Project Theme
Interacting with the Urban Fabric
…in his dreams, cities as light as kites appear, pierced like laces, cities transparent as mosquito netting … filigree cities to be seen through their opaque and fictitious thickness.
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
The electro-magnetic flows of information and mobile technologies pervading our everyday life are said to be spinning such a filigreed city whose “opaque and fictitious thickness” can only be accessed if we co-inhabit these invisible spaces. And yet, in living this dream, this city is only one of the multiple cities, invisible and visible, that we inhabit. Global flows of migrants, for example, weave a net of often fragile threads which are traces of their belonging to other places that might be invisible to the eyes that have never seen these other places. The imbrication of these multiple spaces shapes a thickness that might appear opaque and invisible; yet; they are certainly not fictitious. The multiple identities and different cultural practices that constantly cross the invisible boundaries of the spaces might appear opaque but they certainly are also not fictitious. In order to explore the multiplicity of urban geographies and its invisible boundaries, the studio projects aims to develop a way for urban citizens to ‘read’ and ‘write’ a digital urban fabric from constitutive elements using networked, location-aware and motion sensing mobile phones.
Minimum Project Technical Requirements
- Makes use of a virtual environment
- Makes use of a location-based information
- Real-time multimedia
- Responsive behaviours to context
- Suitable for mobile devices
Invisible Cities
www.korculainfo.com
CITIES AND SIGNS:
One of Calvino’s short stories is about the city of Tamara – a city which streets are full of signboards jutting from the walls.
Calvino writes: “…Your gaze scans the streets as if they were written pages: the city says everything you must think, makes you repeat her discourse, and while you believe you are visiting Tamara you are only recording the names with which she defines herself and all her parts”
This refers to the semiotics of urban landscape, a panoramic view of a city surveyed by the viewer and symbolic representation of materials and social practices - opposition between the market and place. The signs are communicating to the viewer in well-premeditated language and form and in its communication, signs are influencing and (re) forming viewer’s opinions.
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