2012/11 Martijn de Waal
The City as Interface
About the speaker:
Martijn de Waal is co-founder of The Public Matters, a research office that investigates the role of new media in social life. He's also co-founder with Michiel de Lange of The Mobile City, a think tank and research platform on mobile media and urban design. He's an assistant professor at the UvA and he's also connected to the department of Media Studies. His book 'The City as Interface' will be published next spring by NAi010 Publishers.
About the talk:
Increasingly, we experience the city around us through the interfaces of digital and mobile media. We use them either as an 'experience marker', when we share our experience through social networks, or when others record our presence through all kinds of sensor networks. Alternatively, mobile media are used as 'territory devices' - in the midst of teeming urban life, we use them to carve out spaces of our own.
Taken together, this might dramatically change the shape of urban life. Two scenario's lie ahead. In one, the city becomes an archipel of disconnected islands, each inhabited by its own subculture, ethnic group, or lifestyle. In the second scenario, the numerous social worlds that call the city home, will increasingly start to overlap physically. It is our mobile interfaces that will keep this chaotic world inhabitable, allowing us to pick up those elements relevant to us.
About CreativeMornings:
CreativeMornings is a monthly morning gathering for creative types. Each event includes a 20 minute lecture, followed by a 20 minute group discussion. The gathering begins at 8:30am with the topic presentation starting at 9:00am and everyone taking off for work at 10:00am. Best thing is that CreativeMornings are free of charge! Make sure you get in early and reserve yourself a seat.
