led by Strange Telemetry (Tobias Revell and Georgina Voss)

Νotions of the ‘smart city of tomorrow’ usually focus on shiny de-politicised technologies and systems that shrink-wrap a compliant and stable population. Cities, though, already embody human and technological intelligence, as well as inbuilt, long-term infrastructures and deep and complex political histories. How much room do current smart cities scenarios allow for the conceptualisation of plural, speculative, and contested futures? How can a richer understanding of the existing socio-technical systems be instead taken into consideration?

This two-day Stange Telemetry workshop introduced participants to the basic principles of Speculative and Critical Design (SCD), and their application to an urban context. Over its course, Strange Telemetry emphasised analytical tools, models of strategic and systems thinking as well as forms of practice that enhance a critical reflection about the present and a conception of possible heterogeneous futures.

The workshop activities were intensively site-specific, having Athens as resource and a point of inspiration. Whilst macro-level factors such as the ongoing financial crisis, population movement, and climate change were taken into consideration, the workshop also focused on the role of the city as a site of contested politics in the Mediterranean, drawing on its political history and culture, its material artefacts, institutions, physical geography, and the built environment.

Bios of the artists:

Strange Telemetry is a research company and consultancy. Through design projects, workshops and writing, we explore and illuminate the contexts in which technologies are imagined, built, used, and controlled. Strange Telemetry is a workers’ co-operative, bringing together a directorial team of internationally exhibiting artists, curators, designers and social scientists; and expertise in critical design and speculative prototyping, futures and strategic foresight, and creative workshop facilitation. Owned and managed by our members, we aim to work in a way that preserves our autonomy and independence.

http://www.strangetelemetry.com/

Georgina Voss is a technology anthropologist, artist, and writer, whose work focuses on the political and infrastructural systems which underpin and shape technological practices, and the spatial elements of these relationships. Her work has been commissioned and exhibited by the Brighton Digital Festival, UK; Artefakt Festival, Leuven; and the Milton Keynes International Festival, UK; and she has held artistic residencies at RAMLAB, Rotterdam Port; Experimental Research Lab in Autodesk’s Pier 9, San Francisco; and Lighthouse Arts, Brighton. Voss holds a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex. Her writing has been published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, and HOLO Magazine, and she is the author of Stigma and the Shaping of the Pornography Industry (Routledge, 2015). She is a co-founder and director of research studio Strange Telemetry, and a senior lecturer and research lead in critical studies and design at the University of the Arts, London.

Tobias Revell is an artist and designer. Spanning different media and genres, his work addresses failed utopias, rogue actors, unexplained phenomena, and the idea of technology as territory. Tobias is Senior Lecturer in Critical and Digital Design at the London College of Communication, UAL. He is a co-founder of research consultancy Strange Telemetry and one-half of research and curatorial project Haunted Machines. He lectures and exhibits internationally, and has recently appeared at Improving Reality, FutureEverything, Impakt Utrecht, Web Directions Sydney, Transmediale Berlin and Lift Geneva. He is a PhD candidate in design at Goldsmiths.