Announce­ments

The Labelling For the Food Com­mons work­shop engages par­ti­cipants in an exper­i­ment­al machine-teach­ing activ­ity to invest­ig­ate the struggle of keep­ing com­munit­ies in the cyber­net­ic loop of auto­mat­ing the fair dis­tri­bu­tion of res­cued food. 

SMUC will host the pan­el The Ana­tomy of a Com­mon­ing-Based Pre­dict­ive Infra­struc­ture at Hack­TheP­rom­ise fest­iv­al at neues kino Basel, 16 Septem­ber 2023 5 pm. The pan­el will dis­cuss socio-tech­nics and design prin­ciples that dif­fer­en­ti­ate between com­mon­ing-based and extract­iv­ist approaches to algorithmic urb­an futures. The aim will be to con­trib­ute to more robust and per­suas­ive ima­gin­ar­ies of care- and com­mon­ing-based urb­an futures. 

In cooper­a­tion with the Food Cul­ture Lab (rep­res­en­ted by Gab­ri­ela Aquije) we host a Do It Togeth­er (DIT) Apéro Riche. We believe, that the extract­iv­ist “smart city” dream of the 2000s has exhausted itself. We invite you to crit­ic­ally and con­struct­ively engage with ideas of just, open and sus­tain­able uses of tech­no­logy. Our focus is on strategies of nego­ti­ation of where ingredi­ents are needed and why and how a com­munity can teach a deliv­ery algorithm to deliv­er res­cued food accord­ingly. In the event we would like to touch on these top­ics through play­ing a small game with you. Our aim is to start a dis­cus­sion about just and sus­tain­able city, food and tech­no­logy use. Klick here for fur­ther information. 

The aim of this hands-on work­shop is to bring togeth­er Lon­don-based research­ers (form insti­tu­tions such as CUCR, Gold­smiths Design, HCI City, Design Innov­a­tion Lough­bor­ough) the probe mutu­al research interest in just, com­munity-driv­en algorithmic urb­an futures. 

Through cre­at­ing data stor­ies with the par­ti­cipants, the work­shop addresses the prob­lem space of unwieldy data from cit­izen sens­ing (Gabrys et al 2016), optimisation’s inher­ent drive to smoothen out indi­vidu­al dif­fer­ences in cal­cu­lat­ive pro­cesses (Pow­ell 2021) and fric­tions in com­munity-based machine teaching. 

As an invited guest at the FHNW MA Exper­i­ment­al Design and HGK Co-cre­ate pro­gram Alison’s talk unpacks the prob­lems with and poten­tial responses to the tend­ency towards optim­iz­a­tion in socio-tech­nic­al prac­tice. It focuses on the ways that cit­izens work with, and against, tech­no­logy to exer­cise cit­izen­ship. Optim­iz­a­tion can nar­row the frame­works for civic action in cit­ies to align with techno-social sys­tems and com­mer­cial expect­a­tions. Undo­ing these dynam­ics requires an atten­tion to fric­tion and ten­sion, as well as an atten­tion to the poten­tial oth­er ways of under­stand­ing and con­nect­ing dif­fer­ent forms of know­ledge, includ­ing the datafied know­ledge of sens­ing sys­tems as well as oth­er ways of knowing. 

Alis­on Pow­ell is Asso­ci­ate Pro­fess­or in Media and Com­mu­nic­a­tions at the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics. Her work includes research about Join­ing Up Soci­ety and Tech­no­logy for AI (JUST AI Net­work), invest­ig­at­ing the pos­sib­il­ity and con­sequences of explain­ing how algorithms work (Under­stand­ing Auto­mated Decisions), or explro­ing how people make know­ledge about the city through ‘data walk­ing’.

‘Fam­ily din­ner from leftovers’, ‘bowl for brunch’… Inspired by Vera van der Burg’s work on sub­ject­ive labelling and co-facil­it­ated by guest Iohanna Nicen­boim, the semi-pub­lic Labeling Fric­tion explores exper­i­ment­al labelling meth­ods for com­munity-based machine teaching. 

SMUC.kitchen PI Vikt­or Bedö giv­ing his inaug­ur­al lec­ture ‘Design Fric­tion for Care-based Urb­an Infra­struc­ture’ along with Helen v. Pritchard and Bud­haditya Chat­to­pad­hyay at the FHNW Academy of Arts and Design. 

Machine learn­ing, pri­vacy and data secur­ity expert and act­iv­ist Dav­id Som­mer joins the SMUC.kitchen team for a work­shop to explore feas­ible and spec­u­lat­ive auto­ma­tion tools (such as lin­ear algebra neur­on­al net­works) and review pri­vacy-related flags. 

In a series of work­shops, SMUC is devel­op­ing a sub­vers­ive exten­sion card set for the IoT Ser­vice Kit. The SMUC IoT Card Deck (work­ing name) focuses on ‘min­im­al neces­sary datafic­a­tion’ (See Pow­ell, Undo­ing Optim­iz­a­tion) and more-than-human IoT. Its aim is to facil­it­ate the nego­ti­ation of data streams, diet­ary require­ments and cook­ing cul­ture for the auto­ma­tion of food rescue. 

In a series of work­shops, SMUC is devel­op­ing a sub­vers­ive exten­sion card set for the IoT Ser­vice Kit. The SMUC IoT Card Deck (work­ing name) focuses on ‘min­im­al neces­sary datafic­a­tion’ (See Pow­ell, Undo­ing Optim­iz­a­tion) and more-than-human IoT. Its aim is to facil­it­ate the nego­ti­ation of data streams, diet­ary require­ments and cook­ing cul­ture for the auto­ma­tion of food rescue. 

The Sym­posi­um of the Ger­man Soci­ety for Design The­ory and Research (;dgdt) titled Growth x Sus­tain­ab­il­ity will fea­ture the SMUC Design Fric­tions for Pre­dict­ive Food Com­mon­ing Work­shop. To learn more or par­ti­cip­ate, see Sym­posi­um pro­gram.

Vikt­or has pub­lished his reflec­tions on role­play as a research meth­od when design­ing ser­vices for non-human city inhab­it­ants as part of the More-Than-Human Data Inter­ac­tions In The City, the pro­ject reflec­tion book­let of Moth Cit­ies. The reflec­tions build on the par­ti­cip­a­tion in the ‘Moth City’ work­shop series and explor­a­tions with the design stu­dents of the exper­i­ment­al design course ‘Grasp­ing the Future City’ at FHNW. 

SMUC cooper­ates with the Mas­ter Digit­al Design at the Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­sity of Applied Sci­ences by provid­ing a design chal­lenge for a stu­dent team’s 2021 gradu­ation pro­ject. Learn more about their pro­ject in the Frag­ments.