FCJ-215 Demoing unto Death: Smart Cities, Environment, and Preemptive Hope

Abstract

Today, growing concerns with climate change, energy scarcity, security, and economic collapse have turned the focus of urban planners, investors, and governments towards infrastructure as a site of value production and potential salvation from a world consistently defined by catastrophes and crisis. This paper will interrogate the different forms of futurity and life that are currently emerging from this complex contemporary relationship between technology and design by engaging with two contemporary case studies of greenfield: 'smart' and 'green' developments in South Korea and Masdar in Abu Dhabi. In doing so, the paper will ask how these contemporary practices in ubiquitous computing and green technology are shaping large scale infrastructures and our imaginaries of the future of urban life.

Keywords

• futures
• ubiquitous computing
• smart cities
• urban design
• cities
• infrastructure
• green cities
• hope