Urban Screens: Discovering the potential of outdoor screens for urban society By Pieter Boeder and Mirjam Struppek

Contents Introduction The broader context of Urban Screens Supporting the redefinition of the function of a growing infrastructure Introduction Welcome, gentle reader, to this First Monday Urban Screens special issue. Screens infrastructure is becoming increasingly visible in public spaces: Interactive, dynamic digital information displays emerge in urban environments. Forms and appearances range from large, daylight compatible LED billboards, plasma screens displayed in shops, information displays in public transportation systems and electronic city information terminals to dynamic, intelligent surfaces that may be fully integrated into architectural faade structures. Their introduction in the urban environment poses new, unparalleled challenges and opportunities. Urban Screens can be understood within the context of this development and the rediscovery of the public sphere and the urbane character of cities, based on a wellbalanced mix of functions and the idea of the inhabitant as active citizen: Urban Screens defined as these various kinds of digital displays in urban space being used in consideration of the wellbeing of the urban society Screens that support the idea of public space as space for creation and exchange of culture and the formation of public sphere by criticism and reflection. Its digital nature makes these screening platforms an experimental visualisation zone on the threshold of virtual and urban public space. The broader context of Urban Screens

With the advent of digital media, the global communication environment has changed dramatically. In the context of the rapidly evolving commercial information sphere of our cities, especially since the 1990s, a number of new digital display technologies have been introduced into the urban landscape. This transformation has intersected the other major transformations of media technology and culture over the last two decades: the formation of distributed global networks and the emergence of mobile media platforms such as cell phones which displace the architecture which accreted around fixed media. Convergence of existing digital media technologies, such as LED, plasma, GSM, RFID, database and Internet technologies has lead to the emergence of a new, interactive and increasingly pervasive medium. Currently, the primary purpose of this new infrastructure appears to be the management and control of consumer behaviour through advertising. Commercial companies are starting to realise that digital billboards are a powerful medium to communicate their goals and missions, in line with the new paradigms of the digital economy. Interconnected Urban Screens have tremendous potential to serve as a platform for information exchange. Such large networks are already being developed in Russia, China, U.S. and South America, where Screens are rapidly becoming a key element in commercial and government informational infrastructure. Our aim is to explore the opportunities for opening this steadily growing infrastructure of digital screens currently dominated by market forces for cultural content and exchange of information and for revitalisation of the public sphere.

Figure 1: Samsung socialism: public propaganda in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Public space has always been a place for human interaction, a unique arena for the exchange of rituals and communication. Its architecture, being a storytelling medium itself, plays an important role in providing a stage for this interaction. The way public space is inhabited can be read as a participatory process of its audience. Its (vanishing) role as a space for social and symbolic discourse has often been discussed in urban sociology. Modernisation, the growing independence of place and time and individualisation seem to devastate traditional city life and its social rhythm. Besides experiments with social networks and the media, a variety of new tools have emerged. Starting with the development of virtual cities with its chat rooms and spaces for production of identity, we now face communal experiments like collaborative wikis, blogs or mobile phone networks in the growing field of social computing and crossmedia platforms. Supporting the redefinition of the function of a growing infrastructure

Urban Screens 2005: Discovering the potential of outdoor screens for urban society Urban Screens 2005 was the first international conference that was dedicated to the redefinition of an emerging screen infrastructure in urban space. Presentations covered a broad spectrum of topics and issues, ranging from critical theory to project experiences by researchers and practitioners in the field of art, architecture, urban studies and digital culture. It addresses this growing infrastructure of large digital moving displays, which increasingly influence the visual sphere of our public spaces. Urban Screens 2005 investigated how the currently dominating commercial use of these screens can be broadened and culturally curated. Can these screens become a tool to contribute to a lively urban society, involving its audience interactively? Another important question and a major issue on the Urban Screens conferences is how to develop the rich, dynamic language that this new medium needs. An event culture has evolved recently in the real urban space of internationally competing cities, focusing on tourism and consumption. Considering the importance of social sustainability of our cities it is necessary to look closer at the liveability and openness of public spaces and to address the urban users as citizens instead of passive consumers. Shared experiences in the digital communication sphere might serve as an inspiration for this social enhancement of the real city. Figure 2: Urban Screens have tremendous potential for (re)vitalising the public sphere A new medium that is digital, interactive and pervasive What we are seeing is the emergence of a new medium that is digital, global and local, interactive and pervasive at the same time. What happens if the convergence of new technologies such as Internet, database and mobile technologies suddenly enable interactive access to the visual streaming of these digital surfaces? Can it revitalise the public sphere by creating an information dense urban environment or is it a major threat? How does the growing infrastructure of digital displays influence the perception of the visual sphere of our public spaces? Metaphorically speaking, can or do Urban Screens already function as a mirror, reflecting the public sphere? The Urban Screens project aims to address these questions in a transdisciplinary debate and provide new approaches to exchange experiences and start a network to initiate future collaborations.

Urban Screens 2006: Demonstrating the potential of public screens for interaction Building upon the results of Urban Screens 2005, the Urban Screens 2006 conference (Berlin, 6 7 October) will deepen the discussion and further elaborate on the broad spectrum of possible formats and usage of this emerging new media infrastructure. Urban Screens 2006 will be a platform for demonstrating the potential of public screens for interaction in a trinity of infrastructure, content and cooperation models. Interconnected topics will be the politics of public space, urban neighbourhood reactivation, interaction design of urban screens and their integration in the urban landscape. Urban Screens 2007: Expanding the potential of content for community screens While Urban Screens 2006 will have distinct brick & mortar accents, Urban Screens 2007 will have a stronger focus on content. Issues surrounding the production and display of media content for Urban Screens will be explored in detail. Key issues and topics include Public Space Broadcasting (PSB), generating content collaboratively and sharing it in networks of exchange, balancing content for different needs of an urban community, as well as Forms of displaying content and the relationship between technology and content. PSB can energise the hearts of cities by bringing together communities to share events and broadcasts, creating public news and information points in the city centre that double as local meeting places. It has potential to provide an outlet for community and educational activities, public service information, visual arts, digital innovation and local content production, revitalising the public sphere. We hope that you will share our excitement. About the authors Mirjam Struppek is an urbanist, consultant and researcher. She is curator and cooperation partner of Urban Screens, a joint project with the Institute of Network Cultures. After working at PLAY_gallery, Berlin in 2003, she founded Urban Research based on her online information platform interactionfield.de, which she develops since 2002. Since 2005, she organises the monthly Urban Media Salon in Berlin. Mirjam graduated in Urban and Environmental Planning from Kaiserslautern University, where she was also a research and teaching assistant. In 1999, she obtained a DAAD scholarship and spent two research semesters at Nagoya University, Japan.

Email: struppek [at] interactionfield [dot] de Pieter Boeder is communication manager and project coordinator with the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, which he joined in 2005. Pieter has a background in journalism and in communication management. He holds an MA degree in Journalism Studies from Cardiff University. Publications include Habermas heritage: The future of the public sphere in the network society (2005), Fundraising on the Internet (with Bettina Hohn, 2004), and Nonprofits on E: How nonprofit organisations are using the Internet for communication, fundraising, and community building (2002). His professional interests include journalism studies, theories of the network society, disparity issues, urban studies, and all things digital. E-mail: pieter [at] networkcultures [dot] org