Comments on: State of Urban Informatics Research Intersections http://nearfuturelaboratory.com/seventh-and-half/2008/10/31/state-of-urban-informatics-research-intersections/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=state-of-urban-informatics-research-intersections Fabien Girardin Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:45:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Martin Brynskov http://nearfuturelaboratory.com/seventh-and-half/2008/10/31/state-of-urban-informatics-research-intersections/#comment-375 Martin Brynskov Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:26:08 +0000 http://liftlab.com/think/fabien/2008/10/31/state-of-urban-informatics-research-intersections/#comment-375 Nice condensation of the state of the field, Fabien. There are, I think, obvious analogies to the development of HCI (or whatever it is currently morphing into) as a field, coming from human factors and then giving more and more emphasis to the social context. I am of course biased, coming from Denmark, but the trend you describe is all what the Scandinavian tradition of contextualizing ICT is about. The efforts of forming new relations and vocabularies around urban informatics are equally challenging (and exciting, actually). I find that one of the hardest parts of this exercise is to form and sustain strong environments, incorporating academia, industry, business etc., valuing both construction and theorizing, long and short term. As it stands today, the traditional, tech-focused, utilitarian wording is usually still what gets you a grant/internal corporate funding. We have to resist that. E.g., today I found myself joining the Danish Association of Media Researchers. Totally natural to me, but not so from a traditional perspective. I welcome your efforts to formulate this movement. -Martin Nice condensation of the state of the field, Fabien. There are, I think, obvious analogies to the development of HCI (or whatever it is currently morphing into) as a field, coming from human factors and then giving more and more emphasis to the social context. I am of course biased, coming from Denmark, but the trend you describe is all what the Scandinavian tradition of contextualizing ICT is about. The efforts of forming new relations and vocabularies around urban informatics are equally challenging (and exciting, actually). I find that one of the hardest parts of this exercise is to form and sustain strong environments, incorporating academia, industry, business etc., valuing both construction and theorizing, long and short term. As it stands today, the traditional, tech-focused, utilitarian wording is usually still what gets you a grant/internal corporate funding. We have to resist that. E.g., today I found myself joining the Danish Association of Media Researchers. Totally natural to me, but not so from a traditional perspective. I welcome your efforts to formulate this movement.

-Martin

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