http://medialab-prado.es/article/visualizar08_database_city_-_convocatoria_para_comunicaciones    

VISUALIZAR'08: Database City – Call for Papers    

Open call for the presentation of theoretical works on data visualization focused on the city context. A maximum of five papers will be selected to be presented during  VISUALIZAR'08: Database City Seminr (November 3 and 4, 2008).

Deadline: October 5, 2008.   

VISUALIZAR'08: Database City Seminar  

Curated by: José Luis de Vicente Dates: November 3-4, 2008

Venue: Medialab-Prado, Madrid (C/ Alameda, 15 ∙ 28014 Madrid, Spain)        

INTRODUCTION     Data Visualization is a transversal discipline which harnesses the immense power of visual communication in order to explain, in an understandable manner, the relationships of meaning, cause and dependency which can be found among the great abstract masses of information generated by scientific and social processes.   Visualizar, one of Medialab-Prado's lines of work, is directed by José Luis de Vicente, and is conceived as an open and participartory research project around theory, tools and strategies of information visualization.  

VISUALIZAR'07 was held for the first time in November 2007 and explored the social, cultural and political possibilities of the art and science of data visualization. This year, VISUALIZAR'08: Database City will have the city as its sole focus.   Urban environments, which are becoming increasingly dense, complex and diverse, are one of contemporary society’s largest “databases”, daily generating volumes of information that require new methods of analysis and understanding.  

How can we use the data visualization and information design resources to understand the processes governing contemporary cities and better manage them? What can we learn from studying traffic and pedestrian movement flows through the streets of Madrid? What would happen if we filled the streets with screens providing information updated each moment about water and electricity consumption?  

For two weeks, lectures, presentations, and an intense project development programme will involve participants from all over the world in a collaborative process that will culminate in eight new proposals for the city.