[urban interfaces] research group at Utrecht University

[urban interfaces] Blogs

“Governing the Digital Society” webinar by Special Interest Group “Inclusion in the datafied city”

Inclusion in the datafied city On the 23rd of February the Special Interest Group “Inclusion in the datafied city”  external link will host the webinar. SIG-coordinator Michiel de Lange has invited Ayona Datta to talk about the theme of inclusion in the datafied city. She will share and discuss her work on gendering the smart city, and her action research in Delhi’s urban…

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Live cast SESSION #3: Urban Commons in the blockchain city

Urban commons, such as community gardens and shared neighbourhood spaces, have become more and more popular in recent years, perhaps as a response to the ongoing privatization of public space that many cities are experiencing. But do commons stand a chance against the power of the market? What is known as the ‘tragedy of the…

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Live cast SESSION #2: Values in the blockchain city

The smart city imagined the city as a patchwork of platforms and services to be used by it’s inhabitants and visitors as customers. When blockchain is added to the mix, should we instead imagine the city as a licence, continuously updated and different for each individual? If algorithmic ‘smart’ contracts become the arbiters of rights…

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Live cast series SESSION #1: The use of disorder in the blockchain city

Blockchain technology is often described as a distributed logbook, a tool for administration across networks of peers that can keep track of all kinds of transactions and resources. As such, it is often seen as simply a way to make bookkeeping more efficient or transparent. However, new functionalities of the blockchain called ‘smart contracts’ make…

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Re-centralizing the Human in More-Than-Human

Written by Bastiaan van Manen   In the context of the current environmental crisis that our planet is facing, more and more disciplines are refocusing their attention on taking what Lupton (2019) has dubbed a more-than-human approach to understanding the world. This perspective involves recognizing the various ways in which the human and the “nonhuman”…

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