A Synchronicity: Design Fictions for Asynchronous Urban Computing

The Situated Technologies Pamphlets series, published by the Architectural League, explores the implications of ubiquitous computing for architecture and urbanism. How is our experience of the city and the choices we make in it affected by mobile communications, pervasive media, ambient informatics, and other "situated" technologies? In the last five years, the urban computing field has featured an impressive emphasis on the so-called "real-time, database-enabled city" with its synchronized Internet of Things. In this pamphlet, Julian Bleecker and Nicholas Nova argue to invert this common perspective and speculate on the existence of an "asynchronous city." Through a discussion of objects that blog, they forecast situated technologies based on weak signals that show the importance of time on human practices. They imagine the emergence of truly social technologies that through thoughtful provocation can invert and disrupt common perspective.