Terraforming tech city: place branding and spatial imaginaries in inner East London

This paper performs a mixed-methods analysis of place-branding strategies developed in the ‘Tech City’ cluster initiative in Inner East London, drawing on ethnographic material, semi-structured interviews and visual content. Using Jessop’s concept of the spatial imaginary, we explore key foundational geographies, trace the emergence of the ‘Silicon Roundabout’ and Tech City concepts between 2008 and 2014, then discuss Tech City’s governance and progress, highlighting both day-to-day challenges and more basic tensions. We contrast this experience with that of ‘Here East’, a new regeneration space across the city in the Olympic Park

A small key, rotating in its socket

Short story, exploring automated work and emotion

Three Decks and More

I landed my first Tarot deck from the comic shop I worked at in Brighton after no one else would buy it. Small businesses with wafer-thin margins cannot afford to bin unwanted stock, so even the most unloved books and comics would hang around on the shelves getting sunbleached, waiting for the day when they would be picked up by a random customer who had been searching for that specific variant edition foil cover of ‘BATMAN MAKES FRENCH TOAST’

Spatial Imaginaries and Tech Cities: Place-branding East London’s digital economy

We explore place branding as an economic development strategy for technology clusters, using London’s ‘Tech City’ initiative as a case study. We site place branding in a larger family of policies that develop spatial imaginaries and specify affordances and constraints on place brands and brand-led strategies. Using mixed methods over a long timeframe, we analyse Tech City’s emergence and the overlapping, competing narratives that preceded and succeeded it, highlighting day-to-day challenges and more basic tensions. While a strong brand has developed, we cast doubt on claims that policy has had a catalytic effect, at least in the ways originally intended

This Must Be The Place: Critical Design and Urban Futurity

By 2050, half the world’s population will live in cities — Ancient Proverb You have, surely, seen or heard the above statement before—in newspaper articles, possibly, or government documents; perhaps as wall-text at an art exhibition; perhaps whispered into your ear by an anonymous commuter. Words summon action. Describing a near-future in which half of the global populace will inevitably—definitely!—live in cities is not a value-neutral offering but an invocation to act. This proverb drives policy development for the United Nations, forms the opening gambit of a great many foresight reports and acts as the backbone of the property development industry. It is a compelling pitch for businesses and govern- ments looking to shore up certainty in an age of instability and volatility, framing half the world’s population as a captive audience for policy, surveillance and sales. Positioning the city as the nexus of mass human experience for the foreseeable future sets up a land-grab for who gets to define what these cities will look like. And what is being imagined often seems to be terribly similar, both in terms of what these cities look like, how they are controlled and what forms of technological systems will thread through them. It is these apparently inescapable future-metropolitan visions that critical approaches to design, architecture and urbanism seek to challenge

The Internet Of Bombs

This essay, ‘Internet of Bombs’ acts as response to and contextualising tool for the MA projects. In it, we take the long view, considering the use of the autonomous weapons of war animals in Ancient Greece; and considering how, as in WWII ‘area bombing’ the efficacy of a weapon (re)defines a target. We trace precision tracking, sensing, and control from Cold War era computerisation of military strategy, into modern day offerings and operations around the Internet of Things, the ‘smart city’, and the networked world. A long-form essay which takes the long view around autonomised weaponry, considering the use of the autonomous weapons of war animals in Ancient Greece; and considering how, as in WWII ‘area bombing’ the efficacy of a weapon (re)defines a target. We trace precision tracking, sensing, and control from Cold War era computerisation of military strategy, into modern day offerings and operations around the Internet of Things, the ‘smart city’, and the networked world

The Brighton Fuse

No description supplie

A Conversation on Automation and Agency

Industrial robotics and the hardware and software of automation have been at the center of the discourse on computational design and digital fabrication for more than a decade. Initially developed for the execution of repetitive tasks in the context of serialized production and manufacturing, robots and industrial machines have been repurposed, reprogrammed, and rethought for an array of new tasks, as well as new approaches to what they can do and what they can represent. However, the meaning, histories, and array of metaphors surrounding robots inform design and creative practice. This keynote conversation brought together five designers, scholars, artists, and practitioners whose work engages with robotics and automation, specifically focusing on their implications in design and creative practice, and their complex cultural and political histories