Abstract: In this talk, I engage with the visual regimes of urban platformization as an emergent and crystalizing logic in cities. Drawing on a range of empirical instances from North American cities, I situate and trace urban platform visualities in three registers: aesthetics, the glitch, and communication. Docked bikesharing infrastructure in Vancouver comprises a serialized aesthetics increasingly co-implicated with the aesthetics of gentrification at the microgeographic, or sub-neighbourhood, scale of the city. What would appear to be a garish, performatively ‘ugly’ home intended to disrupt the homogeneity of an Instagrammable aesthetic nevertheless function to cue the production and circulation of value. And two additional instances from Canadian cities – signs indicating reserved parking for mobility platform vehicles, and posters calling for gig workers to unionize – materially communicate and are contextuaized against the conditions of platform urbanism along axes of changing spatial and social relations in the city. I discuss how this visual-material perspective nuances our understandings of the co-generative dynamics of platforms and cities by foregrounding how platforms materially make and claim space, communicate, and mediate socio-spatial relations in urban environments.

Abstract: Autonomous and/or Intelligent Systems (A/IS) are often conceptualised according to a model of autonomy characterised by freedom from interference, also called negative autonomy. What makes a system autonomous, according to this model, is the feature of independently giving a rule to oneself.

Feminist critiques of autonomy, in particular, theories of relational autonomy, challenge this negative model by drawing attention to the necessity of interdependence, connection, and entanglement for someone – or something – to be considered autonomous. Dominant modes of assessing the autonomy of a system rely on what Benhabib calls the ‘illusion of a disembedded and disembodied self’, carried over from a largely Kantian model of autonomy. The reality, however, of how A/IS operate in the world, in both urbanised and rural spaces, is increasingly relational. The “westernizing dream” of an autonomous drone that needs no interference from human beings is neither likely nor desirable. With that in mind, this paper explores how relational theories of autonomy help for A/IS. It views A/IS not as discrete isolated individuals governed by negative liberty, but as interdependent, entangled constellations.

Considering A/IS otherwise, not as self-prescribing, isolated nodes, but as vast constellations of material, philosophical and political realities, has far reaching consequences for an individualist ethics that holds only single discrete individuals accountable. How would the design, implementation and governance of A/IS be affected by relational approaches, and in what ways can that impact a rethinking of both urban and rural spaces that is necessary to accommodate diverse cultures of adoption?

Abstract: In this talk, I will explore the question of how open-source algorithmic platforms reconstitute decision-making and participatory practices. I repurpose the notion of urban comparison to create a new opening for inquiry into and conceptualisation of digital urban democracy. I compare three alternative platforms for political participation - vTaiwan, Decide Madrid and OmaStadi, through their similarities (as young democratic urban regimes) and differences. I argue that liquid is the shape of digital urban democracy. The liquid situation, being both frictional and changeable, affords democratic openings against foreclosures. Liquid democracy moves from the binary debate on digital platforms either for or against democracy to the question of how such platforms open up and close down multiple moments and pathways for urban democracy. It moves away from totalising democracy as a form of control within neo-liberal regimes, from revolutionary democracy to a fluid, micro and more-than-human democracy.

Abstract: The affinity for tech-driven solutions of ‘smart cities’ has been critiqued at length, as has the gender disparity in technology firms. This paper draws these literatures together along with our own data on Australia’s innovation economy – one that includes its spaces (incubators, accelerators and co-working hubs), events (‘hackathons’), and places (innovation districts). These three components are ubiquitous among smart city strategies across all levels of government. In this paper I draw upon work done with my colleagues, Prof Robyn Dowling and Dr Peta Wolifson, where we examine the gendered landscape of the innovation economy and the strategic urban agenda to which it is tied. We use data collected through interviews conducted with women entrepreneurs around their experiences in Australia’s innovation economy. Drawing from policy documents and further interviews, our discussion mirrors their vignettes with an examination of the three innovation economy components using case studies from Australian smart city planning. In doing so, we illuminate how the gendered experiences of women in the innovation economy are entwined with the smart urbanism imperatives of high-growth, technology-focus, and the attraction of ‘talent’. Existing attempts to grapple with discrimination in the innovation economy are shown to reinforce gendered hierarchies, resulting in ‘smart cities’ designed for men. We argue that the gendered nature of the tech industries that underpin the innovation economy has implications for who the smart city is for.

Abstract: The rise of Web3 rhetoric in 2021 marks the latest round of blockchain inspired economic experimentation. Founded on a (mostly) libertarian-styled ideology using a lens of property, personal sovereignty and ownability Web3 seeks to decentralize away from platforms, central banks and the state and re-make socio-economic space through trustless and market-based systems of algorithmic governance. This presentation focuses on two key emerging practices: (1) Using NFTs (non-fungible tokens on a blockchain) to create property rights for digital goods to make digital objects unique and allow for easy, algorithmic exchange (via DAOs) without relying on centralized, regulatory controls and (2) the expansion of NFT property practices to the non-blockchain world in order to “crack” everyday assets, practices and places to create liquidity and enable commodification of cities via a digital growth machine model. This paper uses interviews with blockchain entrepreneurs and analysis of business models to highlight how Web3 actors seek to change ownership and investment. Ironically a significant challenge to this effort is the lack of regulation (an anathema to the Web3 world) over NFT which undercuts the stability of the new spaces of ownership under construction.

Abstract: The talk illustrates the ongoing progresses of my project "INFRATIME" on time, smart urbanism and urban transitions. As part of my research, I will focus on EU sustainable transition approaches from a time-based perspective, discussing my research questions, early findings and the qualitative methods adopted. I argue that the processes of ecological transition undertaken to address climate change challenges could be understood as climate-digital-urban timescape that involves data infrastructures, urban governance and management, and technoscientific practices. While the fundamental contributions of the IPCC reports on climate awareness and the COP Meetings produced a ‘rediscovery of the future’ by multiple and non linear future-making practices, my contribution focuses on 'rediscovering the present' as a temporal nexus where alternative past-present-future relations for climate adaptation and mitigation are shaped.