GSD 3448: The Mixed-Reality City

Spring 2011
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Fridays 10 am - 1 pm (Gund 318)
Jesse Shapins Instructor of Architecture, GSD * jshapins[at]fas.harvard.edu * Office Hours: Fridays 2-4 pm (Chauhaus)
James Burns Creative Technologist + Relational Knowledge Fellow, metaLAB(at)Harvard

Overview

The contemporary city is constituted by multiple overlapping, intermixing realities, articulated between built form and imagined space, individuated experience and collective memory, embodied sensation and digital mediation. Often, these multiple realities are invisible or illegible in physical space, with certain narratives dominating particular environments. However, realities always leave traces, to be excavated or constructed.

This hybrid seminar/studio focuses upon new media art and architectural production, resulting in final projects that remix reality in public spaces through novel combinations of mobile devices (e.g. iPhones/iPads), audio/video/image recordings, networked data streams, and material artifacts. We will deploy media archaeological methods to uncover suppressed, neglected and forgotten places and stories, and design urban interventions that transform the perception of specific sites. We will also probe historical and theoretical conceptions of constructing urban realities, with particular emphasis on the documentary arts, critical conservation and experimental mapping. Artists, architects and theorists to be discussed include: Janet Cardiff, Bruno Latour, Archigram, Fluxus, Frederic Jameson, Blast Theory, Chris Marker, Miwon Kwon, Thom Andersen, Jacques Rancière, Michel de Certeau, Errki Huhtamo, Jussi Parikka, Kazys Varnelis and others.

This course is affiliated with the metaLAB (at) Harvard and The Sensory Ethnography Lab, an experimental laboratory that supports innovative combinations of aesthetics and ethnography, and within which open-source software for artists and scholars engaged in critical media practice is being developed.

Note: Previous computer programming or media design experience is not required, as easy-to-use digital tools will be made available to create new media works on iPhones, iPads and other platforms. Students interested in hacking and developing their own technologies are also more than welcome.

Basics

This course will be run in a seminar format, composed of a mixture of brief presentations and a considerable amount of discussion involving every student in the class. It is essential that you be prepared to participate at all times.

Class only meets once a week, so attendance is crucial. If you must miss a class for any reason, please email in advance. If you know in advance that you may miss any classes during the semester, contact me as soon as possible. If you miss more than one class, you risk failing the course.

Course Components

Practice
Collaborative investigation of Harvard Square
During the first six weeks of the course, as a group, we will focus on collaboratively excavating Harvard Square, uncovering hidden, suppressed spaces and narratives; dissecting its touristic representation; and digging into its archival mediation. The final result will be a collaborative online database of media in multiple formats.

Individual Harvard Square walk
In tandem with our collaborative collection of media assets related to Harvard Square, each course participant will author an individual mediated walk through Harvard Square for a public audience. The walk will transpire using custom course software on mobile phone or tablet device (e.g. iPad). The walk might draw attention to newly-uncovered details in Harvard Square; often-overlooked histories; or even inject a fictional narrative into the physical space.

Final Project
For the final project, you can choose to use Zeega or develop your own forms of technical (or non-technical) mediation. The project can draw upon media you or others have recorded/catalogued earlier in the semester, but it is not required. The location can be Harvard Square or somewhere entirely different. The project can be individual or collaborative with others in the class. The only requirement is that a central component of the project can be realized by an audience member/participant visiting a specific physical location and engaging in a mediated experience.

History/Theory
Weekly readings/watchings/listenings/discussions
The historical and theoretical portion of the course is guided by weekly readings, film screenings and audio listenings. It is expected that each student substantively engage these materials weekly and be prepared to deeply discuss each work in class. The first weeks generally attempt to pair material relevant to the group's collaborative exercises; the later weeks generally focus upon contemporary topics that aim to inform each student's final projects and research posts.

Research posts
The subject matter of this course is constantly evolving, and as such, it is crucial that we also work together to track new developments, develop historical perspective and enhance each other's learning. Towards this aim, each student will be required to write 2 brief blog posts (ca. 250 words) critically analyzing a contemporary or historical project of relevance to the course. Think of these as short, micro-case-studies to help us build a collection of shared references and inspirations for your final projects.

Research presentation
During the last weeks of the class, we will devote time to presentations/discussions of the projects/case studies reported throughout the semester. These presentations/discussions will provide a venue through which to develop an ongoing critical dialogue about historical and contemporary practice while everyone is in the process of developing their own final projects.

Technology Expectations

This course is media and technology intensive. It is expected that all students have some familiarity and experience working with Macintosh computers. Experience working with digital media software of any kind will be valuable, but more important is a basic comfort level with navigating the Mac OS interface in general and with basic file management. Students will be encouraged to learn by doing, and to share skills with each other. The emphasis of this course, however, is not on learning technical skills per se, but rather on being able to make whatever use you can of the media technologies at hand for artistic practice.

Experimental Context

This course and the work that you will create is an experiment. Nothing like it has been done here before. It is important to keep in mind that all of us will be inventing elements as we go, and this process of discovery and development is part of the excitement. Consequently, it's also important to understand certain things will fail, break and not turn out as planned, and to embrace these hiccups as part of working in a collaborative, laboratory environment.

Readings/Watchings/Listenings

All readings will be made available as PDFs over the course of the semester on the course website, unless otherwise noted in the syllabus. Films and CDs will be available for watching/listening through the Film Study Library (FSL) on the 4th floor of Sever Hall. The FSL is the VES department videotheque, and they are being extraordinarily gracious in allowing us to use the resource for this class. You can watch DVDs there on multiple viewing stations or check out for brief periods to watch independently.

Evaluation

Final project: 30%
Participation in class discussions: 25%
Contributions to collaborative Harvard Square Project: 15%
Individual Harvard Square Walk: 15%
Research posts and presentation: 15%

Schedule

WK 1 :: Jan 28 :: Entering the Mixed-Reality City 10:00 am - 11 am
Introductions

11:15 am - 12:30 pm
Readings
* Latour, Bruno. Paris: Invisible City. 1998. (INTERACTIVE) | (PDF) | (HOLLIS)
* Jameson, Frederic. "The Existence of Italy." In Signatures of the Visible. 1990. [Parts 1 + 2] (PDF) | (HOLLIS)
* Friedberg, Anne and Varnelis, Kazys. "Place: The Networking of Public Space." In Networked Publics, ed. Varnelis. 2008. (PDF) | (HOLLIS)

Suggested Reading
* Picon, Antoine. "Toward a City of Events: Digital Media and Urbanity." In New Geographies 0. 2008.(PDF)
* Borges, Jorge Luis. "Garden of Forking Paths." (1941). In New Media Reader, ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort. (MIT, 2003). (PDF) | (HOLLIS)
* Gordon, Eric and de Souza e Silva, Adriana. Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World. Forthcoming April 2011.
* Hill, Dan. "The Street as a Platform." cityofsound.com. 2008
* Greenfield, Adam. Everyware: Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing. 2006. [Thesis 01,02,07,11-16, Conclusion] (PDF) | (HOLLIS)
* Shapins, Jesse. "Mapping the Urban Database Documentary." In Urban Geographers: Independent Filmmakers and the City, ed. Mark Street. (Berghahn Books, 2011). (PDF)
12:30 pm - 1:00 pm
Introduction to Zeega and Experiment 1

Experiment 1 :: Sensory Walk
Select a single block in Harvard Square. Visit the location and try to sense the space in a new way...listening, smelling, looking, touching, tasting to uncover unique phenomenological and social details. Record images that evoke these new sensations. Create a short walk using Zeega with these images and text. Aim to create a walk that transforms the perception of the block for someone else. The walk should be no longer than 10 nodes. Map of everyone's blocks

WK 2 :: Feb 4 :: Walking as Artistic Practice in the Modern and Networked Metropolis 10 am - 11:30 am
Listenings
Janet Cardiff. [Selections from The Walk Book]
Excerpt 1 from "Her Long Black Hair." 2004. (mp3)
Excerpt 2 from "Her Long Black Hair." 2004. (mp3) | (Photo 1) | (Photo 2)
Excerpt 3 from "Her Long Black Hair." 2004. (mp3)

Readings
* Baudelaire, Charles. "The Painter of Modern Life." 1859. (PDF) | (HOLLIS)
* Benjamin, Walter. "The Flâneur." In . 1937. (PDF) | (HOLLIS)
* Debord, Guy. "Theory of the Derive." 1958. (PDF)
* De Certeau, Michel. Excerpts from "Walking in the City" and "Spatial Stories." In The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. (PDF) | (HOLLIS)
* Archigram, "The Walking City" (1964). In Archigram, ed. Peter Cook. 1973. (VIEW IMAGE) | (HOLLIS)
* Tuters, Marc and Varnelis, Kazys. "Beyond Locative Media: Giving Shape to the Internet of Things." In LEONARDO, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2006). (PDF)

Suggested Readings
* Eisenstein, Segei. "Montage and Architecture." In Assemblage 10. 1937-1940. (PDF)
11:45 am - 1:00 pm
Discussion of Experiment 1 (Walk)

Experiment 2
Using a networked mobile device (i.e. iPhone, Android, etc.) experience another person's walk. (You can get the URL for their walk from the page http://mixedrealitycity.zeega.org/main.php). After completing the walk, explore the block on your own and record your own photographs of the space. Return home, write brief edit notes of your experience. What new perceptual spaces did the walk open up? Did you have trouble following directions at any point? With these edits in mind, create a new route that uses a selection of the original media/text mixed with your own recordings, creating a new walking experience on the block. How much and what portions of the other person's walk you incorporate is entirely up to you. Again, limit yourself to exclusively images and text placed in the foreground. Maximum 15 nodes.

Groups:
Alix / Joana
Emily / Ashley
Luke / Souvik
Paul / Sara
Kat / Julia
Dan/ Dena
Nancy / Meghen
Allison / Hugo
Joshua / Laura

Note:
We recognize that some people in the class do not have a networked mobile device. We encourage you to either borrow from a friend when needed, and we have also made it possible for you to check out an iPod touch. It does not have a data connection, but if you click through a full-walk while connected to WiFi, the images and text will be cached and you can visit the location and experience the media. To check-out the iPod contact me 24 hrs in advance.

In addition, computer resources at the GSD has six iPads that can checked out. Similarly, you can view the walk using WiFi and then visit the location.

WK 3 :: Feb 11 :: Defamiliarization and The Politics of Perceptual Transformation 10 am - 11:30 am
Readings
* Shklovsky, Viktor. "Art as Technique." In Russian Formalist Critcism: Four Essays. Translated by Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis. Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 1965. (PDF)
* Michelson, Annette. "From Magician to Epistemologist: Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera." In Artforum. 1971. (PDF)
* Elkins, James. "How to Look at a Culvert." In How to Use Your Eyes. 2000. (PDF)
* Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics. 2004. [required] "Forward," "The Distribution of the Sensible" and "Mechanical Arts and the Promotion of the Anonymous." [optional] "Translator's Introduction." (PDF)

Watchings
* Vertov, Dziga (director). Kaufman, Mikhail (camera). Svivlova, Elizaveta. (editor). Man with a Movie Camera. 1927.
The film is available at the Film Study Library (4th Floor of Sever Hall), which is open Mon-Thurs 2-10 pm, Fri-Sun 2-6 pm.

11:45 am - 1:00 pm
Discussion of Experiment 2 (Walk Remix)

Experiment 3
Individually, research the construction of Harvard Square's urban imaginary in online media. Add at least 100 pieces of media to the database from at least 3 different sources (e.g. Flickr, YouTube, Archive.org). Geolocate (e.g. using street view) and annotate as many as possible. From your collecting, curate at least 5 tag-based routes. To create these routes, simply tag media that you believe share a correspondence with the same tag. Then when you search that term in the database, only those media tagged with that term will appear.

Write a brief post (ca. 2 paragraphs) on the city you found imagined in online media, citing at least three specific media objects. Incorporate these notes into the description field of these media objects. In addition, as this week's experiment can be completed exclusively from in front of a computer, describe how your experience of the same places you've been exploring on foot was different when seen exclusively through a screen.

WK 4 :: Feb 18 :: Urban Imaginaries and the Database as Symbolic Form 10 am - 11:30 am
Readings
* Donald, James. Imagining the Modern City. 1999. [selections] (PDF)
* Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. 1994. [selections] (PDF)
* Vesna, Victoria. "Databases Are Us." In Artificial Intelligence and Society. 2000. (PDF)
* Manovich, Lev. "Database as Symbolic Form." In Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 1999. (PDF)

Watchings
* Andersen, Thom. Los Angeles Plays Itself. 2003.

Suggested Reading
* Barthes, Roland. "Myth Today" and "Toys." In Mythologies. 1957.
* Bruno, Giuliana. Automatic Cities: The Architectural Imaginary in Contemporary Art. 2009.
* Huyssen, Andreas. "Introduction." In Other Cities, Other Worlds: Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.
* Simmel, Georg. "Metropolis and Mental Life." 1903.
11:45 am - 1:00 pm
Discussion of Experiment 3 (Urban Imaginaries)

FINAL PROJECT PROPOSAL
Develop a draft description of your final project concept. For the project, you can choose to use Zeega or develop your own forms of technical (or non-technical) mediation. The project can draw upon media you or others have recorded/catalogued earlier in the semester, but it is not required. The location can be Harvard Square or somewhere entirely different. The project can be individual or collaborative with others in the class. The only requirement is that a central component of the project can be realized by an audience member/participant visiting a specific physical location.

WK 5 :: Feb 25 :: Final Project Proposal Discussion In-class discussion of final project proposals

Inidividual Project Meetings

WK 6 :: March 4 :: The Art of the Interview and Ethnographic Inquiry 10 am - 11:30 am
Guest Artist Presentation: Kara Oehler (Documenatry Arts and Media Innovation Fellow, metaLAB(at)Harvard)

11:45 am - 1:00 pm
Discussion of people's precedent projects (links posted on class blog).

INITIAL SITE VISIT

Part 1: By Tuesday, 3/8, post a description of your own site visit methodology on the course blog. How will you structure your investigation? What methods will you use to record audio/photographs/video? What do you hope to better understand from this encounter? How will this visit help your larger project?

Part 2: Visit your site and deploy your methodology. Contribute your media recordings to the Zeega project database. If appropriate, experiment with sonic modes of inquiry, recording at least one interview and lo cation.

WK 7 :: March 11 :: The Artist and Citizen as Producers of Participatory Culture 10 am - 11:30 am
Readings
* Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author." 1967. (PDF)
* Benkler, Yochai. "Introduction." The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. 2007. (PDF)
* Russell, Adrienne, Mizuko Ito, Todd Richmond and Marc Tuters. "Culture: Media Convergence and Networked Participation." In Networked Publics, ed. Varnelis, Kazys. 2008. (PDF)

Suggested Reading
* Benjamin, Walter. "The Author as Producer." 1934. (PDF)
* Lessig, Lawrence. The Future of Ideas. 2002. (PDF)
* Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs. 2003 (PDF)

11:45 am - 1:00 pm
Discussion of initial site visits.

WK 8 :: March 25 :: Project Plan Presentations 5 minute presenations and 5 minutes discussions of detailed work plan, including project milestones and content examples. The presentation format should be a Zeega-based route or any other web accessible document.

WK 9 :: April 1 :: Interrogating Site-Specificity 10 am - 11:00 am
Readings
* Kaprow, Allan. "Nontheatrical Performance." 1979. In Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life.(PDF)
* Kwon, Miwon. "Genaeology of Site-Specificity." In One Place After Another. 2004. (PDF)
* Bishop, Claire. "Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics." In October, Fall 2004. (PDF)

Suggested Readings
* Smithson, Robert. "A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey." (1967) (PDF)
* Fluxus scores and tours [selections]
* Foster, Hal. The Return of the Real. 1996.
* Bourriaud, Nicholas. Relational Aesthetics. 1998.[selections]
* Thompson, Nato, ed. The Interventionists. 2006. [selections]
* Thompson, Nato and Paglan, Trevor, ed. Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism. 2009. [selections]

* Alÿs, Francis. "Zapatos Magnéticos", "Railings," "Algunas veces el hacer algo no lleva a nada" and "prueba 9.50"

11:15 am - 1:00 pm
1. On the Wall (Luke)
2. Almoço (Laura)
3. Hugo

WK 10 :: April 8 :: Contemporary Network Culture 10 am - 11:00 am
Readings
* Shepard, Mark. "Toward the Sentient City." In Sentient City: ubiquitious computing, architecture and the future of urban space. MIT Press: 2011. (PDF)
* Varnelis, Kazys. "Network Culture." In Networked Publics. 2008. (PDF)
* Zittrain, Jonathan. The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It. Yale University Press: 2008. [excerpts]. (PDF)

Suggested Reading
Borgmann, Albert. Holding On to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium. 2000 [selections]
Hayles, Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. 1999.
Liu, Alan. "Escaping History: The New Historicism, Database and Contingency." In Local Trascendence: Essays on Postmodern Historicism and the Database. 2008.
Taylor, Mark. The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture. 2003 [selections]

11:15 am - 1:00 pm
4. Fermata (Kat)
5. The Dante's Club (Souvik)
6. Materiality (Dena)
7. Invisible Cities (Ashley/Allison)

WK 11 :: April 15 :: Project Critiques DUE BEFORE CLASS 

- Project image 
- Project title 
- Project instructions, including geographic starting point
- Project description
- Custom website graphic design (if applicable) 
- Content for custom pages (if applicable) 
8. Ashland (Dan)
9. My Time is Our Surroundings (Joana)
10. I Wish I Was Here (Meghan)
11. Botanica (Nancy)
12. The Combat Zone (Julia)
13. SpacingOUT (Paul)
14. GroundCover (Sara/Emily)

WK 12 :: April 22 :: Collaborative Final Project Critiques Each project paired with another project to test on location. Flexible class structure. Jesse/James available during class hours and room for troubleshooting. Attendance not mandatory.

Collaborative Critiques

Paul + Dena
Julia + Kat
Ashley/Allison + Meghan
Souvik + Joana
Hugo + Laura
Nancy + Sara/Emily
Dan + Luke

WK 13 :: May 7 + 8 :: Mini-Festival/Final Presentations Full-day of journeys across Boston to experience each other's projects. Public invited. Required to participate in 2 out of 3 sessions

SATURDAY, 5/7

SESSION 1 :: 1 pm
MEET AT ORANGE LINE TUFTS MEDICAL

SpacingOUT (Paul)
Combat Zone (Julia)
Invisible Cities (Ashley/Allison)
Dante's Club (Souvik)

SUNDAY, 5/8

SESSION 2 :: 10 am

Map Memories (Hugo)
Materiality (Dena)
Fermata (Kat)
Botanica (Nancy)

SESSION 3 :: 3 pm
MEET AT 29 GARDEN (?)

Almoço (Laura)
MyTime (Joana)
I Wish (Meghan)
GroundCover (Sara/Emily)
Motile (Luke)