Drafts by Godiva Veliganilao Reisenbichler
Do I Count?
This narrative is a personal research document where I synthesize my research on mixed race ident... more This narrative is a personal research document where I synthesize my research on mixed race identity and island movements, through the framework of the US Census.
Posthumanism redefines the boundaries surrounding the prevailing models of what it means to be hu... more Posthumanism redefines the boundaries surrounding the prevailing models of what it means to be human. Much of the popular discourse around the posthuman focuses on the relationship between humans and technoscience—specifically how humans and " human nature " will change as science enables both biological conjunction with and modification by technology. But the concept of the human has edges that are defined not only by its dialectical relationship with technology, but also by many other historical, cultural, and material forces. If the posthuman is defined as a critical counterpoint to the human, then how do advocates or opponents of posthumanism define what constitutes the human in the first place? Critical posthumanism wrestles with this question by problematizing the concept of the human as a technologically mediated, sexualized, racialized, and naturalized subject. How can we use these central questions of critical posthumanism to revise and reshape existing models of human-centered design?
Papers by Godiva Veliganilao Reisenbichler
Our design projects tackle the post-internet city through artificial intelligence (AI) and machin... more Our design projects tackle the post-internet city through artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems, specifically on the neighborhood scale. With the forthcoming introduction of 5G networks, our proposal centers on how the “superfluidity”1 of connection and communication between devices and AI systems may be reflected in urban neighborhoods. We explore the implications of embedding AI in the urban environment through two speculative design projects, Networked Colluding and Topos.
Networked Colluding (Stephanie Cedeño & Nicci Yin) investigates secrecy as part of the fabric of a neighborhood, and how devices with artificial intelligence conspire. Drawing inspiration from mafia and mobster archetypes, the project takes the connectedness of IoT devices to an absurd future: a networked community of AI-agents who secretly control the neighborhood. This fiction speaks to the way data collection through ubiquitous sensing (and surveillance) happens throughout the “smart city” and “smart home.” The project designs counterintuitive hierarchies using the existing range of “intelligences” we attribute to AI—from cleaning bots to deep learning software—and also considers power relations between humans, devices, and corporations. We ask, what could AI noir as a genre look like? Using noir as inspiration and a neighborhood “mafia” as metaphor, Networked Colluding nuances the emotional space of AI in design and technology, neighborhoods and cities.
Topos (Xiaoxuan Liu & Godiva Veliganilao Reisenbichler) explores how public space can be used to demystify civic AI and ML. We propose a new typology of public space that combines the mechanical qualities of city control centers with the permeable qualities of public parks. These new “parks”, which we call topia, contain topiaries that physicalize what is otherwise invisible to citizens: the decision trees, random forests, and neural nets that are involved in the public decision-making and sense-making that literally and figuratively shape a neighborhood. Topia are maintained by civic workers, who prune and shape the topiaries to reflect public interests and, ideally, the public good. If the topia is where civic affairs are conducted in plain sight, then topiaries are both a civic symbol and an interface. Citizens can visit the topia to learn about the revisions made to topiaries—and therefore, to civic AI systems—in real time. Beyond creating a new kind of public knowledge space in the city, Topos asks: What happens when public interests contained within topia conflict with the interests of individual citizens, who maintain their own personal AI systems? How might the friction between public AI and semi-public AI affect the structure and integrity of civic systems?
Respectively, Networked Colluding and Topos use the idea of secret-keeping as a way to discuss strategic opacity and landscaping as a way to visualize structural opacity in AI/ML systems. The theme of opacity allows these projects to speak directly to network cultures and the right to the city through the language of technology design.
[1] “Superfluidity” is borrowed from the title of a project run by the European H2020 Public-Private Partnership on 5G networks: https://5g-ppp.eu/superfluidity/.
Networked Colluding (Stephanie Cedeño & Nicci Yin) investigates secrecy as part of the fabric of a neighborhood, and how devices with artificial intelligence conspire. Drawing inspiration from mafia and mobster archetypes, the project takes the connectedness of IoT devices to an absurd future: a networked community of AI-agents who secretly control the neighborhood. This fiction speaks to the way data collection through ubiquitous sensing (and surveillance) happens throughout the “smart city” and “smart home.” The project designs counterintuitive hierarchies using the existing range of “intelligences” we attribute to AI—from cleaning bots to deep learning software—and also considers power relations between humans, devices, and corporations. We ask, what could AI noir as a genre look like? Using noir as inspiration and a neighborhood “mafia” as metaphor, Networked Colluding nuances the emotional space of AI in design and technology, neighborhoods and cities.
Topos (Xiaoxuan Liu & Godiva Veliganilao Reisenbichler) explores how public space can be used to demystify civic AI and ML. We propose a new typology of public space that combines the mechanical qualities of city control centers with the permeable qualities of public parks. These new “parks”, which we call topia, contain topiaries that physicalize what is otherwise invisible to citizens: the decision trees, random forests, and neural nets that are involved in the public decision-making and sense-making that literally and figuratively shape a neighborhood. Topia are maintained by civic workers, who prune and shape the topiaries to reflect public interests and, ideally, the public good. If the topia is where civic affairs are conducted in plain sight, then topiaries are both a civic symbol and an interface. Citizens can visit the topia to learn about the revisions made to topiaries—and therefore, to civic AI systems—in real time. Beyond creating a new kind of public knowledge space in the city, Topos asks: What happens when public interests contained within topia conflict with the interests of individual citizens, who maintain their own personal AI systems? How might the friction between public AI and semi-public AI affect the structure and integrity of civic systems?
Respectively, Networked Colluding and Topos use the idea of secret-keeping as a way to discuss strategic opacity and landscaping as a way to visualize structural opacity in AI/ML systems. The theme of opacity allows these projects to speak directly to network cultures and the right to the city through the language of technology design.
[1] “Superfluidity” is borrowed from the title of a project run by the European H2020 Public-Private Partnership on 5G networks: https://5g-ppp.eu/superfluidity/.
Conference Presentations by Godiva Veliganilao Reisenbichler
Under the scope of the Utopia/Dystopia exhibition, organised by MAAT, this conference seeks to pr... more Under the scope of the Utopia/Dystopia exhibition, organised by MAAT, this conference seeks to promote a critical reflection on the way in which digital technologies affect the conceptualisation and life of cities. How can art and architecture respond to this uncertain and unstable condition?