“Prototyping the Idiotic City” Conference/Workshop, 5 June

CISP & Fondecyt N°1180062

In recent years, the notion of smartness has gained pervasive prominence in various spheres of social life and the ways that cities can be known, planned and governed. Data collection is now enabled through embedded sensors and devices in urban space, particularly in the development of the Internet of Things. Autonomous mobility and other smart city initiatives make cities appear to be manageable and controllable in (near) real-time through smart analytics and dashboards. In developing these innovations, new modes of laboratorization and experimentation are deployed in order to test technological ‘solutions’. Against the grain of a sterile technotopia proposed by the smart city, we want to problematize the various kinds of smartness that are programmed and inscribed into this debate, as well as question the newness of it. What, in other words, are the failures and breakdowns that slow down and counteract the supposed smoothness of the smart city? Through a one-day workshop we invite researchers to creatively incorporate the “murmur of the idiot” (Stengers, 2005) into situations in which new relationships with our ‘smart’ surroundings can be built.

During the event, each presenter discusses an idiotic object or situation. Each speaker, together with the audience, will then try to further the idiocy of other speakers cases.