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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Sentient City Survival Kit
Mark Shepard
The _Sentient City Survival Kit_ explores the social, cultural and political implications of ubiquitous computing for urban environments. The project consists of a collection of artifacts, spaces and media for “survival” in the near-future “sentient” city.
As computing leaves the desktop and spills out onto the sidewalks, streets and public spaces of the city, information processing becomes embedded in and distributed throughout the material fabric of everyday urban space. Pervasive/ubiquitous computing evangelists herald a coming age of urban information systems capable of sensing and responding to the events and activities transpiring around them. Imbued with the capacity to remember, correlate and anticipate, this “sentient” city is envisioned as being capable of reflexively monitoring our behavior within it and becoming an active agent in the organization of our daily lives.
Few may quibble about “smart” traffic light control systems that more efficiently manage the ebbs and flows of trucks, cars and buses on our city streets. Some may be irritated when discount coupons for their favorite espresso drink are beamed to their mobile phone as they pass by Starbucks. Many are likely to protest when they are denied passage through a subway turnstile because the system “senses” that their purchasing habits, mobility patterns and current galvanic skin response (GSR) reading happens to match the profile of a terrorist.
The project aims to raise awareness of the implications for privacy, autonomy, trust and serendipity in this highly observant, ever-more efficient and over-coded city.
Links: http://survival.sentientcity.net/
As computing leaves the desktop and spills out onto the sidewalks, streets and public spaces of the city, information processing becomes embedded in and distributed throughout the material fabric of everyday urban space. Pervasive/ubiquitous computing evangelists herald a coming age of urban information systems capable of sensing and responding to the events and activities transpiring around them. Imbued with the capacity to remember, correlate and anticipate, this “sentient” city is envisioned as being capable of reflexively monitoring our behavior within it and becoming an active agent in the organization of our daily lives.
Few may quibble about “smart” traffic light control systems that more efficiently manage the ebbs and flows of trucks, cars and buses on our city streets. Some may be irritated when discount coupons for their favorite espresso drink are beamed to their mobile phone as they pass by Starbucks. Many are likely to protest when they are denied passage through a subway turnstile because the system “senses” that their purchasing habits, mobility patterns and current galvanic skin response (GSR) reading happens to match the profile of a terrorist.
The project aims to raise awareness of the implications for privacy, autonomy, trust and serendipity in this highly observant, ever-more efficient and over-coded city.
Links: http://survival.sentientcity.net/
The Sentient City Survival Kit was developed at V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media as part of a joint artist residency with Eyebeam Art+Technology Center. It is a project of Creative Capital and is sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University at Buffalo. Additional support provided by the Network Architecture Lab @ Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
Mark Shepard (US) is an artist, architect and researcher. His current research investigates the implications of mobile and pervasive media, communication and information technologies for architecture and urbanism. His recent book, _Sentient City: ubiquitous computing, architecture and the future of urban space_, is published by the Architectural League of New York and MIT Press. He is an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.