Programme

6 September 2023

8.30am – 9.10am | Arrival and Registration | Solas Room, KA202

9.10am – 9.30am | Welcome and Introduction | Solas Room, KA202

Conference welcome from Prof Derek Hand (Executive Dean, DCU Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences) and Marcos Dias, followed by thematic introduction from Scott Rodgers

9.30am – 10.30am | Opening Keynote: Finding Common Ground in Real Synthetic Cities | Aphra Kerr | Solas Room, KA202

10.30am – 11.00am | Coffee & Tea | Solas Room, KA202

11.00am – 11.40am | Practice-based Contributions I: Data Cities and Digital Twins | Solas Room, KA202

Data City Dublin: Grounding Data Through Hybrid Media and Physicalisation | Oliver Dawkins
Smart DCU Digital Twin: Advancing Towards an Immersive Environment | Jaime B. Fernandez, Mani Dhingra, Kevin McGuinness, Kieran Mahon, Jamie Cudden, Muhammad Intizar Ali, Michael Meenan and Wayne Rutherford

11.40am – 12.20pm | Practice-based Contributions II: Algorithms and Images | Solas Room, KA202

12.20pm – 1.00pm | Practice-based Contributions III: Sonic Materiality and Sponge Cities | Solas Room, KA202

Ciúnas: antiphonal to ambisonic. An exploration of sonic materiality through composed virtual environments | Declan Tuite
Smart Sponge Cities, Silicon Archipelagos and the Digital Silk Road | Helena Wee

1.00pm – 2.00pm | Lunch | Solas Room, KA202

Including YECREA Networking Session from 1.20pm, with Diogo Pereira Henriques

2.00pm – 3.00pm | Time to Visit Practice-based Installations | Media Studio & Room C165

Note: conference participants will also be able to visit practice-based installations throughout the conference.

3.00pm – 3.30pm | Coffee & Tea | Solas Room, KA202

3.30pm – 5.10pm | Parallel Papers Session 1

Paper Session 1a: Infrastructure, Environment, Materiality | Chuilín Room, KA113

Infrastructures of the Future: Vehicle-to-Everything Technologies and The Predictive Turn| John Cheney-Lippold
A Signalled Infrastructure: (Dis)Connections in the City| Iain Emsley
We’re All Gonna’ Make It: Counter-Mapping the ‘Cloud’ in Cyprus & Ireland | Paul O’ Neill
Can Data/Infrastructure Contribute to Environmentalism in Urban Context? | Güneş Tavmen
Synthetic Cities and Cities that Synthesize | James Steinhoff and Patrick Brodie

Paper Session 1b: Agency, Algorithms, Resistance | Páirce Room, KA115

Mass Personalization and the Society-of-One: How AI-Powered Platforms are Rendering a New Social Order | Hossein Derakhshan
Posthuman Agency in Smart Mobility Services: Exploring Mobilised Everyday Communication and Media Practices in Vienna | Helena Atteneder
Sidelining Synthetic Sidewalks: Toronto’s Resistance to Alphabet’s Algorithmic Urbanism | Markus Reisenleitner
Listening Beyond the Algorithm: DIY Internet Radio as an Alternative to Global Music Streaming | Seán Finnan
Towards an Algorithmic Nation? Dilemmas Around Synthetic Citizenship in Northern Ireland | Igor Calzada

5.10pm – 6.30pm | Reception | Páirce Room, KA115

Hosted by DCU School of Communications, with welcome from Prof Mark O’Brien (Head of School)

8.00pm | Local meal

7 September 2023

9.00am – 10.40am | Paper Session 2: Generation, Modelling, Design | Solas Room, KA202

Surrounding the Fort: Artificial Intelligence, Identity, Art | Andrea Barcaro
Suburban Dreams: An Exploration of the Diverse German Suburbia via AI-generated Art | Maik Kiesler
Diffusing History: The Uses and Abuses of Generative AI in Architectural Design | Joel McKim
Envisioning a New Synthetic City? A Reflection on AI Text-to-Video Generators, Creativity, and our Future Urban Visions | Diogo Pereira Henriques
The Origins and Structure of the Digital City: From SimCity to Big BIM | Michael Crilly and Alexander Wilson

10.40am – 11.10am | Coffee & Tea | Solas Room, KA202

11.10am – 12.50pm | Parallel Papers Session 3

Paper Session 3a: Mobility, Navigation, Circulation | Chuilín Room, KA113

Sim Citizens: Constructing the Behavioural Infrastructure of a Digital Twin | Adam Michael Packer
“Mobil without fear”: Enhancing Urban Public Mobility for People with Anxiety Disorders through Locative Media | Kai Daniel Preibisch, Gerit Götzenbrucker and Michaela Griesbeck
Transit Cards: Media Objects, Circulation and the Production of Space | Upasana Bhattacharjee
Introducing Playful Navigation in the City | Brett Binst and Annelien Smets
Online/On-ground: Instant Grocery Delivery Platforms and Commercial Gentrification in New York City | Triparnee Kushari

Paper Session 3b: Hybridity, Hyperreality, Location | Páirce Room, KA115

Imagining and Imaging the Future via Screen Representations of the Hyperreal City | Jennifer O’Meara
Understanding Hybrid Space: How Media Change Experiences of Being There | Esther Hammelburg
Synthetic Campuses and the Contemporary Digital Kaleidoscope of Learning | Georgiana Mihaela Varna and Michael Crilly
Where You Are: Location Data in the Synthetic City | Conor McGarrigle
Addressing Synthesis | Rebecca Ross

12.50pm – 1.50pm | Lunch | Solas Room, KA202

1.50pm – 3.30pm | Parallel Papers Session 4

Paper Session 4a: Governance, Politics, Place | Chuilín Room, KA113

Governing Synthetic Urbanism and Its Shortcomings: Perspectives from the Global South | Jess Reia
Unveiling the Nexus of Smart Cities, the Internet of Things, and Platform Urbanism: Insights from Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia | Reza Shaker, James McGrail and Bart Barendregt
Configuring Smartness in Post-Conflict Belfast, N. Ireland: Smart Cities, Peace Walls and Digital Divides | Emmet Donaghey
Could smart urbanism redefine the politics of a city? Exploring the Indian case of a smart city | Sejal Chandak
Taking a walk in the synthetic city | Joe Bourne, Naomi Jacobs, Nuri Kwon and Louise Mullagh

Paper Session 4b: Art, Performance, Interactivity | Páirce Room, KA115

I Have a Dream – ABBA: Voyage and Spectral Futurity in the Synthetic City | Claudia Brazzale and Lynne McCarthy
Touching Aesthetics of a Synthetic Museum: Nancy, Varda and Marker in Virtual Reality | Jaka Lombar
Interactive Monuments in the Digitally Mediated City: Examining the Potential of Virtual Objects in Physical Space | István László
The Performance Machine and the Synthetic City: Analysing the Role of Performativity in Contemporary Urban Space | Marcos Dias
Wish Mango Tree: In Search of a Sensitive City | Valzeli Sampaio and Acilon Cavalcante

3.30pm – 4.30pm | Closing Keynote: Undoing Optimization: Synthetic Cities and their Citizenships | Alison Powell | Solas Room, KA202

4.30pm – 5.00pm | Conference Wrap-up and Future Plans | Solas Room, KA202

5.30pm onwards | informal Central Dublin outing