MEDIACITY: notebook

The New Surveillance – A critical analysis of research and methods in Surveillance Studies

A two-day International Conference

hosted at the Centre for Technology and Society of the Technical University Berlin
Thursday November 30th and Friday December 1st

In recent years a new field of social research has developed that focuses on the spreading applications of surveillance technologies in everyday life such as video monitoring, biometrics, GIS, drug testing and so forth. The emerging, interdisciplinary, field of Surveillance Studies drawing on the disciplines of Sociology, Psychology, Human Geography, Cultural Studies, Political Science, Criminology, Organisational Studies and Socio-legal Studies has started to unravel the consequences of the emerging Surveillance Societies. Existing research has started to:

* identify the potential of the new technologies,
* explore the organisational context of surveillance,
* examine the practice of surveillance in a diverse set of contexts.

Despite this there remains a range of methodological issues surrounding the conduct of the empirical research on the new surveillance technologies. For instance, the current trend to integrate many sources of digital data, from video to fingerprints and DNA creates a surveillance assemblage, which gives ascendancy to the database. As a consequence, such systems are relatively opaque and require a high degree and variety of knowledge to unravel their meaning and their impact. This necessitates an analysis that begins with the socio-technical construction of databases and ends with the consequences in real-word interventions in various social contexts. What constitutes an adequate evaluation in this context is highly contested. Is it one that stresses issues of technical efficiency and the narrow concerns of policy makers? Or is one that seeks to understand the wider issues involved, including the social cultural practices that give rise to particular outcomes. And what is about the possible unintended consequences of the spread of the new technologies in terms of differentiation, categorisation and social exclusion? Should this be part of the evaluative agenda? And of course, should the implications for participation and governance also be considered by the proper domain of evaluation?
In this context the conference will concentrate on the appropriateness of various methodological approaches and theoretical perspectives for the analysis and evaluation of new surveillance technologies. It will focus more on the 'how' rather than the 'if' of the New Surveillance. It seeks to explore the challenges confronting researchers in the face of practices that are increasingly embedded in the 'codes and categorisations' of less than transparent, but none the less social, processes.

Architecture and Situated Technologies

A 3-day symposium bringing together researchers and practitioners from art, architecture, technology and sociology to explore the emerging role of "situated" technologies in the design and inhabitation of the contemporary metapolis.

Since the late 1980s, computer scientists and engineers have been researching ways of embedding computational intelligence into the built environment. Looking beyond the model of personal computing, which placed the computer in the foreground of our attention, "ubiquitous" computing takes into account the social dimension of human environments and allows computers themselves to vanish into the background. No longer solely virtual, human interaction with computers becomes socially integrated and spatially contingent as everyday objects and spaces are linked through networked computing.

Today, researchers focus on how situational parameters inform the design of a wide range of mobile, wearable, networked, distributed and context-aware devices. Incorporating an awareness of cultural context, accrued social meanings, and the temporality of spatial experience, situated technologies privilege the local, context- specific and spatially contingent dimension of their use.

Despite the obvious implications for the built environment, architects have been largely absent from this discussion, and technologists have been limited to developing technologies that take existing architectural topographies as a given context to be augmented.

At the same time, to the extent that early adopters of these technologies have focused on commercial, military and law enforcement applications, we can expect to see new forms of consumption, warfare and control emerge.

This symposium seeks to occupy the imaginary of these emerging technologies and propose alternate trajectories for their development.

What opportunities and dilemmas does a world of networked "things" pose for architecture and urbanism? What distinguishes the emerging urban sociality enabled by mobile technologies and wireless networks? What post-optimal design strategies and tactics might we propose for an age of responsive environments, smart materials, embodied interactions, and participatory networks? How might this evolving relation between people and "things" alter the way we occupy, navigate, and inhabit the city? What is the status of the material object in a world privileging networked relations between "things"? How do distinctions between space and place change within these networked media ecologies? How do the social uses of these technologies, including (non-) affective giving, destabilize rationalized "use-case scenarios" designed around the generic consumer?

Through a combination of presentations, discussions, and performative design scenarios organized around the notion of an "encounter" with the city, this symposium will explore how architecture might contribute to the development of situated technologies, and how a critical engagement with these technologies might extend architecture beyond itself.

R E S U R F A C I N G

Resurfacing captures and archives snapshots or moments in the urban cityscape. These moments are evaluated both by the dynamics within the frame and by the behaviour of the audience. The public both explores and evaluates these moments through a tactile interface.

The process of the work and its creation is conceptualized as the interface between interactive media and architecture. The work explores not only space but delves into the complex relationship between space and time.

Walking up to the gallery, we catch a sudden glimpse of ourselves on a large rear-proejection screen that is nestled into a gallery window and visible from the street. In addition to ourselves, we see that the image is multlayered with other street traffic, cyclists, cars and pedestrians. Composed of both static and moving elements, the image becomes a combination of multiple moments in time. Below the screen, we can see a small moving video camera.

International Symposium on Intelligent Environments

As the interaction with intelligent environments becomes more and more a part of our everyday life, their potential to shape, improve and change the wider social, cultural and creative context - the fabric of society - increases dramatically. We want to take a completely fresh look at how Intelligent Environments can be fashioned to fit people's need for creativity, pleasure and care. Our aim is the creation of novel, people-centred applications and concepts that can improve the quality of life for many.

In the upcoming decades information and communication technology (ICT) will not only radically influence the global social eco-system, it will also reshape most of our society and as a consequence affect our cultural, social and everyday life. Computers and other everyday devices continue to become smaller, cheaper, more powerful, omnipresent and diverse and will form intelligent environments at home, on the road or in the city.

The new EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding, has stressed this at her hearing before the European Parliament. Minister Reding said: 'Ultimately, the development of new technologies must be to the benefit of citizens and of their welfare. It is therefore essential to move towards a more people-centred approach where technologies are used by and for citizens. Three aspects are fundamental here: combating the digital divide, stimulating the quality of life and encouraging participation.'

We are inviting leading researchers and governmental institutions to work collaboratively with us on these topics to lay the groundwork for positive changes in the way we do research, develop and ultimately use technology in the future.

Metapolis Course (UC Berkeley)
The city has always been a site of cultural, social and physical transformation, on scales from the most personal to the most collective. However, with the rise of the “metapolis” and the issues it brings with it, 24/7 rush hours, the conversion of public space to commercial space, the rise of surveillance, transnational neighborhoods, polyvocal politics and architecture etc. the contemporary city is weighted down. We can no longer technologically or socially be constrained by something planned and canned, like another confectionary spectacle. We dream of something more, something that can respond to our dreams. Something that will transform with us, not just perform change on us, like an operation. The metapolis requires individual, social and technological interaction.

As the field of wireless and locative technologies matures, this seminar is interested in exploring a more enduring relationship between the physical and cultural multicity and its digital topographies. This seminar asks the question what might an authentic or native digital/physical relationship be? Authentic to whom? How can these be considered within the hybrid space emerging from the interaction between digital and physical practices? This seminar seeks to understand alternative trajectories for digital and wireless technologies while building definitions of place and practice in both physical and digital terms, as well investigating their interaction, influence, disruption, expansion and integration with the social and material practices of our public urban spaces.

This seminar builds on a previous workshop conducted at UBICOMP 2005, “Metapolis and Urban Life” http://www.ubicomp.org/ubicomp2005/calls/callworkshops.shtml, and is open to students from Architecture, Computer Science, Art practice and the i-school who will work in interdisciplinary teams throughout the semester. This seminar will be cross listed in architecture and the Center for New Media, and run as a design research lab, with a focus on the conceptualization, development and prototyping or demonstration of a design proposal, responding to the seminars central set of concerns. Background reading on issues of technology and the city in the first weeks of the semester will be required, and ultimately the class will mount a small exhibition of the design proposals and host guests from the Bay area new media and electronic arts and sciences community including practicing researchers and technologists from the academy and industry for review.

This seminar is a collaboration between Intel Researcher, Eric Paulos (http://berkeley.intel-research.net/paulos/) and Assistant Professor in Architecture, Anthony Burke (http://www.offshorestudio.net/).

Students interested in the seminar should also be aware of proceedings from the ISEA conference in San Jose 7th-13th August, http://01sj.org particularly the “interactive cities” as well as the Interactive City Summit which was held 7-8th August in San Francisco, http://www.urban-atmospheres.net/ICSummit2006/.