Are you a local, a teenager, an active neighbour, a digital citizen, a skater, a curious adult, or do you just like to hang out at some square in your neighbourhood? This ‘buzzwalk’ invites you on a speculative walking tour through Oslo for audiating neighbourhoods and cities otherwise. What happens when the future of our cities is ‘smart’, automated, and mediated for reasons of safety and security? How can we build collective methods of trust under the ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ of ‘smart’ cities? What is our role as digital participants in the formation of cities?

Led by designer and researcher Angeliki Diakrousi, this walk follows a path of different hangouts in the city of Oslo. It playfully unfolds through sounds and anecdotes from the city of Rotterdam – translated to the Oslo context. The walk occurs on the occasion of the work Hunting Mosquitos which explores urban sound technologies and the socio-political implications of their use. The work will be exhibited in December of 2022 at TENT, Rotterdam. The work examines the ‘Mosquito alarm’ or ‘The Mosquito’, a technology used in public places in Rotterdam that emits sound at a high frequency, audible only to young people to deter them from loitering. It comes as a solution, activated mostly during the night, in some cases by residents through an intranet digital application, to issues of urban crime and security. Its use has triggered discussions about the extent to which this technology constitutes discrimination.

Through speculative exercises you are invited to question the sense of control of our surroundings through technological means, the borders of private and public spaces, the future of neighborhoods and “smart” cities.

Participation

The walk will last approximately 3 hours. We ask participants to bring their own headphones and phones, and to wear comfortable shoes and warm clothes for walking outside.

There will be free tea and coffee provided before the walk, and warm soup after.

Sunday 23 October, 15:00-18:00, meeting point at Gamle Munch kaffebar, Tøyengata 53, 0563 Oslo, Norway

REGISTER HERE