Urban Computing

Wall

Making space

Poldering system: reclaim space from sea/water

Romans used walls to make very definitive
- x, y access
- cardo: main street: market/commercial
- decumanus (residence)
- forum: main area at 0,0

military and policing of space:
interlocking field of fire: artillery placement for multiple lines of fire
jittery is better for surveillance
thickening of walls: kowloon walled city (demolished in ‘96 before chinese turn over): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City
Reading: City of Darkness
Basic House (1999 by Ruiz): millimeters thick place with mobility

Containment

Berlin (1961-1989)
Israel/Palenstine 2004 : see Banksy’s use of wall
Jersey Barriers: module walls in traffic (used in canalization)

Counter flows, cross flows: equations of control dynamics

Mojo Barrier 1998: made for rock concerts (about 4 feet tall): stabilized by weight in front

Exclusion

can be found objects
graphical semiotics for burying nuclear waste for 20,000 years and

Communication

Lascaux c. 14,000 BC : “I have no doubt that before this there were people ‘getting up’ before this, as it were.” - AG
There is always a sculptural/formal dimension, preexisting
Writing is an act of reading walls
“When you draw a line, it’s not just a line” - AG (a flow is created)
Times Square 1933 : first uses of electricity as power and visuals
China 1966 : big character posters used to unite people’s republic of china and even universalized character sets
Lin (vietnam war memorial)1982 : place for literal reflection and emotional reflection
Taki 183 1969-? : delivery boy in 5 boroughs, began modern graffiti, demand for public interaction
- what’s the internal line that a building is either degraded or enhanced
- one person’s degradation is another persons Art (capital A)
- Revs and Cost manifesto on phone as possibly first interactive graffiti
- intentionality needed because of difficulty to produce
folk reaction to 9/11 : missing posters on high traffic walls that became shrines

a vertical wall in high traffic areas will always be the most obvious and desired space for great or banal communication

From actual to virtual walls…

Cell phones, iPods to create personal space
- 80% of top selling tokyo books are written on cell phones
Books after printing press would be the same? — enter long class discussion about books or cell phones and locality
Invisible fence on dogs (containment)
Texas 2007 (exclusion): US / Mexico border video/IR/antennas -
- just as cruel…?
- more cruel? (capabilities are much more ambiguous)
- re-materialized wall, demographic change
- marking of a virtual wall

Panopticon - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

Hong Kong 2007 : forward looking infrared
- identification of higher body temperature (fever)

The enhanced actual (physical)

I/O Wall 2007
- embedded with RFID to know how to morph for shelving

If you’re going to put a sensor in something, think carefully about what you’re trying to sense and why… please know what you want to do, and not just for the hell of it.

Hoberman Ball - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoberman_sphere
by Chuck Hoberman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Hoberman
http://www.hoberman.com/

Listening Post 2001: Mark Hanson
Brix 2001
Kunst Haus Has : Bix 2003 (Reactives)
Hello.Wall 2004 (AG’s not a fan): uses a specific code to display information - inoffensive lobby art, blah blah
Galleria 2005: doesn’t really push anything (banal says AG) although pretty
Bloomberg ICE 2006 by Klein Dithum : delights and works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIEAh7fh9ks&NR=1
Petcha Kutha?
Blurring boundaries - Decoi hyper surface
40 pixels: pegs
Litricon (light transmitting concrete) : implies material capabilities (MOMA’s “mutant materials”)
Foglit (nanotechnology) as small as dust, thickening into walls, conduits, etc.
- doesn’t matter that its sci-fi, not possible
- run with it as a project…
- AG believes it as the end of architecture as anyone can make anything for as long as they want