build, branded and coded - placemaking in the digital era

Jason Young UM & Yard www.justyard.com @_JasonYoung

Tom Beck Enlighten www.enlighten.com @laughingrobots

#xlabcoded

< the database subject >

< net locality >

< the urban spectator >

< the enormous >

Digital Theorist, Benjamin Bratton asks if it is possible for a single person to come into contact with 1023 discrete objects in one’s lifetime. 1023 is not even every piece of paper one will touch in a lifetime, nor is it equal to every word on every piece of paper. It is more like every molecule of ink in every word on every piece of paper you’ll touch in your life. And this is now, theoretically, an addressable entity.

Digital Hacktivist, Ricardo Dominguez invokes the vastness of digital space in the Zapatista Tribal Port Scan (ZTPS) project. A “port” refers to the over 60,000 software connection points on any computer available for possible connection with other computers on the Internet. While e-mail and the World Wide Web, for example, are connected through specific ports, the remaining ports are available to be “scanned” by any other system for possible connection points. Comparable to other forms of civil disobedience in public spaces off-line, the ZTPS registers a huge collective, politicized presence in digital space.

Syntagmatic dimension : a speaker produces an utterance by stringing together elements one after another, in a linear sequence.   Each of those elements was chosen from a larger set (ie: all the nouns that contain the actual noun selected). This is the paradigmatic dimension.

Let me tell a quick story about my dog, Silo. Silo is my dog. You mess with my dog and you’re messing with me! But Silo is also a dog… a dog among dogs. Acts like a dog! Silo is a database dog.  

“…perhaps we can arrive at new forms of narrative by focusing our attention on how narrative and database can work together. How can narrative take into account the fact that its elements are organized in a database? How can our new abilities to store vast amounts of data, to automatically classify, index, link, search, and instantly retrieve it, lead to new kinds of narratives?”

Lev Manovich from The language of New Media

SELF PORTRAIT

Minjeong An

2008

INTERNET CACHE SELF PORTRAIT

Evan Roth

2012

< data is the new black >

< this is a computer >

< espresso = wired >

< heirloom electronics >

< generative design >

< this is a computer >

< wearable tweets >

< a thermostat that learns >

< franchise space >

< produce context >

< data + place ubiquity >

< they thought you’d notice >

THE US OPEN TOUCHWALL

IBM, OGILVY, HUSH

2012

THE US OPEN TOUCHWALL

IBM, OGILVY, HUSH

2012

SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Rem Koolhaas, OMA

2004

SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Rem Koolhaas, OMA

2004

SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Rem Koolhaas, OMA

2004

SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Rem Koolhaas, OMA

2004

SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Rem Koolhaas, OMA

2004

UK PAVILLION

Thomas Heatherwick Studio

2010

UK PAVILLION

Thomas Heatherwick Studio

2010

UK PAVILLION

Thomas Heatherwick Studio

2010

In “The Man of the Crowd,” Edgar Allen Poe’s narrator sits inside a London coffee shop characterizing people based on their appearance. This passive spectation is abandoned when the narrator encounters a countenance that defies categorization. At this point the narrative leaves the coffee shop and enters the flow of the crowd, following the stranger.  

Paris: A Rainy Day, Gustave Cailebotte 1877

The Catalogue, Chris Oakley 2004

< rendering oneself as public >

< technology taking place >

The database subject is an urban spectator who wants to possess and organize a complex “public” environment into a personalized urban narrative, similar to placing thoughts, actions, memories into folders, accounts and devices. New Media scholar Eric Gordon calls this the “digital possessive”

< www DOT me >

3,332 5.2 x 109 ( ) 21,669,291

4.74

99 BAFM*

*Where BAFM is a variable defined by Google.

< an equation for a new generation >

( )

3,332 5.2 x 109 ( ) 21,669,291

4.74

99 BAFM*

672 MM

( )

< the gangnam style theorem >

PSY

THE BRASSERIE

Diller + Scofidio

2000

THE BRASSERIE

Diller + Scofidio

2000

THE BRASSERIE

Diller + Scofidio

2000

THE BRASSERIE

Diller + Scofidio

2000

TXTUAL HEALING

PAUL NOTZOLD

SINCE 2006

TXTUAL HEALING PAUL NOTZOLD SINCE 2006

NIKE CAMP VICTORY

SKYLAB, HUSH

2012

NIKE CAMP VICTORY

SKYLAB, HUSH

2012

COCA COLA BEATBOX

ASIF KHAN and PERNILAA OHRSTEDT

2012

COCA COLA BEATBOX

ASIF KHAN and PERNILAA OHRSTEDT

2012

“Net Locality is not the product of specific technologies, but it is instead emerging out of a cultural need to contextualize ourselves within a growing network of information.”  

Eric Gordon & Adriana de Souza e Silva From, Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World  

  ARTIFACTS < > MACHINES < > PRODUCTS < > GIZMOS < > SPIMES

< soft, hard, embedded, inscribed, mobile >

< you are here >

< start here >

< end here >

BRAINCOAT PROJECT

Diller + Scofidio

2000

BRAINCOAT PROJECT

Diller + Scofidio

2000

BRAINCOAT PROJECT

Diller + Scofidio

2000

BRAINCOAT PROJECT

Diller + Scofidio

2000

WHAT WAS THERE ENLIGHTEN 2011

WHAT WAS THERE ENLIGHTEN 2011

DATAGROVE

Future Cities Lab

2012

DATAGROVE

Future Cities Lab

2012

DATAGROVE

Future Cities Lab

2012

PERCH INTERACTIVE RETAIL EXPERIENCE 2012

< takeaway 1…2…3… >

Do designers need to become technologists? How do we design “place” given the multitude of contextual layers that now impact our experience of it? Who should lead the conceptualization and creation of “place” in the 21st century?

< takeaway 1…2…3… >

Jason Young UM & Yard www.justyard.com @_JasonYoung

Tom Beck Enlighten www.enlighten.com @laughingrobots

< /script >