Content Comparison

Lecturers

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This year’s edition of Spatial Interaction takes place in collaboration with the organization of Labör. Labör is an experimental meeting space in a former coppersmith's workshop near Oerlikon station. It is located on the MFO site, a former machine factory whose conversion and further development is currently being promoted by the city of Zurich. In this development Labör puts an emphasis on circularity.

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Topic 2025: Circular Conversions in Public Space

Labör

circular conversions

formats for participation and interaction

exchanges of ideas, methods of circular conversion and upcycling, tools and spaces for encounters and interchanges

commons

stakeholders, participants in public space

Technology (which?), AI, human and non-human participants (important here?)

As artificial intelligence begins to infiltrate various aspects of public life, from surveillance systems to algorithmic decision-making, it brings opportunities and challenges for democratic societies. Amongst privacy, surveillance, bias, and authorship concerns, it becomes easy to imagine an expanse of dystopian futures. AI features prominently in speculation of Existential Risk (Bostrum, 2002), and the numerous dystopian depictions of societal collapse driven by AI in science fiction provides plenty of material for anxiety. Many of these speculative horror scenarios are entering the everyday parlance of technology: the Alignment Problem (Gabriel, 2020), AI arms race (Moore, 2016), Superintelligence (Bostrom, 1998) and The Singularity (Chalmers. 2016). Such concerns will always outnumber the list of positives: there are inherently more ways for any system to go wrong than to go right. But how do we increase the chance of our future with AI going in the right direction for the planet and for humanity instead of the infinite ways to go wrong? Many of the utopian scenarios being provided to us, however, come from people and organisations that stand the most to profit from the rapid and uncontrolled uptake of AI technology. For this reason, we must have an alternative source of visions beyond the solutionism (Morozov, 2013) of Silicon Valley. In this year's edition of Spatial Interaction, we focus on interactions in public space that build on playful formats for circular exchange and extensions of use. In collaboration with Labör (see 'collaboration' above), we explore the new Zurich development area at the MFO site and search for available and non-privatised resources (material and social). In addition to the production facilities at ZHdK, we can use Labör's new building as an on-site base. In groups, we develop ideas and concepts for involvement and participation in this area in transition. We implement the developed approaches in prototypes that expand the existing environment and its current use with new patterns of movement, forms of exchange and encounter, digital layers and technology-supported spatial experiences.

Deliverables and Documentation

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Upload your documentation files to: smb://fileredu.ad.zhdk.ch/DDE/BDE_VIAD/01_ABGABEN/25_FS/Sem4_Spatial_Interaction

Main Project Brief

Ultimately, the outcomes of the module will envision ways of living with AI that empower rather than diminish the agency of individuals and communitiesreconfiguring the potential of available resources, human interrelations and local knowledge at a specific publicly accessible location. We approach the topic with prototypes and design interventions that leverage our technical skills and designerly perspective, while avoiding the tendencies of technological solutionism. The actual format of the end results will be developed through in-class discussions and steering meetings.

Objectives:

1. Reflect on AI's Impact: Investigate the current and potential implications of AI on democratic and political processes, considering issues such as privacy, bias, polarisation and social and behavioural manipulation.

2. Explore Spatial Dynamics: Explore how physical public spaces are being reshaped by AI and how the future might be reimagined using AI to foster inclusivity, civic engagement, greater awareness or critical thinking on the topic.

3. Prototype Experimental Futures: Create tangible prototypes and/or interventions that embody new ways of ‍‍‍living with AI in public spaces and in democratic processes. Record your results extensively with photos, video and audio.

Schedule

(Vinzenz Urlaub: 7.-13.April)

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