. TED Talk. http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html. (20 min.).

Waarom zien? McGonigal is een van de voorvechters van het toepassen van game-principes op problemen uit het ‘echte leven’.

- Juul, Jesper (2011) “Gamification Backlash Roundup”. Blogpost op: http://www.jesperjuul.net/ludologist/gamification-backlash-roundup (+ blog comments!)

Waarom lezen? Game-onderzoeker Jesper Juul geeft hier een overzicht van recent werk over ‘gamification’. De comments op zijn blog zijn een waardevolle aanvulling en een voorbeeld hoe een online discussie van behoorlijk academisch niveau zich ontwikkelt.

Optioneel:

-Debord, Guy-Ernest (1956, 1958), “A User’s Guide to Détournement” + “Theory of the Dérive”. Te vinden op http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/index.htm.

Waarom lezen? De Situationisten zijn invloedrijk gebleken voor latere mediakunst en speltheorie. Voor hen was spel een subversieve tactiek. De teksten bieden een interessant tegenwicht aan ‘gamification’, waarbij spel voor heel andere doeleinden het alledaagse leven ingetrokken wordt.

- Bogost, Ian (2011) “Gamification is bullshit”. Blogpost op: http://www.bogost.com/blog/gamification_is_bullshit.shtml (+ blog comments!)

Waarom lezen? Game-onderzoeker Ian Bogost neemt provocatief stelling (maar slaat hij niet door?)…

- Chaplin, Heather (2011) “I Don’t Want To Be a Superhero: Ditching reality for a game isn’t as fun as it sounds”. Blogpost op: http://www.slate.com/id/2289302/pagenum/all.

Waarom lezen? Prima omschrijving van ‘gamification’, plus enkele discussiepunten:

“The basic idea arises from how engaged people are when they play games, even if they’re doing mundane things …. If we make the world more like a game, the thinking goes, we can harness all that energy to solve real-world problems.”

week7 – e-Participatie en co-design: stedelijk ontwerp met nieuwe media

- Vajjhala, S. (2005). Integrating GIS and participatory mapping in community development planning. Presented at 25th Annual ESRI User Conference, San Diego, CA, July 25–29. http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc05/papers/pap1622.pdf.

Waarom lezen? Vajjhala onderzoekt hoe ‘participatory mapping’ bewoners een stem geeft in het plannen van hun leefomgeving. Hierbij richt ze zich vooral op hoe mensen leven i.p.v. uitsluitend waar ze leven.

- Gordon, E., Schirra, S., & Hollander, J. (2011). Immersive planning: a conceptual model for designing public participation with new technologies. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 38(3), 505-519. http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=b37013.

Waarom lezen? De auteurs beschrijven hoe digitale media – met name social media, mapping en videogames – een rol kunnen spelen in het plannen van steden met een participerende rol voor burgers.

- Shepard, M. (Ed.). (2011). Sentient city: ubiquitous computing, architecture, and the future of urban space. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Waarom lezen? Shepard is opgeleid als architect en stelt de vraag hoe deze professie de invloed van nieuwe media in het stedelijk domein kan incorporeren.

Optioneel:

- Blogpost “Beyond the ‘smart city’” : http://urbanscale.org/2011/02/17/beyond-the-smart-city/

Waarom lezen? Dit is een kritiek op het ‘smart city’ paradigma dat sterk in opkomst is. Steden en technologiebedrijven (o.a. IBM, Cisco, HP, Philips en Fraunhofer) gaan samenwerkingen aan om stedelijke processen efficiënter te organiseren. Sensor- en netwerktechnologieën helpen om energie- en watervoorziening, transport en logistiek, en lucht- en milieukwaliteit te meten en optimaliseren. De hoop is dat hiermee de kwaliteit van leven vooruit gaat.

Virtueel Platform commissioned Martijn de Waal and me (The Mobile City) to do a study about the ways media technologies and e-culture can help to design livable and lively cities.

In this study we present “ownership” as an alternative design approach. In today’s cities, our everyday lives are increasingly shaped by digital media technologies. How can we engage these technologies to design for cities where citizens feel they belong, where they feel the city belongs to them as well, ands where they have the power to act on communally shared issues? In short: how can digital media aid in strengthening a sense of ownership among urbanites?

With ownership we mean the extent to which urbanites share a sense of belonging and responsibility for their urban environment, and engage in collective issues. Typically, complex urban issues are not ‘owned’ by a single party but commons questions that involve multiple stakeholders and require collective forms of governance.

In the study we propose to address complex urban issues through the lens of ‘ownership’. We signal three interrelated promising developments: the creative (re)use of digital data as a new resource (data-commons), do-it-yourself urban design based on collaborative principles of online culture, and reaching and activating new networked publics through digital media. Three actual cases from the Netherlands are described, followed by a series of reflections and recommendations.

At the moment the report is still in Dutch only.

More information & free download of the report >>

In February 2012 The Mobile City in collaboration with Virtueel Platform and other partner organization will organize an international event around this theme. We have already posted a call for an internship position to collaborate in this event. Stay tuned!

Sept 14 2011 Amsterdam.
Session during PICNIC 2011 “Future Cities: Designing for Ownership”

First, at PICNIC this year I’ll present a fresh new study about ‘Ownership in the Hybrid City’ that I’ve done together with Martijn de Waal. The study was commissioned by Virtueel Platform. More about this study (and the international event we are planning in its wake) soon at The Mobile City website.

More information >>

Sept 20 2011 Istanbul
Session during ISEA 2011 “Beyond Locative: Media Arts after the Spatial Turn”

After PICNIC I rapidly move on to Istanbul for the ISEA 2011 symposium, where I’ll be in a session together with Marc Tuters, Tristan Thielmann, and Mark Shepard, to talk about the future of locative media.

More information >>

Sept 22 – Nov 3 2011 Utrecht
Lecturing course “The Media City”, Utrecht University

Just back from ISEA, I will start teaching a course that I have been developing as part time lecturer New Media Studies, Utrecht University. It is a totally new program for an existing bachelor II course, called “new media in the current debate” (the course is in Dutch). I have chosen to take ‘the media city’ as an umbrella theme. A fine group of guest lecturers will be giving talks. This is how the course looks in a nutshell:

week1, Sept 22 – Introduction (Michiel de Lange)

week2, Sept 29 – ‘Hybrid space’: the relation between digital and physical space (Eric Kluitenberg)

week3, Oct 6 – New media and urban publicness (Martijn de Waal)

week4, Oct 13 – Privacy & surveillance in the media city (Sander Flight)

week5, Oct 20 – Media art and the urban experience (Annet Dekker)

week6, Oct 27 – Urban play & gamification (Kars Alfrink)

week7, Nov 3 – eParticipation and co-design: designing cities with new media (Carl Lens)

Sep 1 2011 ->
Research project “Mobile Learning”

This academic year I will also devote one day per week to the research project in progress about “Mobile Learning”, joining several of my colleagues at the Center for the Study of Digital Games and Play, at Utrecht University, and mobile story-telling platform 7scenes.

More information >>

In Divining a Digital Future (2011), computer scientist Paul Dourish (Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine) and cultural anthropologist Genevieve Bell (Intel Interaction and Experience Research Lab) again team up in an attempt to marry ethnography with ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) research. The book heavily builds on some of their previous collaborative work. Dourish & Bell propose to develop “a ‘ubiquitous computing of the present’ that takes the messiness of everyday life as a central theme” (4). Their scope embraces the far ends of mythology, the cultural ideal-narratives that shape ubicomp’s research agenda, and messiness, the complex and contested realities of how people actually use and interpret everyday technologies.

Continue reading >>

Martijn and I have been working on a major redesign of The Mobile City website. Not only does this bring a much tighter interface, it also involves a reorientation of what we want to do with The Mobile City in the future.

On the About us page, we more clearly position ourselves as an organization that continues to actively participate in the debates about the new urban condition, and define in what ways we can contribute through our non-profit activities. In addition, we are now more actively bringing our expertise to the market. We added a page called Our services, where we explain how we might be of assistance to your organization.

Go check it out here >>

Download the presentation >> (PDF 1.4 MB)

Chris McDowall on the “Seeing Data” section of SciBlogs reports: Mapping a Day in the Life of Twitter. He notes that Jakarta glows brightly 24 hours, day and night…

(see full animation at SciBlogs)

Mark Graham on Floating Sheep notes:

As Chris points out, we can see Indonesia (particularly Java) producing an unexpected amount of content. Well, at least unexpected until we realise that Twitter is enormously popular in Indonesia. The country apparently has world’s highest proportion of internet-users on Twitter.

From the CNN article linked to:

Indonesia is the world’s fourth largest user of Facebook and has been dubbed the most Twitter-addicted nation on the planet by online research firm comScore. The country beat every other nation in the percentage of online Twitter users. […] Most people use their mobile phones to access the web.

(via Floating Sheep)

Aurigi, A., & De Cindio, F. (2008). Augmented urban spaces: articulating the physical and electronic city. Aldershot: Ashgate.
(The introduction is a free read from the website).

This book from 2008 had been on my desk for quite some time but finally I got around to do a review. It is listed in a recent overview of a decade of writing about digital cities. Three years earlier, one of the editors Alessandro Aurigi wrote the monograph “Making the Digital City: The Early Shaping of Urban Internet Space”.

The main question of this edited book is how enriched media environments, ubiquitous computing, mobile and wireless communication technologies, and the internet are modifying city living and the fruition of urban spaces. A familiar stance by now, the editors argue against a clear boundary between the digital and the physical:

“in the augmented city, ‘virtual’ and ‘physical’ spaces are no longer two separate dimensions, but just parts of a continuum, of a whole. The physical and the digital environment have come to define each other and concepts such as public space and “third place”, identity and knowledge, citizenship and public participation are all inevitably affected by the shaping of the reconfigured, augmented urban space” (p. 1).

The stated aim to strive for an interdisciplinary “contamination of perspectives” is attested to by the fact that Aurigi is an architect/urban planner and De Cindio a computer scientist. The contributing authors are a mixed bunch in both disciplinary and cultural background, although most have an academic affiliation. Architects, urbanists and geographers go side by side with new media and information- and communication researchers. Contributors hail from (or work in) Italy, USA, Canada, Brazil, Australia, South Korea, UK, and South Africa.

The book is structured in three main sections: Augmented Spaces, Augmenting Communities, and Planning Challenges in the Augmented City. I will not discuss all contributions but pick out those that I found most interesting.

Continue reading on The Mobile City blog >>

Download >> (PDF, 360 KB)

Tuesday November 16 2010 I successfully defended my PhD dissertation “Moving Circles: mobile media and playful identities”. I am now dr. Michiel de Lange . A big thanks to my paranymphs: Daan de Lange (left) and Martijn de Waal (right).

You can download “Moving Circles” here (pdf, 3.6 MB).

Versions suitable for e-readers are available as well:

* epub (epub file, 1.8 MB)
* epub – zipped (zipped epub file, 1.8 MB)
* mobi (mobi file, 1.8 MB)
* mobi zipped (zipped mobi file, 1.6 MB)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Netherlands License [note: this is a different license from the general content of this blog].

Beste allemaal,

Op dinsdag 16 november 2010 om precies 13:00 zal ik mijn proefschrift verdedigen, met de titel “Moving Circles: mobile media and playful identities”. Hierin staat de vraag centraal hoe mobiele mediatechnologieën onze identiteiten op speelse wijze beïnvloeden.

Jullie zijn van harte uitgenodigd om de ceremonie bij te wonen. Na afloop is er een receptie.

wanneer: dinsdag 16 november 2010 om 13:00 (wees ajb op tijd, de deuren zijn anders gesloten)
waar: Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, campus Woudestein, Senaatszaal (gebouw A, verdieping boven de Aula)
bereikbaarheid: openbaar vervoer (OV chipkaart nodig in Rotterdam); automobiel/fiets (Google Maps)

De verdediging zal hoofdzakelijk in het Nederlands gebeuren.

Promotoren:
Prof.dr. J. de Mul
Prof.dr. V. Frissen
Prof.dr. J. Raessens

Overige leden:
Prof.dr. J. Jansz
Prof.dr. J. Katz
Dr. S. Aupers

———
Dear all,

On Tuesday November 16 2010 at 13:00 sharp I will defend my PhD dissertation, entitled “Moving Circles: mobile media and playful identities”. It is an inquiry into how mobile media technologies shape our identities in playful ways.

You are cordially invited to attend the ceremony, and join for drinks afterwards.

when: Tuesday November 16 2010, 13:00 (please be on time, doors will be closed…)
where: Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, campus Woudestein, Senate Room (building A, floor above the Aula)
how to get there: public transport (OV chipcard mandatory in Rotterdam); car (Google Maps)

The defense will be mainly in Dutch.

Promotors:
Prof.dr. J. de Mul
Prof.dr. V. Frissen
Prof.dr. J. Raessens

Members of the committee:
Prof.dr. J. Jansz
Prof.dr. J. Katz
Dr. S. Aupers

At last and alas, the end is getting in sight. I have become progressively more silent on this blog, as I was busy finishing my PhD dissertation, and doing other things, like writing/curating/organizing for The Mobile City. I am just back from Shanghai, China, where Martijn and I have been organizing an event about urban design and the hybrid city (in cooperation with Virtueel Platform). More about this soon on The Mobile City’s weblog.

The table of contents of the dissertation is as follows:

Table of Contents

List of figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction. Identity, mobile media, and play
i. Identity and the mobile phone: in search of another mediation
ii. Research question, arguments, and aims
iii. Approach and outline

1. Setting the stage: mobile media, narrative identity, and play
1.1 Understanding mobile media technologies

1.1.1 Four dimensions of mobile media

1.1.2 Approaches to the relation between technology and identity

1.1.3 What is ‘mobile’ about mobile media?

1.2 The storytelling self: narrative identity

1.2.1 Idem and ipse identity

1.2.2 Threefold mimesis

1.2.3 Narrative identity: character and promise

1.3 In search of play

1.3.1 Play and games: the classics

1.3.2 Game, play, playability and playfulness

1.3.3 Communicative play

1.3.4 Play as mediating metaphors: life as play

1.4 Connecting media and play

1.4.1 Media ambiguities

1.4.2 Pleasure, humor, and joking

1.4.3 Media as playful learning spaces

1.5 Conclusion: outline of the play framework

2. Entering the stage: mobile media and modernity in Jakarta

2.1 Handphone mania in Indonesia

2.2 The shaping of modernity in urban Jakarta

2.2.1 Jakarta’s metropolitan setting

2.2.2 Jakarta as the center of the modern nation

2.2.3 Unity in diversity?

2.3 From old media to new media: a short media history of Indonesia

2.3.1 From old media…

2.3.2 …To new media

2.3.3 Physical nodes of new media

2.3.4 New media’s new modernity

2.4 The ‘production’ of the handphone

2.4.1 Market and numbers

2.4.2 Wartel as precursors to mobile telephony

2.4.3 CDMA technology: bridging high-tech and low-tech

2.4.4 The ‘design’ of the mobile phone

2.5 Conclusion: four play levels

3. Playing the stage: mobile media, mobility and identity in Jakarta

3.1 From gengsi to gaul: how to become a proper handphone user

3.1.1 Handphone gengsi

3.1.2 Handphone gaul

3.2 Three handphone mobilities

3.2.1 Corporeal mobility

3.2.2 Socio-economic mobility

3.2.3 Imaginative mobility

3.3 Moving forward: contesting modernities

3.3.1 Conceptualizing place: locality and the global

3.3.2 Spatializing identities

3.3.3 Contesting mobile media modernity

3.3.4 Reconciling differences

3.4 Conclusion: four play types

4. Locating the media: mobile media and urban plays

4.1 In search of locative media

4.1.1 Location-based technologies

4.1.2 Locative media practices

4.1.3 Locative media classification

4.2 The city and the media

4.2.1 What is a city? Three approaches

4.2.2 The media city, or the death of the city?

4.2.3 Mobile media as interfaces to hybrid space

4.2.4 Why the city?

4.3 Bliin: A locative playground in hybrid space

4.3.1 A playground for boundary play

4.3.2 Playing with spatiotemporal boundaries

4.3.3 Playing with social boundaries

4.3.4 Playing with boundaries of the self

4.3.5 One more thing: the end of serendipity?

4.4 Conclusion: playing the boundaries

5. Playing the media: the playful qualities of mobile media

5.1 Play on the mobile

5.1.1 Casual games

5.1.2 Pervasive games

5.1.3 Mobile play interfaces

5.2 Play with the mobile

5.2.1 Toys

5.2.2 Mobile agôn: mastery, competition and pleasure

5.2.3 Mobile alea: fate, chance, and surprise

5.2.4 Mobile mimicry: creativity, pretense, fun; and the conditional order

5.2.5 Mobile ilinx: disorientation, thrill-seeking, and escape

5.3 Play through the mobile

5.3.1 From Kula to mobile gifting

5.3.2 Types of mobile gifts

5.3.3 Differences between old and new gifting

5.4 Play by the mobile

5.4.1 Tyrannies of choice and speed; colonization of private and public life

5.4.2 New power mechanisms: from surveillance to sousveillance, identity profiling

5.4.3 Ontological doubt and ludification: between cynicism and engagement

5.5 Conclusion: conditional play

6. Conclusion. Playing the self: narrative and playful identities

6.1 What narrative does not tell: play critique of narrative identity theory

6.1.1 Narrative’s closed circularity and sedentary ethics

6.1.2 Narrative’s simplified view of culture

6.1.3 Narrative’s neglect of spatiality and becoming

6.1.4 From narrative reference and representation to playful conditional performances

6.2 The story, the mobile, and the play: linking narrative and playful identities

6.2.1 Play1: prefiguring life as play and game

6.2.2 Play2: configuring life as play and game

6.2.3 Play3: reconfiguring life as play and game

Literature

Replay (Nederlandstalige samenvatting)

Curriculum vitae

Dutch Cultural Centre, Shanghai August 16-17 2010

Organized by The Mobile City and Virtueel Platform, in cooperation with Shanghai eArts, V2_, Cybercity Ruhr and Dynamic City Foundation.

Extended background information on ‘Designing the Hybrid City’: http://www.themobilecity.nl/adaptation/

Download the Call for Participation ‘Designing the Hybrid City’ (PDF)

As part of Adaptation, The Mobile City and Virtueel Platform organize ‘Designing the Hybrid City’. This event takes place in Shanghai on August 16-17 and focuses on the role of digital media and technologies in urban design

Mobile and wireless media, as well as technologies that can sense and react to what is happening around them, increasingly shape our urban environment and turn our cities into ‘hybrid cities’. What does this mean for urban design? How should we deal with this emerging relation between new media technologies and the city? Which approaches have already proven successful? Which experiments have the most promise? What can different disciplines involved in urban, media and interface design learn from each other? And how is the process of urban design itself changing?

Read more at The Mobile City website >>

Saturday 20th March 2010 from 16:00 − 18:00 I will moderate the session “Food and Global Mobility” at the ElectroSmog Festival for sustainable immobility. The venue is De Balie, Amsterdam (Google Maps). Entry is free.

This is the program:

What does food mean for us today? There is a growing understanding that food is not only a fuel to keep our bodies working, a source of pleasure, and for some also a source of income. It is also an important link between us and our environments, natural and social, local and global. More and more people are trying to rethink our relationships with the world through food and different forms of engagement with it. The issue of sustainability in the age of hyper-mobility is one of the most urgent ones. Questions on the table can be different as well as answers to them. Should we reduce global food mobility and start buying more local products? But what then about farmers and communities in the developing countries for whom supplying us with fruits and vegetables is of great economic significance? What exactly would we like to know about the pre-shelf life of our food in order to make an informed responsible choice? How can we access this information? What alternative ideas for sustainable food strategies are out there? Is urban farming a promising way to reconnect to your food? And what does it actually mean – “sustainable food strategies”?

This panel will bring together people involved in practical and theoretical research related to sustainable food strategies. The idea is to present and discuss highly diverse perspectives on the issue where environmental, social, ethical, technological, scientific and aesthetic aspects can be interrelated in an interesting, insightful, creative, and even challenging way.

Speakers are in the session are:

1) Toine Timmermans (program manager sustainable food chains of Wageningen UR) – www.fbr.wur.nl/UK (see his proposed presentation here)

2) Hugo Hooijer (Fairfood) – www.fairfood.org

3) Esther Polak (locative media artist) – http://nomadicmilk.net/?page_id=2

4) Hernani Dias (“Refarm the City” project) – www.refarmthecity.org

5) Frank van der Hoeven (Associate Professor, Chair of Urban Design at Delft University of Technology) – http://urbandesign.bk.tudelft.nl

How can architects relate to digital media?

The Mobile City keynote at the ‘Day of the Young Architect’: outcomes and further thoughts

written by Michiel de Lange & Martijn de Waal

Introducing the main questions

What do developments in digital media have to do with architecture? And how should architects and urbanists relate to developments in new media? The Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) and Royal Institute of Dutch Architects (BNA) invited The Mobile City to address that question for the yearly ‘Day of the Young Architect’, on November 7th 2009 in the NAi in Rotterdam. This day was themed ‘the virtual’, and was organized as part of the overarching ‘connectivity’ cluster during the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR).

We gladly accepted this challenge, since this very issue was one of the main reasons we founded The Mobile City two years ago. After all, as the boundaries between physical and digital spaces blur, this should have profound consequences not only for new media developers but also for those professionals who traditionally deal with physical spaces. We surely did not expect this to be already obvious for most architects. But the fact that only half of the audience raised their hands when asked by moderator JaapJan Berg whether architects should deal with digital media in their profession showed there is still some way to go.

This report contains the main argument of our talk. But it also presents some additional reflections, and is an attempt to take our argument further than we did at the NAi/BNA day. We address the following questions: what position can architects, planners and urbanists take in their design profession vis-a-vis new media? Why should they bother with new media in the first place? What are the challenges they face? And what are future directions and chances for these professions?

In answering these questions, we make a strong plea for an attitude of ‘critical engagement’. This posits architects should neither ignore nor completely embrace digital media. Rather we would urge them to think of themselves as designers who primarily shape social processes, and only second as designers who shape spatial forms. Which social processes underly new commissions? What kind of activities, social interactions or exclusions should a new project encourage or discourage? How can these be shaped through spatial forms? And what roles do digital media play in this? We think architects shouldn’t just build an urban screen just because you can, or the Kunsthaus in Graz has one too. Rather they should start by asking: what kind of social processes do we want to provoke or hope to avoid? Can an urban screen indeed contribute to these processes or will it disturb them? What other disciplines do we need to invite to the table to meaningfully program an urban screen so that it goes beyond mere window dressing and indeed enhances the project?

Read more at The Mobile City weblog >>

On December 14th 2009 De Balie – an Amsterdam-based center for culture and politics – organized an evening about old and new cartographies. Participants were Ferjan Ormeling (Emeritus Professor Cartography, Faculty of Geographical Sciences, Utrecht University), Henk van Houtum (Associate Professor of Geopolitics and Political Geography, Head of the Nijmegen Centre for Border Research), Maarten Keulemans (science journalist), Jelle Reumer (director Natural Museum Rotterdam, Special Professor at Utrecht University), Lucas Keijning (NEMO science center), and me. The evening was lead by Volkskrant journalist Martijn van Calmthout. The evening was set up as a prelude to the presentation of a new world map the day after in The Hague. From the announcement:

We have been making maps for centuries, to establish territorial borders or mark safe routes. A map is a model of reality, and the terrain of a fascinating branch of science: cartography. Maps represent social and political choices, which start forming their own truths. For example the Persian Gulf is not the Persian Gulf everywhere, the world on its head or with China in the middle all of a sudden looks very different, and maps today seem less complete because of an increasing number of ‘white spots’…

Some of the issues addressed this evening concerned the relation between model and reality, the consequences of new map-making media technologies for society and politics, and – unavoidably it seems in such popularizing science discussions – the question whether new developments are good or bad? I was invited to talk about the influence of mobile and locative media and cartographic representations.

Cartographer Ferjan Ormeling started the evening with an overview of cartography as a professional scientific discipline. He defined cartography as “the transmission of spatial information for decision-making”. In a few slides he walked through cartographic history, mainly from a western perspective as the attempt to explore and chart unknown territories, with ensuing overseas trade and later colonization in its wake. Some of the interesting topics he touched upon included the fact that cartography is always subjective and culturally determined. Dutch maps for instance often leave out ditches because they are everywhere, whereas in Belgium they are included on maps. The world maps we know today are clearly Euro-centric, placing other territories in the periphery of Europe. Maps were hugely important for an upcoming sense of nationalism (a point made by Benedict Anderson in his well-known work “Imagined Communities” 1991). Nation-states were now drawn in monochrome colors, clearly separating them from their neighbors. Further, names on maps are often surrounded by controversy. For example in the 1970s attempts were made to modernize the spelling of Dutch town and city names. This met with fierce opposition from local government, because this meant some places would lose their name-based exclusivity (Veghel sounds more chic than Veggel, ditto for Wijchen – Wijgen). Map-making therefore always involves selection, manipulation, and generalization. What is displayed? What is left out? Where are borders drawn? What is on the map and what lies outside of the map? Ormeling closed his talk by assessing the relevance of new technologies like Google Maps. Here it became interesting, since Ormeling tenaciously clung to the idea of the unique professional expertise of cartographers. While digital technologies certainly are useful, Ormeling argued, the role of cartographers remains important because they are the ones who “fill in” these satellite images, and “give meaning” to those satellite views. Sure, there are interesting attempts by amateurs to engage map-making (such as Openstreetmap). But there are lots of things professionals can and amateurs can’t do, like accurately mapping a rugged coastline.

Then Henk van Houtum and I joined the discussion. Van Houtum argued new geographic technologies like TomTom and Google Maps turn all of us into geographers. But very uncritical geographers. We unwittingly feed all kinds of information to search engines. Van Houtum worries about the loss of personal autonomy as we are surrender ourselves to various digital search and control systems. But on the more positive side, new technologies enable far more people to engage in place-making and representing spatial knowledge. The old monopoly of mapmaking by geographers under the auspice of the nation-state is crumbling, and that is a good thing.

I argued that under the influence of mobile and locative media, cartography has changed from being a predominantly geographical medium in which the representation of space and place is central, to a social medium in which online social networking acquires a cartographic element. Our mediated social relations are now being ‘rooted’ in physical places. A good example of such a locative social network is Bliin, a project by Selene Kolman, who was in the audience, and Stef Kolman.

This has in part been a response to our perception of the internet as placeless, and broader social and spatial shifts often grouped under the name ‘globalization’. Further, New technologies offer people the opportunity to write space and place with their own experiences (e.g. by ‘geotagging’ places), rather than just reading the maps made by others (see e.g. Greenfield & Shepard about “read/write urbanism” p. 12-13). This means cartography is no longer the prerogative of professionals but indeed, as Henk van Houtum said, we have all become geographers. Already in 1946 geographer J.K. Wright proposed in front of the Association of American Geographers that the earth had been largely mapped by conventional geographical method. The time had come to map our earth all over again. Wright called upon geographers to map folk knowledge of places, and more aesthetic experiences of our environments. This would vastly expand the terrain of classic geography to include what Wright called ‘geosophical’ knowledge. Wright would probably have been thrilled to see how his plea is being realized today… A third change is that maps now consist not only of mostly spatial information but also temporal information. The historicity of place as a process is made visible by the range of micro-narratives that are attached to places through locative media. Maps become far more dynamic representations of spatial and temporal knowledge. A nice example is the project Droombeek, by Edward Mac Gillavry, who was also present this evening, and Peter Dubois.

In this project inhabitants of Roombeek, an area of the city Enschede which was destroyed in 2000 by a huge fireworks disaster, recount their memories and stories of their neighborhood. These stories are made available to others by taking a GPS-walk. A fourth change is the database structure of geographical knowledge captured in maps. We can now query items through maps. Most of these searches are about simple properties like categories of places and proximity, such as finding restaurants nearby. However while we still can’t search for sadness in New York (PDF 2,4 MB; Russell – Headmap Manifesto – p. 31), we are already awfully close.. Fifth, new cartographies alter our subjective experiences of space and place. For instance, locative media can inform a more aesthetic experience of space and mobility. Someone who is working on GPS-based cartography as a new form of landscape painting is Esther Polak, who also joined this evening – just back from a trip to Nigeria. And what about the fact that in many locative media views the ego is the center of the map? You no longer have to first find your position on the map. Rather, the environment revolves around you. Does this literally lead to a more ‘ego-centric’ worldview? Finally, maps are increasingly often used as a way to visualize and transfer increasingly complex datasets. Maps are becoming metaphors to represent information, and for thinking. An organization that has been doing this for while is Informationlab by ‘information architect’ Auke Touwslager, who also attended the evening (yes, good crowd present..). To summarize, under the influence of locative media mapping tends to shift from mostly objectifying representations to highly subjective, from general to thematic representations, and from visualizing topological rather than topographical information. I wanted to raise some more ‘political’ issues of these developments but – alas – time was running short… (I couldn’t even bring in half of the above).

It was interesting to see how the audience, and ‘old school geographer’ Ormeling, reacted to this new media story. Ormeling himself did not feel these developments had much to do with his profession as a cartographer, apart from being handy new instruments. This strikingly parallels the dominant reaction of another professional audience: architects and planners. New media technologies as instruments yes, but investigating the consequences of these technologies for the professional practice itself… no. In the audience, meanwhile, someone wondered in exasperation “this is al very nice but who actually wants to know all the time where their friends are?”. Indeed only one or two people raised their hands. Although the predominantly white middle-aged male audience perhaps might not exactly be representative of very active mobile media users, this question of course is a legitimate one. All talks about new representations of knowledge and new ‘participant audiences’ or ‘networked publics’ in spite, who are “we” (we – the people more or less professionally dealing with geo-locative media) actually representing in our talks and thoughts? The majority of people, at least during this evening, seem very skeptical about these developments. The discussion immediately turned to the pervasive influence of mobile media themselves in everyday life and all sorts of ethical discussions, rather than pausing for a moment to look at media developments and their influence on cartography. Too bad this somewhat fell of radar at the end of the evening. Luckily, columnist Jelle Reumer restored this by evoking the poetics of maps. Looking at maps above all brings up half-forgotten memories of the places one once was and where beautiful or sad things happened. Maps also stir the imagination about places one would perhaps never go. I thought Reumer’s short talk was a nice closure of the evening, which put matters in a broader perspective. Aside from their obvious differences (differences that do matter, as I’ve tried to show here), to what extend does it matter whether such imaginations occur by holding a map made of paper or by looking at a handheld screen?

Maandag 14 december om 20:00 in De Balie is er een kenniscafé over “Hogere kaartenkunde”. Ik zit in het panel en zal het hebben over de invloed van locatieve media op cartografische representaties.

We maken al eeuwenlang kaarten, om landsgrenzen vast te leggen of veilige routes aan te geven. Een kaart is een model van de werkelijkheid, en het terrein van een fascinerende tak van wetenschap: Cartografie.

Kaarten vormen de weerslag van sociale en politieke keuzes, die vervolgens hun eigen waarheid gaan vormen. Zo is de Perzische Golf niet overal in de wereld de Perzische Golf, ziet de wereld er op z’n kop of met China als middelpunt opeens heel anders uit en lijken kaarten tegenwoordig minder compleet te worden door een toenemend aantal ‘witte vlekken’…

Martijn van Calmthout gaat in gesprek met cartograaf Ferjan Ormeling, met Henk van Houtum, hoofd van het Nijmegen Centre for Border Research, Radboud Universiteit en met Michiel de Lange, promovendus aan de faculteit van Wijsbegeerte in Rotterdam.

Zoals elk KennisCafé zijn ook columnisten Maarten Keulemans en Jelle Reumer van de partij.

Het KennisCafé is een coproductie van De Balie, De Volkskrant, KNAW en Science Center NEMO.

Meer info: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=politiek&articleid=327853