Urban Computing

Crossroads Notes

systems of flow: not objects

two or more flows intersect that leads to thickening

- as instinct: crowds attract crowds
- generator of novelty: coming from separate contexts bring newness to others
- node of a network, network of travel, network of transport
- becomes a place in itself, for events, as a destination: shelling point (where others would assume to find others to go, but not usually themselves: Roman forum)

Birth of the blues: Robert Johnson: I went to the Crossroad

center of commerce, seduction, community, hazard

Examples of Capitolium (from Roman Forum) and outposts of empire:
Times Square
Arc de Triomphe
Namdaemun Gate (see: burning of in February 2008)
Tokyo: Shibuya kosaten (although generic of commerce
London’s Piccadilly Circus

Intersections with the hyperreal:
Piccadilly (1929 movie with Anna May Wong): the poster’s front with Piccadilly never is a scene in the movie
Times Square: Midnight Cowboy (1969): two separate posters - scene never shown as shown in movie
Lost in Translation (2003): Shibuya
Anytown USA: Grand Theft Auto IV (2008?): loose ties but obviously reminiscent of crossroads

Art in crossroads
Jenny Holzer: Truisms (Times Square 1982) “Protect me from what I want” - before deinstitutionalization by Reagan with SRO (single room occupancy)
Neil Selkirk: 1000 on 42nd St (Times Square 1998) - eminent domain - removed SRO by gov’t law, bought by Disney, etc. for a penny and bulldozed for “better use” and commercial
- Tibor Kalman probably double crossed, undermined project: all comments from actual people taken out and “nice-ified” to help redesign Times Square (Designs on the Public, book) —- and it worked to nicify.

Contemporary interventions:
OgilvyOne for Unilever (Dove): Campaign for Real Beauty (Times Square 2004)
- Doves Soap campaign for real beauty
- first truly interactive ad (so they say)
- pick wrinkled or wonderful by your cell phone
R/GA for Nike iD (Times Square 2005): 22 story spectacular in same interactive way
- dial in, make shoe, and the pattern sent to Nike have it made
Nokia SensorPlanet: Manhattan Story Mashup (Times Square 2006)
- given puzzle pieces and finding in NY
- a little too overly complicated
- game as ad
GT: Big Shadow (Shibuya Prime Building 2007)
- 46m high wall
- game to promote a game/movie called Blue Dragon
- stand in plaza, wave hands, and shadows turn into monsters that break-free
MT2 for Clear Channel: Piccadilly Lite (2007)
- tunable promotion, sometimes interactive, small promotion compared
- piccadillylights.co.uk
Raul Vencent Enriquez: I In the Sky (Times Square 2008)
- have stills taken and they’re projected big in TS

awarenesscape concept
- notionally interactive by inference in behavior, people, place, information