Medialab Prado

"The ideal state of urban infrastructure is invisibility. Infrastructure takes coordinated efforts to establish and maintain, but once in operation, we quickly learn to forget that it exists. Infrastructure systems are taken for granted and are treated as a black box -- “settled items whose users and colleagues (human and nonhuman) act in ways which are unchallenging to the technology” (Steve Hinchliffe).

Current engineering and planning practices accept, even encourage this habitual blindness. By blackboxing, the user becomes a dependent part of the infrastructure, perpetuating its continued use and existence. After all, becoming aware of infrastructure is usually an indication that something went wrong - from major disasters such as a nuclear power plant gone out of control to minor nuisances such as a dropped call or the garbage truck blocking traffic.

However, the role of infrastructure was not always so modest. The industrial visions of the Futurists and Constructivists were celebrations of infrastructure, emphasizing its sensory experience; in a similar manner the early metro lines and freeway systems provoked public excitement. A lack of awareness about how infrastructures operate is problematic, as it may diminish accountability on the side of the providers, and participation on the side of the citizens. In my talk i will discuss different case studies, including senseable city lab’s Trash | Track project, that probe the potential of technology to facilitate a new awareness and literacy for understanding urban systems." By Dietmar Offenhuber