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COURSE POST #5: The Sound of the Streets

From The Sound-Considered City: A Guide for Decision-Makers (2018), the soundscape, “is made up of everything that can be heard in a particular place at a specific moment in time,” which contributes to the happiness and well-being of the city’s inhabitants. In contrast, “noise” is sound that pollutes the environment and drives the city’s inhabitants away from the area. This article reminded me of Grandmaster Flash’s music video to his song “The Message,” which illustrates the various forms of unpleasant noises in the city.

Different soundscapes can serve different purposes. For example, this store front in the image above shows people sitting around chatting close enough to the sidewalk in which pedestrians can hear their voices. As social creatures, people could be drawn to hearing people conversing with each other and want to sit down themselves and soak in the atmosphere. In contrast to Grandmaster Flash’s video, there is no glass breaking on the sidewalk or any other disturbances other than perhaps cars driving by the shop. 

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COURSE POST #4: Adjustment > Vision

“Deep mapping” is a way to navigate through a city in more ways than just routes and by GPS. Shannon Mattern writes in “Deep Mapping the Media City” that “The map offers additional interactive features that allow us to explore our cities’ growth and infrastructural development from multiple vantage points—as if we were looking at Manhattan from Brooklyn or from an approach on the Staten Island Ferry” (Mattern, 2013). Additionally, “deep mapping” allows users to see historical and modern changes to an area of interest. For example, the comparison of the image above versus the one below:

Furthermore, mapping in such a way inclines us to think of cities as “grand adjustments” instead of “grand visions” according to Mattern.  

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Course Post #3: Questions of the Future

As Steven Shaviro describes in “No Speed Limit: Three Essays on Accelerationism,” Capitalism has many flaws that have negatively impacted certain members of society, while benefiting some in society at the same time. Shaviro discusses in depth Marxism and its opposition to Capitalism, and describes “accelerationism” as a route to achieving a society beyond the grips of Capitalism by instead of resisting Capitalism, pushing it to its limits in order for it to fail. However, Shaviro notes that, “When we push potentialities to their fullest expression, or exacerbate contradictions to the point where they explode, we cannot be sure what the outcome will be” (Shaviro, 2008). I found this interesting that there have been so many people throughout many generations to oppose Capitalism, Michael Moore being a more recent example, yet no one has found an alternative that can work without a chance of failure. 

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COURSE POST #2: THINGS ARE COMPLICATED

For both the technologically inclined and those that resist its innovations, society as a whole is becoming increasingly more dependent on technology. Thomas Thwaites’s “The Toaster Project” demonstrates how something as seemingly basic and inexpensive as a toaster, is actually a lot more difficult to create with minimal help from technology. Thwaites took on the project in order to “highlight how dependent we have become on technology and how far removed we are from the processes and systems behind most of the technologies and devices our every day lives depend on” (Dunne & Raby, 2013)  according to Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s book, Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. 

Thwaites’s demonstration and what Toaster Project argues is visible on city streets as well with the implementation of mobile pay parking meters, for example. Paying a parking meter with your phone may seem easy - until it isn’t. For those that wish to resist technology and not own a cell phone, paying for parking becomes 10x more difficult than using the traditional method of coin and meter. Even for those that do have a cell phone, the pressure to have the phone’s battery charged is there. For what seems as such a simple machine as a parking meter, the demand for utilization of technology highlights the dependence society has on “buying in” to technology.      

[climate-crisis]

Today (23rd of January 2020), Ecosia will use 100% of its profit to bring subtropical rainforest back to New South Wales. If you don't use it already, today it's a great way to start!

It is a search engine much like Google, the difference being that it uses its profit to help save the planet. They are transparent in regards to how this money is invested, so you always know what they are doing with the money!

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An example of using the “natural” world of coding to help the natural world in times of crisis. 

COURSE POST #1: Using technology to help the world.