Today we’ll split you into small groups for a “data walkshop.” We’ll meet briefly in the classroom to discuss the method, then send you off into the city to observe and document various datalogical thresholds, coded zones, and what Gillian Fuller and Ross Harley call “protocological surrounds.” More info to come.
Lab 1: Emily will lead us through a few “Exposing the Invisible” exercises.
Lab 2: Data Walk. Each group should come to class on February 11 prepared to share an informal five-minute presentation summarizing their findings. You’re welcome to use slides and other media, share collected artifacts, etc.
To be reviewed for today’s class:
- Alison Powell, “The Data Walkshop and Radical Bottom-Up Data Knowledge” in Hannah Knox and Dawn Nafus, eds., Ethnography for a Data-Saturated World (Manchester University Press, 2018): 212-32 + Data Walking.
- Shannon Mattern, “Infrastructural Tourism,” Places Journal (July 2013).
Observational Sensibilities:
- Look for what’s looking at you: Skim Bettine Josties, Sensing at The New School: A Field Guide to Unattended Technologies that Pay Attention to Us (2019) [n.b. Bettine created this book for my Fall 2019 “Anthropology + Design” class].
- Feel/listen for things you can’t see: Chancey Fleet, “Accessibility, Augmented,” Urban Omnibus (November 6, 2019) [full disclosure: I edited this “Digital Frictions” series].
- Look for networks evidenced through mundane objects: Anna Shteynshleyger and Mariana Mogilevich, “Latchkey Living,” Urban Omnibus (September 4, 2019).
- Look at yourself looking: Check out Selena Kimball and Pascal Glissmann’s Observational Practices Lab at Parsons.
- Sense instrumentally: If you have an iPhone or Android, download the Architecture of Radio app for potential use in your datawalk.
Finally…
- Please sign up for your Artifact Analysis presentation, if you haven’t done so already! (you must be logged in through your NewSchool account)
Sample 2020 Group Results:
Supplemental Resources:
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- Ingrid Burrington, Networks of New York: An Illustrated Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure (Melville House, 2016).