Undoing Optimization: Stories from Smart City Citizens

Dr Alison Powell (LSE)

The 'smart city' promises an urban optimization, a seamless integration of human and machine intelligence. Such promises of 'smartness' have become a global phenomenon, a reconstruction of urban incoherence into seamless frameworks of prediction. This talk traces a history and proposes futures for urban 'smartness', using research from citizen activism using 'smart city' network, data, and sensors to outline strategies for undoing optimization. These include investigating hybridizing knowledge between humans, other living beings and 'smart' technologies, and regenerative practices of solidarity experienced through friction. Come and hear stories of wireless hackers, bee-keepers, feral cows, data scientists, and urban foxes and revel in our shared unruly potential.

Organiser: Centre for Global Media & Communications

Contact email: cgmc@soas.ac.uk