Street / Appropriation / Struggle simulation in the exhibition installation at V2_, Rotterdam |
[concept]
The
envelope of the Witte de With Street marks a space on which various
groups and individuals exercise a form of authority and control.
Through constantly shifting appropriation by individuals and groups -
brief coalitions or temporary conflicts - they privatise the space for
shorter or longer term. Within the hard street envelope, thus many
softer territories can be found.
The temporary conflicts and coalitions in the use of space are ported
into a digital simulation environment, making it possible to amplify
them and bring them to their extremes. Through this, these usually
ephemeral territories are able to turn into tangible topologies. In
relation to this, a simulation engine generates a series of scenarios
based on observations of real-life events from the Witte de With
Street. The resulting struggle over space is graphically exposed.
Samples of temporary appropriations of street suface, Witte de With street Rotterdam |
[methodology]
Street/Appropriation/Struggle
features a diagrammatic representation of the street and its
interactions. Its base is a multi-agent simulation of the flow of users
(pedestrians, bicycles and cars), which gets affected by the street
boundaries and the forces this movement exercises within it.
To form a basic understanding of the multitude of interactions taking
place in this street, during a number of days samples have been taken
of the number of users, the types of usage that appropriate public
space and both the typical and untypical events taking place.
Parallel to this, a number of recent public discussions on the use of
city space have been used as a trigger. In Rotterdam, in recent years
the control over the use of space has shifted towards more influence by
municipal and law-enforcing bodies (following the rising political
tensions during 2002 and the more general tendencies in many countries
towards increased monitoring of activities in the streets). As a result
of this investigation, a number of scenarios has been set up in which
the effects mentioned in these discussions have been extrapolated to a
level where they become prominently visible and touchable. Two issues
at stake have been brought to the simulation: commodification of street
space for commercial use (versus public use), and a ban on assembly,
which can be introduced in ‘high risk areas’ of the
city.
The simulation starts by acting out the daily life as has been sampled
from the real-life experiences in the Witte de With Street. Following,
one of the scenarios is brought in that starts to influence the
environment (for instance the allotment and renting out of street
pavement for commercial purposes) and behaviour of users (affected by
this policy or trend of use of space). The enlarged effect of the
scenarios on the daily life in the street now becomes utterly visible
– leaving the observer of the simulation with the question of
whether this shows a desirable future.
Nerve City simulation scenario, detail |
Technically,
the simulation is built around Netlogo, a cross-platform multi-agent
modelling environment for simulating natural and social phenomena.
NetLogo lends itself very well for modelling complex systems that
develop over time. In the models that can be created with it, hundreds
or thousands of independent "agents" can be addressed and instructed
while all operating concurrently. As a result, the connection between
the micro-level behaviour of individuals and the macro-level patterns
that emerge from the interaction of many individuals can be explored
and made visible.
The simulation engine ‘draws’ the characteristics
of environment (using a graphical overlay over its patch-based interior
logic) and reads the base characteristics of the events to unfold from
a timed database. How the events exactly unfold, and in which way the
precisely influence the individual users of the space, cannot be
predicted in advance and is subject to each separate
‘run’ of the simulation.
[results and exhibition installation]
For
the INFRActures exhibition at V2_, an installation has been made that
shows the simulations in a 12 metres wide and 3 metres high projection,
with two scenarios (‘Reclaim’ the Street and Nerve
City) on display.
>> videoclip from the installation at V2_
The output of the simulation interacts with the Sound/Light/Street
installation of Edwin van der Heide. At eight minutes intervals it
leaves its imprint in S/L/S by replacing its real-time sound/light
signals received from the Witte de With Street with its simulated
spatial extremes. In this collaboration, Van der Heide has been
responsible for the sonification process.
'Reclaim' the Street simulation scenario, photo Wendelien van Oldenborgh |
Sound / Light / Street by Edwin van der Heide, photo Wendelien van Oldenborgh |