Urban Computing and its Discontents

Urban Computing and Its Discontents
Situated Technologies Pamphlet series launch and panel discussion
Mark Shepard and Adam Greenfield
Friday, December 14
7:00 p.m.
Architectural League
457 Madison Avenue
New York CIty

A reception and panel discussion celebrating the launch of the Situated Technologies Pamphlet series (see below). Mark Shepard and Adam Greenfield, co-authors of Situated Technologies Pamphlet 1: Urban Computing and Its Discontents, will consider how ubiquitous computing may change urban life in this panel discussion launching the series. Additional panelists to be announced.

This fall the Architectural League of New York launches a nine-part publication series–co-edited by Mark Shepard, Omar Khan, and Trebor Scholz–to be published over the next three years–exploring the implications of ubiquitous computing for architecture and urbanism. Born out of the three-day symposium presented by the League, the Center for Virtual Architecture, and the Institute for Distributed Creativity in October 2006, the series will consider how our experience of the city and the choices we make in it are being affected by mobile communications, pervasive media, ambient informatics and other “situated” technologies. How will the possibility of designing increasingly responsive environments alter the way architects conceive of space? What do architects need to know about urban computing and what do technologists need to know about cities? Situated Technologies Pamphlets will be edited by a rotating list of leading researchers and practitioners from art, architecture, technology, and sociology.

Adam Greenfield is a writer, user experience consultant and instructor at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program. Before starting his current practice, Studies and Observations, Adam was lead information architect for the Tokyo office of well-known Web consultancy Razorfish. His clients have included Toyota, Sony, Capgemini, and various agencies of the United States government. Adam has spoken frequently on issues of design, culture, technology and user experience before a wide variety of audiences, including the SXSW Interactive festival, LIFT, the European "Civilizations Numeriques" conference, Microsoft Research's HCI2020 workshop, Aula, and the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. Most recently, he keynoted the 2007 International Conference on Pervasive Computing. His 2006 book Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing, has been acclaimed as “groundbreaking,” “elegant,” and “soulful” by Bruce Sterling, and “gracefully written, fascinating, and deeply wise” by Wired’s Steve Silberman. He lives and works with his wife, artist Nurri Kim, in New York City.

Mark Shepard is an artist, architect and researcher whose cross-disciplinary practice draws on architecture, film, and new media in addressing new social spaces and signifying structures of contemporary network cultures. His research investigates the impact of mobile and pervasive technologies on architecture and urbanism. His current project, the Tactical Sound Garden [TSG] Toolkit, is an open source software platform for cultivating virtual sound gardens in urban public space. It has been presented at museums, festivals and arts events internationally, including the Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, Maryland; Conflux 2006; Brooklyn, New York; ISEA 2006, San Jose, California; SIGGRAPH 2007, San Diego, California; Futuresonic, Manchester, UK; Sonar Festival, Barcelona, Spain; The Electronic Language International Festival - FILE 2007, São Paolo, Brazil; and the Arte.Mov Festival for Mobile Media, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Media Study at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, where he co-directs the Center for Virtual Architecture.


Admission is free for League members and $10 for non-members. AIA and New York State continuing education credits are available.