On Wednesday 27 June 2018 I gave a short presentation at the NECS2018 conference in Amsterdam. In the presentation I talked about the issue of engaging people with urban data and frictions through alternative approaches to data dashboard design, something I have been interested in for some time. In the talk I briefly spoke about two types of urban dashboards as smart city interfaces: one very efficiency-driven, the other one more artistic and engaging. I then spoke about two more […] Read More
Fresh from the press, this interesting edited volume by colleagues Sybille Lammes, Chris Perkins, Alex Gekker, Sam Hind, Clancy Wilmott and Daniel Evans, called “Time for mapping: Cartographic temporalities”. I have a chapter in the book called “From real-time city to asynchronicity: exploring the real-time smart city dashboard”. In this essay, I pursue the idea of an ‘asynchronous smart city’ (as originally suggested by design researchers Julian Bleecker and Nicolas Nova), using the temporal framework of sociologist Barbara Adam. At stake, I argue, […] Read More
Medialab Katowice published an e-mail interview with me, as part of the Data (for) Culture conference in Katowice at which I spoke in December 2017. Here is the link to the interview on the Medialab Katowice website >> Below the original correspondence (unedited version of the interview): ?ukasz Mirocha (LM): Generally speaking, what is the role of data in the city of 2018? What value has it for different actors: municipalities, citizens, local and non-local businesses? Michiel de Lange (Michiel de Lange): The role of data […] Read More
Recently, the research project ”Designing for Controversies in Responsible Smart Cities” in which I am co-applicant received a NWO grant, as part of the program Smart Culture – Creative Cities. Project lead: Mascha van der Voort. Co-leads: Peter-Paul Verbeek & Michiel de Lange. The mid-sized and centrally located municipality of Amersfoort is building a new Internet of Things infrastructure. A consortium of public and private partners will develop a government+citizen+academic+industry collaboration (a so-called ’quadruple helix’) that allows a wide range of stakeholders to […] Read More
We wrap up the long running The Hackable City project with our partner One Architecture, with – among others – a cahier series targeted at a professional audience. There will also be an edited academic volume that is almost finished: de Lange, Michiel, and Martijn de Waal, eds. 2018, in press. The Hackable City: Digital Media and Collaborative City Making in the Network Society. Singapore: Springer. Cahier #1 introduces our Hackable City-model and explains how it can be used to explore […] Read More
On March 6 and 7 2018, I co-organized the workshop “Critical Making of Frictional Urban Interfaces”, as part of the course Urban Interfaces that I teach together with Nanna Verhoeff. The workshop was a collaboration between Utrecht University’s Media & Culture Studies department (research group [urban interfaces] + the research master program Media, Arts & Performance), and Creative Coding Utrecht, artists Ruben van de Ven (https://rubenvandeven.com) & Cristina Cochior (http://randomiser.info), in partnership with Het Nieuwe Instituut (https://hetnieuweinstituut.nl), and HKU (https://www.hku.nl). ABOUT […] Read More
Together with visiting PhD scholar Delaram Ashtari I organized a small playtest session of urban game Redesire on 20 November 2017 in Utrecht. The game was commissioned by Tessa Peters & Rolf van Boxmeer and designed by We Are Muesli. It is part of a longer-running art/architecture project called Rezone, in which I have collaborated in the past. See announcement below: Invitation playtesting session Redesire: playing urban redevelopment Monday Nov 20 2017, 11:00-13:00 – location Muntstraat 2a, room 1.11, Utrecht University Participation and co-creation with various stakeholders […] Read More
On December 2 2017 I will give a talk at the Data (For) Culture conference in Katowice. The event is organized by Medialab Katowice. About the event: During the conference, experts from Poland and abroad will discuss a number of topics, including: (a) how to combine traditional methods of cultural research with the analysis of large data sets from the web, primarily from social media; (b) how cultural events (official and grassroots) impact on the city’s development; (c) how social media form a networked public […] Read More
Recently I gave a talk (in Dutch) for the Betweterfestival in Tivoli/Vredenburg Utrecht about the increasingly dominant role of data in the ‘smart city’. The talk was called “A Walk in the smart city” (Een wandeling in de slimme stad). The talk was in Dutch. The video of the talk (copyright UU Studium Generale) can be watched here >> Or via Youtube here:
Together with Nanna Verhoeff, Sigrid Merx, and Hira Sheikh, I am organizing this seminar series about Urban Friction. It is part of the research group [urban interfaces] I co-founded with Nanna & Sigrid. Urban processes have been impacted by frictions all throughout history. The remarkable pace and dynamics of the current phase of global urbanization in the age of mediatization, datafication, and pervasive connectivity suggest a new age where insular, political boundaries have come to shift radically. Perhaps to […] Read More
On 24 Oct. 2017, I was the moderator of the conference “A City as Smart as its Citizens”, organized by Het Nieuwe Instituut. The event took place as part of the Dutch Design Week/World Design Event in the former Philips NatLab in Eindhoven. Keynote speakers were Maya Indira Ganesh (Tactical Technology Collective), Usman Haque (Umbrellium), and Drew Hemment (FutureEverything). Also very cool, my first all-female expert panel, on the topic of smart cities and data no less! How do we go beyond the “smart city” […] Read More
Together with colleagues Koen Leurs and Domitilla Olivieri I organized a Lecture and Screening with media artist Tabita Rezaire, on Oct. 5 2017 in Parnassos Utrecht. Tabita Rezaire PCI: Lecture and Screening In this PCI screening, we have the great honour and privilege to have with us the artist Tabita Rezaire, who will introduce, show and discuss her video work for an hour, followed by a 30 minute Q&A session. We end with drinks. The session is titled Decolonial trinity: technologies of the spiritual, […] Read More
For the Betweterfestival on 29 September 2017, I gave a talk about the increasingly dominant role of data in the ‘smart city’. The talk was called “A Walk in the smart city” (Een wandeling in de slimme stad). The talk was in Dutch. See video registration below: Een wandeling in de slimme stad Stel je voor: Je bent vandaag precies op tijd opgestaan dankzij de slimme wekker op je smartphone die in je agenda heeft gezien waar en hoe laat je […] Read More
On Sept. 29 2017 I co-organized a Masterclass with Janet Murray:In a masterclass with the renowned scholar and interaction designer Janet Murray we shall explore how interactive narratives can help to create engaging experiences, and support people’s critical and problem-solving capacities. During the masterclass, students will work on creating a concept and very rough prototype for such an intertactive narrative, under the guidance of Janet Murray and UU staff. The masterclass is part of a collaboration between Utrecht University’s Media […] Read More
As the leader of expertise center Co.Laborations at our department of Media & Culture Studies, I’m setting up and coordinating collaborations with a variety of professional partners, like the Netherlands Film Festival (NFF). Co.Laborations is the Media and Culture Studies department Expertise Centre, based at Utrecht University. Co.Laborations aims to foster partnerships between academia and practitioners in the fields of media and culture. With these partnerships we aim to share our knowledge and expertise to a wider circle of professionals and audiences, and in turn learn from professionals in […] Read More
On 5 and 6 Sept 2017 I was invited to give a talk at the workshop The Right to the Smart City: Citizenship, Civic Participation, Urban Commons and Co-Creation, at Maynooth, as part of Rob Kitchin’s The Programmable City project. Below the video report of the session I was in (session 2: Urban Commons): Here’s the full program of the 2 days: Introduction: Rob Kitchin, The Right to the Smart City. Session 1: Citizenship and the Smart City Katharine Willis (Plymouth, […] Read More
The Mobile City, HvA, UU, and Play the City together organized the two-day International City-Gaming Conference Games for Cities on 20 – 21 April 2017 at Het Nieuwe Instituut. I moderated the event. The Games for Cities programme hosted the first international conference on city-games, with leading ‘city-game’ design experts from around the world together with urbanists and decision makers, exploring the role for play and games in citymaking strategies. City-games are increasingly prevalent in the daily work of policy-makers, regulators, urban designers, smart city […] Read More
The Mobile City, HvA, UU, and Play the City co-organized this workshop session with Eric Gordon, Founding director of Engagement Lab at Emerson College & faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Eric Gordon co-edited the book Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press (2016). Goal of the workshop Through the discussion of a number of texts and accounts of their own experiences, researchers will discuss the concept of civic media as well as appropriate […] Read More
For the journal Architectural Design, we wrote a contribution for the Special Issue: 4D Hyperlocal: A Cultural Toolkit for the Open-Source City. Abstract Can computer hacking have positive parallels in the shaping of the built environment? The Hackable City research project was set up with this question in mind, to investigate the potential of digital platforms to open up the citymaking process. Its cofounders Martijn de Waal, Michiel de Lange and Matthijs Bouw here outline the tendencies that their studies of collaborative […] Read More
Recently I wrote a contribution (in Dutch) for the Agora Magazine special issue about smart cities. In the essay I suggest three alternative imaginaries for smart and social cities: data city, playful city, and maker city. All of these imaginaries have hackability as a central quality. Here’s the scan of the essay. Photo credit (cropped in scan): Victor Wollaert.