renewed faith in public space

I had a wonderful experience the other day. I am a big cynic and believe that public space has lost a lot of what it used to have which are the random encounters with people. Everyone is walking around in their own private worlds, with their blackberries and IPhones with headphones in their ears. The private realm has begun to drastically encroach on our lives to the point where people don't talk to strangers anymore. When did people become so unapproachable?

The work that i do as a public artist is related to this, i like to question what conversation means and what it involves in a public setting, but at times it begins to feel like my efforts are futile.

The other day however there was a woman who reaffirmed what i am doing. I was walking down 5th ave and came up to 14th st and just as i am about to cross the intersection, a woman runs up to me and asks me if i would drop her mail in the mailbox across the street. At first i was very taken aback, all i could do was stand there with a goofy smile on my face as the words that she was saying were registering in my head. Finally i took the mail from her and watched her walk away. i dropped it in the box and walked away wondering if someone was following me with a camera, this kind of stuff doesnt just happen in public anymore. This little exchange is what i think public space has lost and what through my work i would like to see begin to reappear.

I kept walking with a smile on my face. :)

public space and wifi

When one thinks of the health of cities, one thinks of a cities public space. The city is a network, a network of houses, buildings, spaces, people, schools, stores, streets, sidewalks, highways, cars, etc. A city cannot exist without interaction and communication. And that interaction occurs in a cities public space. “[D]emocracy resides, ultimately, with citizens who engage in talk with each other.”(Carpentier 2008) With this said, it is important to note the changes that have occurred in public spaces and the effects that they have had on people and societies. The aim of this paper is to explore the effects that mobile technology and wireless communications have had, have and may have on public space in a city, the use of the space, its changing nature and the social aspects that occur in the space. Many of the effects are already visible in the changing architecture and city policy, but many effects are still invisible to us. These are the social and psychological aspects of the people themselves. We will explore these changes, the significance of these changes, and the possible effects that they may have on city life, city health, and city people.

            In order to understand the implications and effects that mobile technology has on a city and its public space it is important to first define what public space is and its importance to the city. In her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs says: “[t]hink of a city and what comes to mind? It’s streets.”(Pg 37)  This is because the streets are the most used public space in a city. One cannot imagine a city without a street, much like one cannot imagine a street that is not within a city. Besides the most obvious use of these places as passages for transport they are responsible for the safety of a city. “When people say that a city, or a part of it, is dangerous or a jungle what they mean primarily is that they do not feel safe on the sidewalks.”(Pg 37) This is because as Jacobs said the streets and their sidewalks are a cities most vital organs. If one is too scared to be on the streets of a city then the city is considered dangerous, because it is not possible to get around the city without being out in the public realm. And one of the ways that safety is insured in a city is through the other inherent use of a cities public space and that is contact. Jacobs says that “public peace – the sidewalk and street peace – of cities is not kept primarily by the police” but by “an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards amongst the people themselves, and enforced by the people themselves.” (Pg 40) This is accomplished by what Jacobs calls “eyes upon the streets, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street.”(Pg 45) The natural proprietors of a street are the people who are regularly seen on the street, if the street is a mixed use street, with small stores, bars, and residencies then the proprietors would be the owners of the stores, the tenants of the buildings, and the customers in the bars and stores. This network amongst the proprietors is created through contact amongst each other. “Reformers have long observed city people loitering on busy corners, hanging around candy stores and bars and drinking soda pop on stoops, and have passed a judgment, the gist of which is: ‘This is deplorable! If these people had decent homes and a more private or bosky outdoor place, they wouldn’t be on the street.’”(Pg 72) This is a mistake as Jacobs mentions many examples of garden cities and project housing that have “a more private” and “bosky outdoor place” that are left unused and abandoned most of the time. This idea about privatization of public space only serves to make neighborhoods more dangerous by taking eyes of the street. These eyes will make a neighborhood safer under a couple of conditions. One condition is that it is necessary “that there should be, in the brains behind the eyes on the street, an almost unconscious assumption of general street support when the chips are down.” This assumption Jacobs calls trust. “The trust of a city street is formed over time from many, many little public sidewalk contacts.” These contacts grow “out of people stopping by at the bar for a beer, getting advice from the grocer and giving advice to the newsstand man, comparing opinions with other customers at the bakery and nodding hello to the two boys drinking pop on the stoop, eying the girls while waiting to be called for dinner, admonishing the children, hearing about a job from the hardware man and borrowing a dollar from the druggist, admiring the new babies and sympathizing over the way a coat faded.” These “deplorable” contacts while seeming trivial and unimportant create “a feeling for the public identity of people, a web of public respect and trust, and a resource in time of personal or neighborhood need.” (Pg 73) From this one can see the uses of streets in a city, as they serve for communication and interaction and how they contribute to the safety of the same city, both of these not possible without the other. Much the same can be said about the other forms of public space in a city. These spaces are parks, which serve many functions. People often refer to parks as the lungs of a city, for their effect on the quality of air and temperature in a city, however the fact that parks are the lungs do not give enough reasons to make parks an important public space. In order for a park to function as a public space many of the same qualities as streets are needed. Jacobs speaks of many examples of parks that although offer a lot of public space and access are abandoned much like most green spaces within projects. In order for a park to be successful it needs the same eyes that a street does. Parks need to constantly have a steady amount of people traveling through and enjoying the park. This adds eyes to the park and allows for safety, with more safety comes more access to the park. In order to understand why some parks function successfully and why others are doomed to be drug havens it is necessary to look at the overall qualities of the neighborhood surrounding the park. The park needs to be situated in a mixed-use neighborhood, much like safe streets need to be on mixed-use streets. This creates the chance for people to go to the park for multiple reasons and allows them to enjoy it. Successful parks then serve the same functions that successful streets do. They facilitate community amongst residents, allow for public interaction and discourse, and provide people with a feeling of safety. In 1989 sociologist Ray Oldenburg distinguished the sociological functions between the “places” that people use. These were “first places (their homes), their second places (offices)” and their third places “the public spaces that serve as safe, neutral and informal meeting points.”(Economist, 2008) These would be the parks, the streets and sidewalks that are not directly connected to ones work or home, cafés, bars, community centers, etc. These third places serve the same vital functions that the streets do, some of them however are not public, but private owned spaces that accommodate public use. These could be cafés such as Starbucks and they could also be gardens that were created by businesses for extra floors in their buildings. Each space creates its own rules and regulations that the public must follow but they still hold the essential qualities of public space, which is creating community, creating safe cities, and allowing for communication and random encounters amongst the general public.

            Having examined the importance of public space to the people and to a city we can now look at some of the history of public space. “First there is a general agreement that we are experiencing a steady withering of the public realm… privatization – the ‘commodification’ of public goods and emergence of local governments as entrepreneurs – seems to be the order of the day.”(Banerjee 2001) This is in large due to the invention of technologies such as the radio and the television. After WWII people were spending less time out in the public realm, as news of the outside world was readily available through radio and television. Forms of entertainment such as theatre, movies, bars, and music venues were now slowly being replaced by music on the radio and gramophones, and shows on television. Slowly and slowly people started to spend more time indoors and public space fell into disarray. Taking into account major budget cuts in government regulation, parks and public spaces were subject to vandalism, disrepair and abandonment. This was further enforced by the creation of gated communities. “When asked why they chose to live in gated communities, most respondents spoke of the need for safety and a search for community, presumably one that is based on homogeneity and cohesion” (Banerjee 2001) This form of privatization as Jacobs said will only add to the danger of the city and undermine the very things these people are searching for. Slowly and slowly people started to migrate from the public realm to the private realm, and with the gated communities they even made their public realm private. “[T]his tendency to live in club-like communities with common spaces and facilities arises from a fear of strangers, especially of those who come from a different class, culture, ethnicity, or national origin, and not just a concern for personal and property safety.” (Banerjee 2001) And this can only lead to many other harms of society, such as racism, discrimination, segregation, etc. A divided city cannot be a healthy city, and a healthy city cannot be an empty city. These moves towards privatization and division can only contribute to the slow death of major cities. Continuing this trend was the advent of the Internet. It became “possible to conduct many of our daily activities, work, shopping, business transactions, socializing, through the Internet, minimizing the need for face-to-face communication and travel.”(Banerjee 2001) Another effect of the Internet was the beginning of a new structure of office work. Office workers traditionally slept and spent time with their family at home and did their work in an office. They had to be in the office in order to handle paperwork, and turn in files, do research and be in contact. The internet allowed many of these functions to easily be done from an internet enabled computer at work and the effect was that the distinction between “first places” and “second places” started to blur, people were beginning to spend even more time in their homes as they didn’t necessarily even have to go to work any more. And with services such as Netflix, Amazon, Freshdirect, and others, people no longer even had to leave their homes for food and entertainment. Privatization was excelling at an alarming rate.

            With all of that said, we can now begin to explore the effects that mobile technology has had, has, may have on public space. The effects of mobile technology are not really known because it is a relatively new form of technology. This includes cell phones, laptops, WI-FI, PDA’s, music players, etc. These technologies have various different effects and offer many possibilities for the future of public space. All of these technologies allow for the creation of a private sphere in a public space. Ipod’s and music players allow for a person to phase out of the noise and life of the public sphere by allowing one to listen to music wherever he is. It is very easy to not hear anything that happens on a train as long as your headphones are on. Mobile phones allow for private conversation in an openly public space. People were now able to talk to each other no matter where they were. And laptops allowed for people to have access to their computer software wherever they were giving people the freedom to roam about, and WI-FI gave access to the Internet from “third places,” bringing the opportunity for even more private space in the public realm.

            One of the major technologies that is affecting public space is the mobile phone. The first mobile call was made in Manhattan in April of 1983, since then approximately 2.8 billion people worldwide have become mobile phone subscribers.(Katz 2007) out of 6745 observations “a recent study at Rutgers University of ‘tele-density’ found that about 20% of people on campus were using mobile devices at any one time.”(Chen & Lever, 2006) One of the possible effects of this may be “a psychological ‘emptying out’ of public space – bodies remain, but personalities are engaged elsewhere.”(Katz 2007) In terms of public space this means that people are not interacting with each other in the same space but in a cyberspace. However one of the other occurrences of this is the increased use of public space. More opportunity is now given for people to locate themselves in public space because they do not have to be near a landline in order to be in touch with someone, indeed “Gergen (2002) holds that mobile phones can restore the comfort and intimacy that was degraded by twentieth century technologies, especially the television.”(Katz 2007)  This is because of the various different functions of mobile phones. For instance “When the new iPhone ,with built-in tracking, was introduced in July, one million people began using Loopt, a piece of software that automatically tells all your friends exactly where you are.” (Thompson 2008) This in combination with other forms of contact enabled by the Internet such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and other such applications contribute to a phenomenon that Social Scientists call Ambient Awareness. “It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye.”(Thompson 2008) One such thing that allows for this is Twitter, which is a microblogging tool where people write about their day in short text messages, A man who decided to try it “logged on to his account, and his friends’ updates would appear as a long page of one- or two-line notes. He would check and recheck the account several times a day, or even several times an hour. The updates were indeed pretty banal.” But as the time went by he “discovered that he was beginning to sense the rhythms of his friends’ lives in a way he never had before.”(Thompson 2008) The man actually felt closer to his friends throughout the day, and even felt like they were next to him even though they weren’t. “[T]he idea of using communication tools as a form of “co-presence” has been around for a while. The Japanese sociologist Mizuko Ito first noticed it with mobile phones: lovers who were working in different cities would send text messages back and forth all night — tiny updates like “enjoying a glass of wine now” or “watching TV while lying on the couch.” They were doing it partly because talking for hours on mobile phones isn’t very comfortable (or affordable). But they also discovered that the little Ping-Ponging messages felt even more intimate than a phone call.”(Thompson 2008) This notion of mobile phone effect is the other direction for the future of social contact amongst people. Preliminary research on the subject shows that “mobile phones tend to be used in reinforcing strong social ties, while computer-mediated text-based media tend to be used in expanding the relationships with weak ties.”(Kim, Kim, Park & Rice, 2007) The effects of the Television and other technologies that led to privatization can now be reversed due to technologies such as the mobile phone. People were spending less time in the public making social connections and more time at their home or office reinforcing their strong times, making small communities of people with no contact amongst each other. Mobile technologies create the opportunity for a return to society for many people. However this is not a reverse effect like I mentioned, rather it is like a reincarnation of an old system. “In 1998, the anthropologist Robin Dunbar argued that each human has a hard-wired upper limit on the number of people he or she can personally know at one time.” He did a study of apes and concluded “that ape and human brains could manage only a finite number of grooming relationships: unless we spend enough time doing social grooming — chitchatting, trading gossip or, for apes, picking lice — we won’t really feel that we “know” someone well enough to call him a friend.” And “[s]ure enough, psychological studies have confirmed that human groupings naturally tail off at around 150 people: the “Dunbar number,” as it is known.”(Thompson 2008) But taking into consideration the notion that mobile technologies are allowing for less strong ties and more weak ties, the “Dunbar number” no longer holds true. And one of the possible effects of constantly devoting energy to all of these weak ties is that it “might, some critics worry, spread your emotional energy too thin, leaving less for true intimate relationships.”(Thompson 2008) This is also reinforced by many other problems that may arise. “[A] spiral of criticism has erupted over Blackberries, iPods, and mobile phones that decries them as having bled from human intercourse the (putative) beauty and depth of meaningful conversation.” Some theorists believe that “[t]here is no longer the need to unburden oneself with pent up thoughts because fleeting emotions are exchanged through a continual stream of interaction.”(Thompson 2008) This then leads to a new form of interaction, a new structure of social connections in public space. But whether this interaction is a healthy form or not is unclear. “‘Being put on pause’” is how a student of Sherry Turkles’ “describes the feeling of walking down the street with a friend who has just taken a call on his cell. ‘I mean I can’t go anywhere; I can’t just pull out some work. I’ve just been stopped in midsentence and am expected to remember, to hold the thread of the conversation until he wants to pick it up again.”(Turkle 2007) And this is not an uncommon occurrence amongst people. What effects will “pauses” such as this one have on strong social ties between people and what new form of interaction must we develop now that we are constantly in contact with each other?

            One other result of mobile phones that some believe is that it allows for gender equality in the use of public space. Many studies have shown that women are disadvantaged in the use of public space. And one of the beliefs is that “the mobile phone … may have particular significance for cultural change in the leisure patterns of young women … in the sense that it offers them a sense of security and new confidence in accessing public leisure spaces.”(Foley, Holzman, Wearing, 2007) This is because to many women it is dangerous to be alone in public space because of things such as the male gaze and overall safety concerns. And in the past women have not been exploring public space like men have because of their fear. And “mobile phones not only help to confirm the right of adolescent women to be in public spaces, and to claim public spaces as their own leisure spaces but improve the quality of their experiences in these places.”(Foley, Holzman, Wearing, 2007) Many women are now more likely to go and spend more time in public space, because they know that at any time they can be in contact with someone. Many times women will pretend to be on the phone talking to someone so that no one will bother them. This sense of security allows for identity development also as “leisure is a ‘social space in which there is an openness for important new interactions and self definitions’.” Women “ may be more inclined to further explore their leisure opportunities, and perhaps take riskier options in an attempt to ‘safely’ experience more, ‘intense, identity seeking experiences’.”(Foley, Holzman, Wearing, 2007) This identity development leads to an equality in the use of public space in the context of gender. “[M]obile phone use- can impart a sense of self-confidence, sexuality and autonomy which defies the male gaze in public spaces and may allow adolescent women to reject traditional images of femininity at a formative stage in the life course and” allows “ entry to an arena, that of public space, that has hitherto been limited by the male gaze and other stereotypes of adolescent women.”

            Another important technology is that of WI-FI. Wireless Internet can have a profound effect in the use of public space and in its structure. One such observation states, “I have traveled 36 hours to a conference on robotic technology in central Japan. The grand ballroom is WI-FI enabled, and the speaker is using the Web for his presentation. Laptops are open, fingers are flying. But the audience is not listening. Most seem to be doing their e-mail, downloading files, surfing the web or looking for a cartoon to illustrate an upcoming presentation. Every once in a while audience members give the speaker some attention, lowering their laptop screens in a kind of digital curtsy.”(Turkle 2007) This is not an uncommon occurrence as Turkle states, “what most people want from public space is to be alone in their personal networks.” This is of course not true all the time, as there are exceptions but it is a very shocking idea nonetheless. And Wi-Fi is now available in many “third places” and “[i]t is unclear whether wireless internet use in public spaces will facilitate greater engagement with people in public spaces or encourage a form of ‘public privativism’.”(Hampton, Gupta, 2008)

Hampton and Gupta did a study of WI-FI use in wireless café’s and attempted to sketch “a theoretical framework for how interactions and networks may be augmented in the context of wi-fi.” Their study consisted of 120 hours of observation spread between 4 café’s split between Seattle,WA and Bostion, MA. Two with free wi-fi access and 2 with paid access. The results of the study were that “[t]he settings observed attracted users with two distinct activities.” These two ideal types were: ‘true mobiles’ and ‘placemakers’. Both came to the café’s with their laptops but the social interaction observed between them was very different. “True mobiles identified the café as a ‘space of productivity’.” These were people who wanted to get away from work and felt that the café’s allowed for better concentration and at times a change of pace.  And as the study noted “[a]ll true mobiles spent their time almost completely engrossed in wi-fi and laptop use.” And “both reported and were observed repeatedly avoiding the gaze of staff and other store inhabitants.” As Goffman (1963) would describe, “true mobiles employed ‘portable involvement shields’.” These were as Goffman described things such as “fans, masks, and the use of people’s hands to conceal facial expressions, used literally to shield oneself from others and to signal unavailability for more overt interactions.” True mobiles strayed away from most form of communication and when “other patrons ignored the subtle (or not so subtle) signals of a shield and attempted to initiate verbal communication with a true mobile, they were unlikely to be met with eye contact and were more like to be met with no response (completely ignoring the other) or an abrupt one or two-word retort.”

            “In contrast with True mobiles, the primary activity of ‘placemakers’ was ‘not to engage in paid work’. They came to wi-fi coffee shops to ‘hang out’ … to “engage in the ‘social hubbub’ of the space.” These were people for whom “the laptop was never” a “primary focus” rather “the availability or potential for co-present socialbility” was the primary activity. These patrons would typically buy a coffee and sit next to a window and engage in ‘people watching.’ They would set their laptop down and “become masters of the ‘momentary diversion’ (Goffman, 1963). A great deal of time was spent gazing out the window, looking around the café, adjusting personal belongings, slowly sipping coffee, searching for a power outlet, powering up and then casually surfing the web and checking email, with prolonged intermittent pauses to glance around and outside the café.” And placemakers also did not avoid or ignore the other people in the café, “a casual glance from another customer was more likely to be met with a fleeting smile than a quick look away.” The study found that placemakers “were almost always regular customers at the same café and lived or worked in close proximity. Placemakers were more frequent visitors to wi-fi cafes than truemobiles. And unlike the truemobiles “[p]lace makers did not immerse themselves in shielded, private cocoons of interaction with the goal of completing work. Placemakers were openly, if not actively interested, in communicating with co-located others: it was their primary activity. In terms of the future of public space and interaction it is difficult to tell which direction it will go towards. There are paths that lead to ‘public privativism’ as in the case of true mobiles and there is the path of increased social interaction as shown by the placemakers.(Hampton, Gupta, 2008)

            One other aspect of mobile technology and public space is the physical transformation of the space and the use of mobile technology by the government in terms of providing services and amenities to their citizens. Recently their have been many services provided by governments worldwide to give their citizens a better public experience. For instance Santa Monica, CA plans to “increase the city’s wi-fi network to 23 hotzones throughout the cities public space by summer 2008.”(M2PressWire, 2008) And Paris “has launched Europe’s biggest free wireless internet network as part of a scheme to turn the French capital into a “world digital city”.” (The (United Kingdom) Times 2007) In places like NYC public parks have access to free wi-fi, and New York soon plans to emulate California in tackling the problem of parking and congested streets. “San Francisco will test 6,000 of its 24,000 metered parking spaces in the nation’s most ambitious trial of a wireless sensor network that will announce which of the spaces are free at any moment.” This now means that drivers no longer have to circle around the block looking for a spot, they can now simply check their smartphones.(The New York Times 2008)

The next thing to look at is the changing effect that mobile technology has had on architecture and physical space. It is clear that with mobile technology we have started to return to “a very old idea: nomadism.”(Economist 2008) No one needs to be rooted to one place anymore, it is possible to be in touch with anyone from nearly anywhere and with wi-fi it is now possible to bring your work out from the office and operate anywhere. This is called ‘digital nomadism.’(Economist 2008) And that is something that architects and public planners now need to account for. One such architect that accounted for that is Frank Gehry. His Stata Centre at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology was “conceived as a new kind of ‘hybrid space’.” The building was meant to accommodate any new nomadic need. “This is best seen in the building’s ‘student street’, an interior passage that twists and meanders through the complex and is open to the public 24 hours a day. It is dotted with nooks and crannies. Café’s and lounges are interspersed with work desks and whiteboards, and there is free wi-fi everywhere.” People are observed “flirting, napping, instant-messaging, researching, reading and discussing.” And “every bit of it can instantaneously become the venue for a seminar, a snack or romance.” Another such building is the Googleplex, headquarters of Google in Mountain View, California. The building “is famous for its good and free victuals, doled out at food courts throughout the sprawling campus, and for the casual mixture of play and work.” Google naturally also has wi-fi access everywhere and at times it is possible to observe a software engineer “writing some code on his laptop, sweaty in his clothes, from the volleyball game in progress on the lawn.” And “Google even extends this workspace, virtually, throughout the entire San Francisco Bay Area by running a fleet of commuter shuttles, all of which have wi-fi on board to allow for uninterrupted coding.” These new forms of architecture and space and the wi-fi provided by them are allowing for an increased use of public space. Again whether or not this will lead to a form of public privativism or lead to new profound social connections is unknown, but one cannot argue that the services and opportunities for being physically present in a space have only increased. Another interesting effect of nomadism is that many people are realizing that it is not good for the office industry. There is no longer such a need to have offices and cubicles because everything is so easily accessible from everywhere. And some architects and landowners are taking that into effect. Robert Dykstra has developed a new office park in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The building is “unlike any traditional office and ‘more like a community centre’.” Wherein instead of renting the space, Dykstra plans “to sell membership as a club does—by the hour, week or month—to nomads dropping by. Mobile workers come in, find all the services they might need—from tech support to copying—and satisfy their needs for ‘work, love and play’ as well, with the aid of fitness studios, restaurants, cooking classes and music rooms.”(Economist 2008) One of the results of this digital nomadism is that it is making architects and city planners make spaces intentionally multi-functional as any space can now be suited to fit virtually any need, the need for specialization is starting to disappear. Perhaps this will lead to a much safer city because as Jacobs said spaces and streets need to be multi-functional in order to draw people and in order to live.

            Overall it is clear that Mobile technology has had a great effect on public space: the physical space, and the psychological space. What direction this will lead to is unclear. Are we replacing ‘privativism’ with ‘public privativism’ or are we creating new unimaginable structures for social contact, will only be clear in time. As of now it is clear that there are paths running in both directions.

the essence of twitter

Having been reading a lot about social media, why its successful, (which im still not sure of) what it accomplishes, the absurd cases where two girls update their facebook status in an emergency opposed to dialing 911, i began to wonder what are the possible uses of such tools. Obviously there is just communication, creating weak social connections to people all over, a form of self mediation, advertising, publicity, etc. I ran into an article on Mashable about Twestivals. Twestivals are combinations of Tweetups and fundraisers. Tweetups are just meetings on twitter, where a lot of people gather to talk about issues or debate or as i imagine just let everyone know how they feel. The combination of these tweetups with fundraisers seems to have created something quite fascinating.

"The global initiative was born on January 8, 2009 with a single tweet asking cities to join together and hold their own Twestivals on February 12th to support charity: water. The response was overwhelming positive, with more than 200 cities and 1,000 volunteers all working together to bring in over $250,000 for the cause."

This to me was quite stunning, to see that this is the capacity of a tool like twitter, which upon first glance is just the friend feed on facebook, its microblogging, it seems like it has no substance. what followed after was also quite amazing.

"This time around, Twestival is localized. It still has the same international appeal, but each city is raising money for their own community causes."

This to me is whats beautiful. I am a full supporter of the phrase "Think global, act local" because what you do where you are can act as a catalyst for change anywhere else. We have a lot of problems that we are facing now, and many people wonder how exactly are we going to solve them. Are we entering the Great Depression of our time? Is there gonna be a world for our children to live in? How are cities gonna keep supporting the mass influx of people? Will NYC flood? What are we going to do come Peak Oil? There certainly isnt a lack of questions for us to ask, but in my opinion the problem becomes how do we begin to act on them. How can we begin to act locally, truly locally, in an increasingly digital and distant world.
This is when i come back to twitter. And not just twitter, but AIM, G chat, Blogging, Facebook, Digg and all the rest of the social media with which i am not familiar. What makes them successful?

Is it Brevity?

Is it the fact that we can stay anonymous?

Is it because the people are strangers?

Because they cant see my facial Expressions?

Because i can pretend to be someone that I'm not?

Because i can show people the face that i want them to see?

Because the internet makes people braver?

I believe that these tools and the myriad of things that they can accomplish are astounding, but i wonder how we can take these tools and bring them back into the analog world? Can i make a paper twitter? can my clothes have a barcode with which people can read my profile? can i carry a screen over my head that constantly tells people what im feeling? How can we begin to break down the social boundaries that are so prevalent in big cities and begin to act with the people who live next door to us, to bring about local change?

small,local, open, connected... incited?

            There are many different kinds of designers and they all happen to do various different things. There are product designers, communication designers, information designers, interaction designers, computer designers, software designers and also system designers. One of the new emerging ways of thinking of design is by thinking of systems and processes. This is the notion that no design is separate from the world around it. Posters designed by communication designers operate in multiple fields. They could be a billboard that is on the highway, a poster on a bus stop, an ad in a train or on the side of a bus, in a newspaper or magazine, a book, an ad on a website, etc. What this means is that there are countless ways in which people interact with a design and these methods of interaction need to be accounted for. But it isn’t only the interaction that needs to be thought of. What if the poster is advertising a local farmers market and inviting you to become a member. The poster then becomes the gateway for action asks you to then do something. If one were to get involved one might perhaps then need to look at farming and gardening, and thus one might need to buy or learn to use certain products that are required of gardening. One might need to buy a shovel, some gloves, a rake and perhaps even a book on how to garden. The poster is then the gateway that leads to interaction with products. This understanding of how design and the things that we have in our lives are a part of larger systems is a relatively new way of thinking and these systems need to be designed.

            One of the tools that is used for this new form of design is a scenario. A scenario is a vision of the future and the acceptance of a certain outcome. A designer can follow trends and envision a certain way in which the world is operating and pick a future that is a result of these trends, after this the designer then designs for that scenario to become a reality. Given the situation that we are in right now where we are currently in an environmental crisis, we begin to look for ways in which we can begin to solve the current situation. Manzini proposes a scenario that gives us a way in which to begin to operate. Having looked at trends of new forms of “creative communities” where people have begun to empower themselves in order to change the situation that they are in, Manzini’s scenario states that this is the way people will continue to act. Examples of these creative communities are farmers markets, community gardens, park groups that organize to better their surroundings, communities that structure themselves so that children can walk to school, communities that start their own nurseries. These new ways in which people are beginning to give power to themselves and organize are the crucial support for Manzini’s scenario.

            The next important part of Manzini’s scenario is that of  “Collaborative Networks.”  These networks are the results of the internet age in which we live where new forms of information sharing have become possible. The examples are Wikipedia and social networking sites such as Facebook, Meetup, Couchsurfing, etc. These new forms of communication and connectivity have allowed for new forms of organizing and Manzini’s scenario is that these new ways of organizing will support “creative communities” and create a world that is “small, local, open, and connected.” What this means is that everything will operate on a local scale with information flowing globally. People will have the networked communication of the entire world but will use that in order to create local creative solutions. In Manzini’s proposal small is not small and local is not local. This basically means that small and local are now referred to as nodes in a network where they operate in their node but are actually global and large. Given this scenario and all the supporting infrastructure and examples that exist, Manzini’s final solution was that designers need to begin to design systems that empower people to act. He believes that these creative networked societies will continue to exist and that designers need to design ways for people to adopt these practices. Meaning design a way for a community to start a community garden, design a system that allows for any citizen to become an advocate of his park, design a system that allows for traditional office spaces to disappear and allow for people to work from home. Manzini has given designers the goal of designing systems, and once these systems are in place people will adopt them.

            My own views of this are that it is nothing special and nothing new. This has been the direction that design has been going for a while. Designers have already been aware of the new networked societies and creative communities and have been designing means for them. This is visible on the networked scale in the emergence of new forms of architecture such as the Strata Building at MIT that was designed by Frank Gehry. In the Strata building there is a constant connection to the internet through wi-fi and an understanding that people are becoming more nomadic and moving from place to place. The building was designed so that any place can become an ad-hoc classroom, lunch space, socializing venue or meeting location. This was because of the trend in wired society and networks. This is also visible in the Googleplex where workers can work from anywhere even on the bus that brings them to the office space. The office space is also not a traditional office space anymore but rather one that is multipurpose with spaces for play and recreation intermixed with office environments. Shortly the trends have been there and the design has begun to appear, all Manzini has done was create this vision of a future and given a call to designers to adopt this as the actual solution and group together these creative communities and collaborative networks. The question that I have is where does this faith in people come from? I understand that the examples already exist but I also understand that people are very picky in what they adopt, and what they choose to do. What is there to ensure that the people will adopt these systems? Is he basically stating that we need to design systems so well that people will want to adopt these new behaviors and change their lives? How does he propose we incite people to adopt these systems or is that supposed to be an afterthought once the systems are already there?

Reasons to be Cheerful

We are finally in the age where it is quite obvious that we are in a crisis. This is visible both through the mindset of the people, the policies of the government, the educational programs in higher education, the labels on our products, and many other aspects. It has become quite clear that no one can really deny the state of the world right now and the sense of panic that is approaching. The question is now what do we do, how do we do it and why do we do it?
These questions have many approaches. It is the mindset of many that there is a need for government action, that people need to wait and pressure the government to do something about it. This in my opinion has stemmed from the way the climate crisis is presented to the world. Many people feel that they are almost helpless to do anything about it, that the most that they can do is buy some energy saving light bulbs and save some money on electricity, or buy a hybrid car or take a bus. However for the most part this is a lot of what the information campaigns have argued for. The belief that the general population needs to take baby steps into the climate crisis, work their way slowly upwards till they can begin to make massive sacrifices for the kind of change that really needs to happen. This is because the crisis is presented to be large, foreign, dreadful and unmanageable. As Hobson puts it in his article "Reasons to be Cheerful" "the environment becomes a thing ‘out there’ to feel guilty and responsible about."
How then can we begin to understand that the environment is not something 'out there' but something that is here, small, simple, manageable and comprehensible. Would not that seemingly be the answer? Do we need to find a villain, someone to blame or hate? Do we adopt the philosophies of deep ecologists and begin to live an eco-centric life placing natures needs above our owns, instituting population control worldwide and changing our lives? Do we follow Earth First and start a massive sabotage campaign destroying cars and trucks, oil drills and tractors? Do we begin to understand that we are the villains? How can we begin to understand that the environment is 'in here' when "climate change scenarios and their ameliorative pathways are often framed and experienced as a lack, a sacrifice, a going without that no one really wants to endure. It is also hard for us, whether poor or rich, to imagine the potentially profound changes ahead without feeling overwhelmed and despondent at the potential breakdown of our ways of life" (Hobson P. 6).
And how in the world are we supposed to be cheerful about this? According to Hobson "‘being cheerful’ is a fundamental prerequisite to conducting research into pathways to a healthy and sustainable future." His argument is precisely that we need to be cheerful and that we should be. This is more than just the understanding that we can each do our own little bit and help the world. Some policies try to emphasize imagining that 1000 people did what you did. And yes it does put our little energy saving light bulbs into context and makes us feel that we have some sort of impact but that isn't why we need to be cheerful. It seems we need to be cheerful because we can start from 'where we are.' Hobson states "recent research argues that seemingly ‘ethical’ or ‘green’ consumption practices (e.g. buying Fair Trade goods) do not originate from or exist within a sphere of thought and action set apart from the other, more mundane practices of the everyday. Rather, they are extensions of already existing ‘ordinarily ethical’ modes of being, which are the basis from which a myriad of conscious daily decisions are made. What this means is that people already have an inherent want to live a mindful lifestyle. That we are not putting in our energy saving bulbs because we are making ourselves think about the environment and the impact of regular light bulbs but rather we do it without thinking about it, because it is not something that is foreign to us. I believe that as a people we all have an inherent love of nature, this is visible through the ways in which we create gardens, and lobby for parks, the pets that we own, the trees that we plant. It is visible by the price of real estate on a tree lined block vs a block without trees. It is visible through the advertisements of cars driving through gorgeous scenery, through the houses that overlook the seaside and our wants and needs of them. I agree that 'green' thought is not something that arises from a different part of us but it is rather in us. This means that beginning to understand those problems that we are so scared of is not by targeting through massive numbers, and it is not necessarily through governmental policy but rather it is something that we already know and feel. It is a matter of perspective, we already love nature, we already want nature, we already domesticate the environment and the world around us, it is in us.
This is the answer to our question, that the environment is not something 'out there' but it is rather something that we keep in our minds, that influences our decisions and our actions. The reason that we need to be cheerful is because we do care and love nature, and the ways in which to begin to live in a world that loves us back is precisely by starting 'where people are.' It is not about the energy saving light bulbs, or the hybrid cars, or the Kyoto Protocol and Obama Stimulus plan. It is about the simple fact that we all inherently care and thats what we need to start marketing, that is what people need to realize.

deep ecology and its problems

The environment is a complicated issue. There are many beliefs about how we should be handling the crisis that is upon us, and there are many different views on how significant the crisis really is and whether or not a crisis even exists or not. The study of the environment is dubbed ecology and inherent to ecology are many issues of conservation, however deep chasms exist in ecology, and it becomes clear that many of these chasms have been around for long periods of time prior to many of our lifetimes. Some view the environment as a resource, some view the environment as a creation of god, and some view the environment as a member of their own community whose needs they need to put before their own.

            One good area to dive into in beginning to understand some of the viewpoints that exist is that of Deep Ecology as outlined and explained by Norwegian Philosopher Arne Naess in his writing of “The Deep Ecological Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects.” Naess describes Deep Ecology as “the ecology movement that questions deeper.”(p. 250) And what this basically means is that there is no reason for definitions, as Naess says “there is no reason why supporters of movements should adhere exactly to the same definition, or to any definition, for that matter.”(p. 242) What I find interesting in the way Naess frames Deep Ecology is that he specifies that it is not a philosophy but it is a movement. Movement means that this is not something that is grounded in the realm of theory but rather it is action, it is doing. Deep Ecology seems more a frame of mind or a way of living than it is a belief and there is no way to define a way to live. Deep Ecologists are people that as Naess puts it share similar ideals and many people who think that they aren’t Deep Ecologists may in fact be Deep Ecologists. What Naess argued and started his paper with is the idea that anyone “even those who completely subsume ecological policies under the narrow ends of human health and well being cannot attain their modest aims, at least not fully, without being joined by the supporters of deep ecology.”(p. 241) Because as Naess puts it sooner or later we will all be doing work so deep ecology becomes the premise from which conservation work will stem. This is Naess offering a middle ground, a place where both sides can converge in order to ultimately forward the goals of ecology and conservation. Naess establishes eight points that all deep ecologists agree to unanimously and one of these it that “humans have no right to reduce” the “richness and diversity” of non-human life “except to satisfy vital needs.”(p. 243) what Naess is saying here is that we are not the conquerors of this planet, the earth and life that surround us do not belong to us, we merely inhabit it like we rent our apartments. And so Naess says that when the non vital needs of humans come into conflict with the vital needs of non-humans than humans need to pull away and leave. But Naess makes no effort to define what constitutes a vital need. Are vital needs of humans the same worldwide? If so then what does he mean when he says that “differences in climate and related factors, together with differences in structures of societies as they now exist, need to be taken into consideration.”(p. 246) What are these structures and what exactly does he mean by this? Is Naess implying that not all humans are equal? Are these structures social in context? Are they biological? Naess provides no explanation to what exactly is meant by this rather he says that the goals of non-industrial or 3^rd and 4^th world countries “should not be seen as promoting lifestyles similar to those in rich countries.” And that we need to protect non-industrial countries from “invasion by industrial societies.” (p. 247) What exactly classifies invasion and how is it that these countries should work in order to attain their vital needs. Naess classifies many prohibitions but no solutions nor workable models. And given that we need to classify people by structures of society and that vital needs differ worldwide, who determines what is a vital need to every person in this world and while these needs are being determined what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Naess Presents many interesting and provoking arguments but he gives us nothing that we can grasp in our hands, there is nothing to understand, and he seems to eliminate the middle ground that he calls for in the beginning with every argument that he proposes.

However the most problematic part of Naess’ deep ecology model is something very different than anything that I have touched on thus far. Deep ecology’s most crucial premise I feel is one that Aldo Leopold proposed where the person is not a conqueror but rather a citizen of this planet on equal footing with everything that exists apart from us. This is primarily the belief that we view the world in a very anthropocentric manner and deep ecology seems to be screaming out with every fiber of its being that this needs to cease to exist. Where then does Naess get the justification to use the term “Non-human” to describe nature. It seems to me that the problem with Naess’ argument is one where the very language that he employs seems to undermine his entire belief system and the entire movement he is fighting for.

what in the world is a ppm?

We live in a capitalist society and we around surrounded by numbers. We count the money in our wallet, we count the money in our bank account, the interest rates of our credit cards and we count the days till we have less money in our wallet when the rent is due. Numbers are surrounding us from all sides and we live and breathe numbers. But one wonders how much do we really understand numbers. Joel Best in his article "More Damned Lies and Statistics. How Numbers Confuse Public Issues" says that we barely understand numbers at all. He states that not only are we constantly lied to with numbers but that the people who use these numbers to lie to us don't understand numbers all that well either. When looking at the crisis that surrounds us we see that we are constantly bombarded with risk calculations, and means and averages, percentages and parts per million (ppm). What in the world is a part per million and how am I supposed to understand that our atmosphere needs to reduce carbon in the atmosphere to 350 ppm? We are given these numbers but we don't understand what they mean. If 350 ppm is the number we need then what does smoking one cigarette do? Does a single cigarette put into the atmosphere 1 ppm, .01 ppm, .00000000000000000000000000000000000000001 ppm, or nothing at all. The entire environmentalism movement has been based on numbers but there has been no clue as to what that means to us. It is strange that although it seems very intuitive to us to use numbers for all of our issues, it is actually counterintuitive for many of our causes. As Best puts it, if a study indicates that diet cola drinkers are 20 percent more likely to have a specific medical condition. People may take that to mean the 20 percent of diet cola drinkers will get this disease. But in actuality if only 5 people out of 10000 have the disease than that would mean that a 20 percent increase in diet cola drinkers would mean that 6 out of 10000 diet cola drinkers would have the disease. 20 percent greater in this case means an additional 1 person out of 10000 and that in the overall scheme of things is almost insignificant. So it becomes increasingly clear that these numbers aren't telling us a thing so then why is it that we rely on them so much? Perhaps what we really need to be doing is moving away from numbers and actually showing people information in a more human way. We weren't born with money in our pockets and we aren't capitalists at 1 year old, so in our hearts we aren't made to understand numbers. Telling me that x number of smokers contract lung cancer does not affect me as much as showing me a smokers lung.