VIEW THE EARLY ROUND SELECTIONS

We received an extremely high number of early round submissions for the Interactive City. Each submission was read by at least four anonymous reviewers and received at least two formal reviews, some with even more.  We are very thankful for the efforts and feedback from our international jury in helping make selections for this early round and acknowledge them here.

INTERACTIVE CITY JURY

Eric Paulos (chair)

Adrian David Cheok Amanda McDonald Crowley Amy Franceschini Anne Galloway Anne Nigten Annika Waern Anthony Burke Atau Tanaka Barbara London Ben Hooker Bill Gaver Chip Lord Chris Beckmann Christiane Paul Clay Shirky David Cranswick Ed Osborn Elizabeth Goodman Ellen Pau Fabian Wagmister Giselle Beiguelman Golan Levin Howard Rheingold Ian Clothier Jane McGonigal Jeffrey Huang Jill Miller

Joel Slayton Jonah Brucker-Cohen Julian Bleecker Jussi Holopainen Ken Anderson Marc Tuter Matt Jones Matthew Chalmers Michael Connor Michele Chang Michelle Kasprzak Mike Liebhold Mirjam Struppek Paul Dourish Peter Droege Richard Lowenberg Sara Diamond Scott Klemmer Soh Yeong Roh Steve Benford Susan Hazan Tad Hirsh Teri Rueb Tom Igoe Tom Jenkins Trond Nilsen Warren Sack

- Empire of the Sun, J.G. Ballard

The city has always been a site of transformation: of lives, of populations, even of civilizations. With the rise of the mega city, however; with the advent of 24/7 rush hours; with the inexorable conversion of public space into commercial space; with the rise of surveillance; with the computer-assisted precision of redlining; with the viral advance of the xenophobic, the contemporary city is weighted down. We dream of something more. Not something planned and canned, like another confectionary spectacle. Something that can respond to our dreams. Something that will transform with us, not just perform change on us, like an operation.

The Interactive City seeks urban-scale projects for which the city is not merely a palimpsest of our desires but an active participant in their formation. From dynamic architectural skins to composite sky portraits to walking in someone else's shoes to geocaches of urban lore to hybrid games with a global audience, projects for the Interactive City should transform the "new" technologies of mobile and pervasive computing, ubiquitous networks, and locative media into experiences that matter.

We are initiating an early Call for Proposals that manifest but are not limited to the spectrum of ideas below. Interactive City proposals should embrace aspects of the city of San José and/or the surrounding metropolitan San Francisco Bay Area specifically.  We are seeking projects that are large in scale, require advanced or special planning and/or permissions, or projects seeking early review.

Let us experience your vision of the Interactive City!

The Interactive City is one of four major themes to be featured at ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festival.

Shadow City What are the real neighborhoods within the city? How can they be realized, exposed, and experienced?

Collaborative Challenge Cities - a crowd of individuals? How can the crowd inspire the individual through collaboration, competition, confrontation? We invite you to challenge this massive audience to become active co-conspirators in a collaborative challenge. What change, effect, or experience could only be achieved by a mass movement, a mob, a cooperative crowd? What spaces could be accessed, created or re-imagined by a massively-scaled intervention?

Hybrid Histories Uncovering the past and looking toward future histories. Where has San José been? Where might it go? These histories need not be accurate; we encourage participants to imagine alternate San Josés based on existing conditions.

Non-Places Cities are largely composed of the "space between".  Let us celebrate them. Engaging with the overlooked, abandoned or disreputable city spaces: alleys, underpasses, empty lots. What non-places are specific to San José? What role do daily rhythms play in the tension between "place" and "non-place"? Participants are encouraged to imagine opportunities within the city to stage a series of "new happenings" that may be very brief or extend beyond the length of the ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festival.

Alternate Playgrounds Rules, play, games, and toys. Let's create new sandboxes in the city. We invite proposals from games spanning all of the ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festival to specific, limited, or event-based playful encounters.  Can San José come out and play?

Urban Archeology What can we uncover within the layers of strata of the city?How will we "dig" within our newly emerging technological cities and how will we exhibit its "discoveries"?

Exposed City What are we not seeing, feeling, smelling?  What do we not understand about our city?  More importantly, how does this reconfigure our future?

Open Traversal Ebb and flow.  Waxing and waning. What's all this city hustle bustle about anyway? Where are all these people, goods, and information going and why?

Operational City Is our city at work? At play?  How does it function? Is it healthy? Sickly? Tired? Happy? How can we measure its production, health, and mood?

Hacked City What are you rebelling against? ... What've you got? Learn the rules of the city, then let's break them together and create something deliciously new.

Parasitic City Parasite - an organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.  Is the city our parasite or our host? Are we the parasite on or a host of the city?

Open Source City Open source or open-source software (OSS) is any computer software distributed under a license which allows users to change and/or share the software freely. How can this be transposed onto the infrastructure of the city? What is the source code of the city and how can it be re-coded?

Alternate Economies An economic system is a mechanism which deals with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in a particular society. The economic system is composed of people, institutions and their relationships as well as the allocation and scarcity of resources. Why not impose a new system of exchange at the ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festival?  Complete with new forms of trade, transfers, currency, concepts, modes, utopias, co-ops, gifts, barters, punishments, and rewards.

Town Hall Take your issue to the people. Isn't it time we held a real town hall meeting? Then call the meeting to order. One of the roles of a town hall is to create a common meeting space for citizens. What common grounds are possible for San José citizens or for the ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festival participants as temporary citizens of the Interactive City program?

Community Mapping An aid which highlights relations between objects, people, situations within that space. How can San José natives map their city? Will the ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festival participants develop their own maps of the festival's many resources and venues? What will they look like?  How will they be shared?  What will they provide? Ignore? Remove?

Parallel Cities What are the new sister cities?  Where are they connected? disconnected?  How to they share time and space with each other?  Where do they disconnect? Show us how such other cities are connected (and disconnected) from San José.

Unfortunately, ISEA cannot act as the main funding source for accepted projects.  However, the ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festivalis committed to providing alternate means of support using a variety of mechanisms at its disposal. All accepted projects will receive a letter of support for use in securing funding.

A completed early Call for Proposals submission for the Interactive City at the ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festival requires the following two documents: Concept Proposal that describes the technology being exhibited and discusses the novelty and distinguishing ideas or approaches it embodies within the scope of the Interactive City and the ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festival at large. It must also portray the envisioned conference attendee interaction with the proposed project. This can take the form of a short usage scenario, storyboard sketch, screenshots, illustrations, photos, and/or video documentation. The Concept Proposal must also includes the various technical requirements such as preferred setting, space, power, networking, lighting, acoustical, and other special equipment. Finally, funding secured and funding sought should be articulated in the proposal.   Artist Bio that included a CV or similar list of related work by the artist.  Please, include background and proficiency skills relevant to the project proposal. Both documents must be uploaded by the due date (22 April 2005). All submissions must use the: Official ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose Festival submission website Also, please note that your proposal does not need to fit within any of the categories listed above.  They are provided mainly for inspiration.

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