PVL Walk

A public workshop for the Diagrams of Power / Onomatopee 168 exhbition, hosted by Onomatopee Projects, Onomatopee Footnotes and Public Visualization Lab

The world is watching Stratumseind as it has become an experiment in smart-city technology and public space. It is a bustling nightlife arena for citizens and visitors alike to collide, mingle and attach fond memories to place. Yet, its reputation for bar-fights has prompted an installing of crowd-sensors, cameras, and microphones in lamp-posts to detect aggressive behaviour.

Join us on a night audio-tour created with local university students about their personal memories of Stratum, and their feelings about the potential and risks of sensor surveillance in the city. The tour is an "algorithmic walk", where our route is guided by randomized instructions, to "scramble" the usual data fed to the lamp posts. On the tour, we will engage in conversation about our own experiences in Stratum, and leave stories behind with chalk along our route. The audio tour and pictures of the night-walk will be featured at Diagrams of Power/ Onomatopee 168 at Onomatopee Projects. Together, we hope to spark dialogue around what Stratum means to citizens, and the vision of city: how efficiency and safety can be negotiated with public space for difference, life and dissent.

The Public Visualization Lab is based in OCAD University, Toronto Canada. We are a design and art research lab that employs visualization, curation, and storytelling as a critical media practice. We work alongside communities to represent social and environmental concerns through use of data, interaction and media technologies. We apply the representation of information as a political, ethical, and creative process for resilience-building within underrepresented communities in the digital age. www.facebook.com/publicvizlab

Diagrams of Power / Onomatopee 168 Diagrams of Power is an exhibition and publication that showcases critical artworks and projects that use data, diagrams, maps, and visualizations as ways of challenging dominant narratives and supporting the resilience of marginalized communities. Curated by Patricio Davila, Public Visualization Lab. On now at Onomatopee Projects. https://www.onomatopee.net/exhibition/diagrams-of-power/