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Conference & Workshop Social Cities of Tomorrow.
Social Cities of Tomorrow is an international conference & workshop on new media & urban design we co-organized in February 2012. Check out the conference website for extensive documentation, a wrap up, reports and videos of the event!
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How to Design for ‘Ownership’ rather than for ‘Smart Cities’
How do we design urban technologies that engage and empower ‘publics’ (groups of people) to act on communally shared issues? That is the main theme of a new study (in Dutch) launched by The Mobile City and Virtueel Platform.
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Review: Aurigi & De Cindio (2008) – Augmented urban spaces
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…
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Why The Economist is wrong about ‘the internet of hype’
Some weeks ago The Economist published an article about ‘the internet of things’, with the provocative title ‘The internet of hype‘. The journalist, (nick)named [?] Schumpeter, was invited to attend the corporate event Fundación de la Innovación in Madrid. He raises a number of critical points against the idea that the internet of things is…
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Dissertation by TMC’s Michiel de Lange for download
Tuesday November 16 2010 Michiel de Lange successfully defended his PhD dissertation “Moving Circles: mobile media and playful identities”. To download the dissertation, go here >>.
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First reports expert meeting ‘Designing the Hybrid City’ published
The first reports of the expert meeting ‘Designing the Hybrid City’ are available now. These reports were written by architect Daan Roggeveen and journalist Michiel Hulshof (Go West project). =edit= Videos of the sessions are now online as well. Audio quality is so-so however, so be warned…
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Mobile phones, social networks and location data: Recognizing the Nuances of Privacy
This weekend the new issue of OPEN will be launched at the Berlin Biennial. “Privacy” is the main theme, and the focus is “not so much on deploring the loss of privacy but on taking the present situation of ‘post-privacy’ for what it is and trying to gain insight into what is on the horizon…
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Some notes on the design of pervasive games
How do you design gaming experiences in the city? What is the role of locative and mobile media in urban games? What is the relation between computer games and the city? Those three questions were addressed at two meetings in Amsterdam a few weeks ago, in which The Mobile City participated. What follows is a…
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Cisco’s Urban Ecomaps and Medialab-Prado’s In the Air: How to move from awareness about environmental problems to action?
Recently I was a panelist at the Electrosmog Festival in Amsterdam. My session was called Hyper-mobility and the urban condition and featured two interesting projects that made use of digital media to attune our increasing mobility to the sustainable development of our cities: Cisco’s Urban Ecomap (part of Connected Urban Development ) presented by Bas Boorsma and In…
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Design Approaches for the 21st Century City
At The Mobile City, we are currently researching the design processes that shape the cities of the 21st century, and bumped into an interesting paradox (also pointed out by others): The experience of our present day city in every day life is increasingly a hybrid one – meaning that it is made up of both…
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Sonic Acts 2010: On the Poetics of Hybrid Space
I just visited an interesting panel on the Sonic Acts 2010 Conference called The Poetics of Hybrid Space. When over here at The Mobile City we talk about Hybrid Space, we usually refer to the work of Adriana de Souza e Silva who in several articles has convincingly argued against the dichotomy between physical or…
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Cartography: the old versus the new? an evening in De Balie
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…
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“How can architects relate to digital media?” TMC keynote at the ‘Day of the Young Architect’
(download as PDF >>) 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…
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Article in Second Nature journal about The Mobile City project and urban gaming
The second issue of the RMIT journal Second Nature is about “Games, Locative & Mobile Media”. I wrote a short article about urban games and their importance for the issues we address with The Mobile City. In this article I discern five possible ‘levels’ to understand urban games: (1) the city is often used as…
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review: Stephen Graham – The Cybercities Reader (2004)
In The Cybercities Reader (2004) Stephen Graham – at that time Professor of Urban Technology in Newcastle – bundles a great number of seminal texts about the intersections of digital media technologies and urban life. Some articles were written especially for this reader. Others were previously published. The book departs from the premisse that “[t]he…
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Interview with Mark Shepard: ‘critical design’, architecture, urbanism and location based media
Mark Shepard is a media architect and researcher. His current research investigates the influence of mobile and pervasive media, communication and information technologies on architecture and urbanism. He is one of the organizers of the 2006 symposium on Architecture and Situated Technologies. This fall, for the Architectural League of New York, he curates the exhibition…
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Digital Cities 6: urban media / urban informatics and different notions of public space
I attended the Digital Cities 6 Workshop this week in State College Pennsylvania (put together by Marcus Foth, Laura Forlano and Hiromitsu Hattori, thanks for that!). The workshop started from the notion that with the advent of urban informatics, it is now possible to collect large collections of data about the behaviour of people within…
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Augmented reality on the mobile: MoMo Amsterdam #11
Mobile Monday #11 themed “Visions on Mobile” took place on June 1 2009 and had some great speakers: Alan More, Jamais Cascio, Andrew Grill, Joe Pine, Howard Rheingold, and Robert Rice – yes, all guys with visions in the mobile world 🙂 Photo by Anne Helmond As MoMo is a kind of trend-watching event, the…
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Storytelling with Locative Media: Michael Epstein’s take on ‘terratives’
A few weeks ago I attended a presentation at the MIT6-conference by Michael Epstein, the CEO of Untravel Media, a Boston-based company that produces location based storytelling media. Or as Epstein himself calls it: terratives – a combination of territory and narrative. Untravel’s portfolio includes terratives for the New England Aquarium and the MIT Campus…
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review: Kevin Lynch – The Image of the City
As part of a new effort of The Mobile City to compile an ever-expanding overview of literature relevant to our themes, I will review this oldie-goldie published in 1960: Kevin Lynch – The Image of the City. I particularly assess its enduring relevance for understanding the current relation between mobile & locative media and the…
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Interview with Adam Greenfield on designing for urban computing
Adam Greenfield is one of the most interesting thinkers on many of themes that we regularly address at The Mobile City. He is head of design direction for service and user-interface design at Nokia, and is currently working on a book called “The City Is Here For You To Use: Urban form and experience in…
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Scott McQuire’s The Media City
I just finished reading the highly interesting book The Media City by Scott McQuire. It is a philosophical approach to the role of media in the experience of the city. I found two insights worth sharing here. The first is that McQuire sees media not as a means of representation, but rather as a technology…
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The Mobile City partner Media Architecture Biennale 2020 “Futures Implied”
The Mobile City is a partner in the Media Architecture Biennale 2020, which will take place in Amsterdam and Utrecht between 23 – 27 November 2020. Stay tuned for more updates in Fall 2019 on our own website, and via mab20.org >>
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Final presentations MA students New Media & Digital Culture project “Cirque du Data”, 31 Oct 2019
How to involve citizens in discussion around the datafication of their city? That’s the main question of the cultural project Cirque du Data, initiated by Utrecht-based data design office CLEVER°FRANKE and city lab RAUM. As part of the methodology course Research Lab 1 that I’m teaching at Utrecht University, we are partaking in the project. On…
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Keynote Michiel de Lange “Beyond Smart Cities Today”, 19 Sept. 2019
On 19 Sept. 2019, I was invited to talk about our research project “Designing for Controversies in Responsible Smart Cities“, at the event Beyond Smart Cities Today, organized by Centre for BOLD Cities. Very well organized and great lineup with – among others – the following speakers: Rob Kitchin (Maynooth University) Ayona Datta (University College London)…
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Launch Special Issue Leonardo Electronic Almanac on “Urban Interfaces” 30 Oct 2019
The [urban interfaces] research group, composed of Nanna Verhoeff, Sigrid Merx and Michiel de Lange, have co-edited a special issue in Leonardo Electronic Almanac, titled “Urban Interfaces: Media, Art and Performance in Public Spaces”. We are currently wrapping up the last tidbits. See the special issue on the LEA website >>. In this collection of essays,…
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New book chapter “The Right to the Datafied City: Interfacing the Urban Data Commons”
Just out, a new chapter in this great looking edited volume: de Lange, Michiel. 2019. “The right to the datafied city: Interfacing the urban data commons.” In The Right to the Smart City, edited by Paolo Cardullo, Cesare Di Feliciantonio and Rob Kitchin, 71-83. Bingley: Emerald. Publication day for ‘The Right to the…
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Call for Conference Contributions “Beyond Smart Cities Today”
Jiska Engelbert at Erasmus University Rotterdam is organizing a very interesting event (18 and 19 September, 2019) at which I will be speaking. See call here: https://www.centre-for-bold-cities.nl/beyond-smart-cities-today. Beyond Smart Cities Today Call for Conference Contributions Conference title Beyond smart cities today When? 18 and 19 September, 2019 Where? …
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2-Year fulltime postdoc vacancy NWO project “Designing for Controversies in Responsible Smart Cities”
Work with me as a postdoc at Utrecht University in this project: Direct link to job description >> Postdoc position in project “Designing for Controversies in Responsible Smart Cities” (1.0 FTE) Description: We are looking for a Postdoc researcher (2 years, fulltime) who has experience and/or affinity with smart cities, datafication, public values, and design.…
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New publication: “CyberParks – The Interface Between People, Places and Technology”
Another new co-edited volume out this year. Available Open Access. Costa, Carlos Smaniotto, Ina Šuklje Erjavec, Therese Kenna, Michiel de Lange, Konstantinos Ioannidis, Gabriela Maksymiuk, and Martijn de Waal, eds. 2019. CyberParks – The Interface Between People, Places and Technology: New Approaches and Perspectives, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. [Available Open Access] This…
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Out now: Open Access edited volume “The Playful Citizen”
Long time in the making but finally available as an Open Access Publication: The Playful Citizen: Civic Engagement in a Mediatized Culture, edited by René Glas, Sybille Lammes, Michiel de Lange, Joost Raessens, and Imar de Vries (Amsterdam University Press) In addition to being one of the editors, the collection consists of a chapter by me called “The playful city:…
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New journal article “Playful civic skills: A transdisciplinary approach to analyse participatory civic games”
Visiting PhD scholar Delaram Ashtari and I wrote a paper “Playful civic skills: A transdisciplinary approach to analyse participatory civic games”, about a playtest session we organized in Utrecht on Nov 20 2017, with the help of Tessa Peters & Rolf van Boxmeer who created the urban planning game Redesire. Abstract Although civic participation is an inseparable part…
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The Hackable City – Open Access edited volume out now!
Just out, and available as Open Acces: The Hackable City: Digital Media and Collaborative City Making in the Network Society, edited by Michiel de Lange and Martijn de Waal (Springer) The book is the result of our long-running NWO-funded project The Hackable City.
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The [urban interfaces] graduate seminar 2018-2019 “The Right to the City & Urban Commons”
![The [urban interfaces] graduate seminar 2018-2019 “The Right to the City & Urban Commons”](http://thehackablecity.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Urban-Friction-2-1030x417.jpg)
2019 [urban interfaces] graduate seminar series at Utrecht University Dates: 12 & 26 February 2019, 12 March (seminars); 19-20 March 2019 (workshop) Location: MCW Lab, Kromme Nieuwegracht 20, Utrecht Organized by: Nanna Verhoeff, Michiel de Lange, Sigrid Merx, and Lotte van der Molen from the [urban interfaces] research group at Utrecht University. ECTS: 4 EC…
