Anab Jain
[4] Lindsay Caplan, “Method without Methodology: Data and the Digital Humanities”, e-flux journal (2016). See: http://www.e-flux.com/ journal/72/60492/methodwithout-methodology-dataand-the-digital-humanities/, retrieved on 30 January 2018. [5] Tricia Wang, “Big Data Needs Thick Data”, Ethnography Matters (2013). See: http:// ethnographymatters.net/ blog/2013/05/13/big-dataneeds-thick-data/, retrieved on 30 January 2018.
and by the personal experiences and imaginative projections of its maker. Maps can be enhanced by imaginative embellishments; they can show imaginary places and present collective aspirations and hopes for the future. However, today, with the rise of big data, we are seeing a renewed attempt to conflate the map and the territory. Endlessly aggregating flows of people and their locations, things and activities are continuously mapped into ever-larger undifferentiated masses. As Lindsay Caplan writes in her e-flux editorial, “Big data oscillates in the space between a map and a territory. It is a seductive mode of representation and is therefore often confused to be both. It is important to recognise this confusion, because data representations are critical. What data means – how it is interpreted, and to what ends – has implications not only for privacy and security but also for how we exist and understand our position as humans in the world.”4 This is now becoming more important than ever before. The constant stockpiling of data collected on everything from our most intimate activities to the flows of human and non-human currents across our cities is intrinsically linked to the idea of the “smart city”, where every activity, movement, interaction and relationship becomes an abstracted, measurable, quantifiable asset, flattened onto a two-dimensional map. This ideology becomes the foundation on which the smart city (or a future smart city) and its use are configured and regulated. Whilst they are invariably “smart” in their ability to use data sets and maps as “evidence” or facts about the status quo and then build upon these assumptions, ultimately this is problematic. These are not simple facts but rather facts represented through a specific technology that does not allow for “thick data”5 – the stories and social imaginaries of the people who collectively make cities what they are. This seductive contemporary vision of the city is not entirely different from historical ones. Though the contemporary genre of urban techno-fantasy seen in visions of the smart city is new, city planners (and city officials) have often approached cities from a top-down perspective, resulting in the social wars over urban justice fought by people like Jane Jacobs, Jan Gehl, Ellen DunhamJones and so many others. Besides being designed and built in ways that were top-down and ignorant of life on the ground, our cities have also been created for specific segments of adults. Children very rarely play a role in the design of future cities. Yet they access and constantly use the shared resources of cities, such as streets, parks, town centres, playgrounds and transport systems.
Michael Jensen, Untitled (Revenge Map), 2003. Whenever Michael takes his inflatable boat out onto the lake, Old Man Richardson gets out his BB gun – or so Michael claims. The 12-yearold artist has made a fantasy map of a paintball payback.
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