Culture | Smart City Provocations #3: Poetic Garden
What would it be like if humans could visit this lush, natural environment and listen to the tales of the software-plants, and rest against the hardware-earth, and exchange vital forms of care with various data-creatures?
Internet protocols and infrastructure make up the fabric of all online communication. Certain aspects of the Internet we are most familiar with — especially commercial platforms like Facebook and Google — have problematic practices with regard to privacy, security, and data sovereignty. At the same time, we must ask ourselves: is the Internet, in fact, a singular space? What can we do to allow for different approaches and modes of thought to enter it?
Practically speaking, in some urban areas that experience disparities in web access, "community technology" activists have set up mesh networks to provide widespread alternative access, demonstrating their commitment to decentralizing the Internet and building more equitable conditions for and connections between all people. Generally, we tend to think of computers and the Internet as separate things, but in fact the internet is just the largest computer ever built. So if this Internet, then, can be transformed into a garden, computers themselves will become spaces of software-plants, hardware-dirt, and data-creatures.
Watch the recording here:
About the Speakers
Taeyoon Choi is an artist, educator and organizer who works with drawing, painting, computer programming, performance art, and video. He explores the poetics of science, technology, society, and human relations. He believes in the intersectionalities of art, activism, and education. As a co-founder of the School for Poetic Computation in New York City, he helped build the school's curriculum and administration. He supports the disability community by enhancing accessibility and inclusion in arts and education. Choi is now based in South Korea.
Dr Chong Keng Hua (KH)is Associate Professor of Architecture and Sustainable Design at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), where he directs the Social Urban Lab and co-leads the Opportunity Lab (O-Lab). He is also Founding Partner of COLORS: Collectively Ours, an award-winning design consultancy specializing in public space and social impact. A firm believer in design activism, KH has been advocating social architecture, community design and healthy environment in the region, through his writings, projects and international exhibitions. He was Curator of Singapore Pavilion for Seoul Biennale 2017, Venice Biennale 2018, and Festival Director of Singapore Archifest 2020. His recent books are Second Beginnings (2018) and Creative Aging Cities (2018).
About the Series
Culture | Smart City Provocations is a series of live virtual dialogues and events exploring what could and should be the role of urban cultural transformation in the future smart city. It will bring together a transregional range of experts from arts practitioners, urban planners to thought leaders and researchers to share insights and offer fresh perspectives on how culture and cities are evolving before our eyes.