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Shannon Mattern on Forms of Spatial Knowledge at the Sherrer Lecture

Notes from attending the Sherrer Lecture at Lewis & Clark College Friday, October 19, 2018, 3pm with Jane Nichols

Shannon Mattern, Professor of Media Studies, The New School
twitter: @shannonmattern
http://wordsinspace.net/shannon/
Local Codes:  Forms of Spatial Knowledge

She talked FAST and there was a TON of information. Here is what I could gather from this fascinating talk.  Data from an epistemological sense. Place Based Data.

Data → information → knowledge → wisdom

4 Case Studies:

1) Pittsburg   https://civic-switchboard.github.io/

  • tech industries, Carniege Mellon, Robotics, startups
  • Publicness”  is the city theme
  • Open civic data is their case study showcase
  • Lots of strong supported public institutions
  • Western PA data centers  – partners with the libraries for research, mapping etc and the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (https://www.neighborhoodindicators.org/)  and the Digital Library Federation, connected to offer data sharing and serving == civic switchboard – its local, ecosystem collaborative culture
  • They map out local data to determine the local true ecosystem.
  • Local issues = local partnership; goal to democratize data and suppose equitable access to information.

2) Jakarta  https://info.petabencana.id/about/  

  • Legacy of colonialism, environmental voluntility (13 rivers, always had seasonal flooding), 100 year floods now occur every 5 years, the city if sinking
  • Little data, little knowledge on how to model this risk. Tried Crowdsourcing via social media instead!
  • Petabencana – a collaborative partnership, using government data, user data via social media. https://petabencana.id/  used to build the data set and create a visualization
  • Twitter is a real time partner, but any social media platform will work.  When flooding is happening, and users are on social media posting about it, they can be sent  a chat with animated gif to ask them to add the content (CogniCity Open Source Software)

3) St Louis  http://stlmaproom.org/  (oh  how super cool this is!)

  • History of racial issues…
  • Created the Map Room project, brings people together for local data gathering, about their city (what they love, hate, enjoy)
  • Civic data, local environment
  • People in a room wiht large maps drawing on them, creating data basically
  • Ipad to project maps on floor really big so groups can work together, walk around it,etc. Various groups come together like Non Prof, schools, etc or random groups to work together OR on top of each other to show the try map of the city.
  • Added knowledge layers on top of this both draw by people or previous  groups but also other data. One key example: the relining maps added to show major effect those had on the city today
  • Map Rooms are growing in other cities too:  Atlanta (beltline) map room, uses civic data tired to lived experiences; all local data both geographies and biographies

4) San Fran/Silicon Valley

  • New wealth, bid rich city, gentrification, too much growth, little affordable housing
  • tech industry has disrupted knowledge produced and circulated – how can libraries help get this public knowledge and info out there?
  • Launched in April 2017, Public Knowledge is a two-year project that aims to promote public dialogue on the cultural impact of urban change. https://www.sfmoma.org/artists-artworks/public-dialogue/public-knowledge/
  • Public Knowledge Library -temp  branch in the museum as a public knowledge project to house and share various artists activities that reflect the changes happening in SF.
  • Civic Knowledge Solidarity – mapping project to help understand the story behind the data, the political and civic understandings
  • .Many other projects, check out here: https://publicknowledge.sfmoma.org/