Situated Technologies: Beneath and Beyond Big Data — A symposium with Philip Beesley, David Benjamin, Laura Forlano, Usman Haque, Natalie Jeremijenko, Omar Khan, Laura Kurgan, Helen Nissenbaum, Trebor Scholz, Mark Shepard, and Kazys Varnelis :: April 28, 2012; 2:00-5:00 pm :: Rose Auditorium, The Cooper Union, 41 Cooper Square, 3 AIA and New York State CEUs.

The Architectural League invites you to celebrate the publication of the final pamphlet in the Situated Technologies Pamphlets Series, Modulated Cities: Networked Spaces, Reconstituted Subjects, by Helen Nissenbaum and Kazys Varnelis. Bringing together contributors to the Situated Technologies Project throughout its first six years, this half-day event will address current issues surrounding situated technologies and the increasing entanglement of data, technology, and the built environment, and attempt to identify future trajectories for their evolution.

The day will begin with a conversation between pamphlet authors Helen Nissenbaum and Kazys Varnelis, moderated by Trebor Scholz, addressing the redefinition of privacy in the age of big data and the networked, geo-spatial environment, and questioning the implications for the construction of contemporary subjectivity. Usman Haque, Natalie Jeremijenko, Laura Kurgan, and Mark Shepard will then present a series of case studies on open data and the process of making data public, focusing on distributed sensing initiatives and contrasting them with centralized programs managed by government agencies.

Finally, David Benjamin, Philip Beesley, Laura Forlano, and Omar Khan will identify the challenges of developing data literacy among the next generation of architects, addressing these issues through an expanded architectural curriculum for the 21st century.