VISUALIZAR'08: Database City

In November, I will be in Madrid to teach at this year’s VISUALIZAR workshop on “database cities”. Organized by Medialab-Prado, this series of workshop explores the social, cultural and political possibilities of the art and science of data visualization. This year, curator José Luis de Vicente set the focus on the city and its “daily generated volumes of information that requires new methods of analysis and understanding”. The introductory pitch goes as follows:

Urban environments, which are becoming increasingly dense, complex and diverse, are one of contemporary society’s largest “databases”, daily generating volumes of information that require new methods of analysis and understanding. How can we use the data visualization and information design resources to understand the processes governing contemporary cities and better manage them? What can we learn from studying traffic and pedestrian movement flows through the streets of Madrid? What would happen if we filled the streets with screens providing information updated each moment about water and electricity consumption?

For two weeks, lectures, presentations, and an intense project development programme will involve participants from all over the world in a collaborative process that will culminate in eight new proposals for the city.

There is a call for projects and a call for papers (Deadline: October 5, 2008).

Relation to my thesis: A good gig to summarize and transmit the lessons learned this year at senseable with a 1-hour lecture to provoke and days of hands-on activities to share my methods and techniques. I will share the roles of lecturer and instructor with Adam Greenfield, Juan Freire and Bestiario‘s Santiago Ortiz and Andrés Ortiz.