MIT conducted a cool experiment earlier this year as part of the 2006 Venice Biennale.Called Real Time Rome, the project collected information from the city’s mobile phone users to create visualizations of the city as it worked and played. It shows the rhythms and patterns of city life as different neighbourhoods buzz into life at different times in the day, how massive events like a Madonna concert change and warp the dynamics of urban life. In the pic above the yellow line represent people on busses and trains, the red shows the density of people.
It made me wonder about how amazing it would be if you could take this further; collating loads of information about each user, so you could see how different communities used the city differently, or by having a live emoticon button on the phone so you could see when the city was happy or angry or joyous or expectant.
Maybe we would collectively sense danger and people would learn how to interpret these incredible patterns and be able to read the city as it went about it’s daily life.
I wonder if we would start to see the city (and ourselves within the city) differently, as part of a collective, complex whole rather than as individuals all doing our thing.
jez posted a version of this last week which inspired me to dig this out.
the 4hero mix (who’s new album is sounding dope btw.) of Terry Callier-Love theme from Spartacus