This week will be a bit eclectic 😉. We’ll consider the various forms in which we encounter local data out in the wild — from community bulletin boards to billboards, public interactive kiosks to wayfinding graphics, street signs to stickers. What kinds of explicit and implicit “data” are conveyed through these media? If the weather’s nice, we’ll do a little fieldwork and documentation outside, off campus. We’ll also consider whether it’s possible to cultivate a sense of localism online: can we create, say, digital neighborhoods or data gardens?
In-Class Exercise: Data Walk
To Read / Listen to / Watch for Today (I’m trying to keep the reading light, so you’ll have more time to focus on your final projects!):
- S.M. Babbitt, “Marks, Manicules, and Markland: Street Signage in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia,” Philadelphia as Advertised (April 14, 2021) [~15min].
- Sophie Haigney, “Critical Eye: Have You Seen Me?” Art in America (July 8, 2021) [~10min].
- Shannon Mattern, “Fluttering Code” [on the split flap display], Material Texts, University of Pennsylvania (November 2020) [video: 22:03 > 34:20]. Contrast the split flap with the Link kiosk or the old newspaper advertising columns (Litfaßsäulen in German).
- Yanni Loukissas, Introduction in All Data Are Local: Thinking Critically in a Data-Driven Society (MIT Press, 2019): 1-11 [~20min].
- Check out Philly’s Open Data portal and our “Open+Civic Data” Arena channel.
- Annika Hansteen-Izora, “On Digital Gardens: Tending to Our Collective Multiplicity,” deem 4 (Winter 2022/23) [~10min].
- Is Craigslist simply a digital version of the analog community bulletin board or a local newspaper’s classified ads? What about Facebook Marketplace? What other online spaces are “neighborhoody”? Listen to Mary Louise Kelly, with Jessa Lingel, “At 25 Years, Understanding the Longevity of Craigslist,” All Things Considered (February 24, 2020 [audio: 4:16].
Supplemental Resources:
- David N. Cole, Timothy Hammond, and Stephen F. McCool, “Information Quantity and Communication Effectiveness: Low-Impact Messages on Wilderness Trailside Bulletin Boards,” Leisure Sciences (1997).
- Diagram.website.
- David A. Ensminger, “Flyers” in Visual Vitriol: The Street Art and Subcultures of the Punk and Hardcore (University Press of Mississippi).
- Lisa Gitelman, “Holding Electronic Networks by the Wrong End,” Amodern 2 (2013).
- * Kenneth Goldsmith, NYC Street Poets and Visionaries by Kenneth Goldsmith (JBE Books, 2023).
- Annika Hansteen-Izora, “Creating Digital Gardens” Arena.
- David Henkin, City Reading: Written Words and Public Spaces in Antebellum New York (Columbia University Press, 1998).
- Natalie Hopkinson, “Fluorescent Flags: Black Power, Publicity, and Counternarratives in Go-Go Street Posters in the 1980s,” Communication, Culture & Critique 13:3 (2020).
- * Layla A. Jones, “The ‘Anti Flower Show Movement’ and the Black and White Photo Sticker All Over Philly Streets,” BillyPenn (February 19, 2021) + @antiflowershowmovement, Instagram.
- * Jordan Keiffer, “Ghost Signs” series in Hidden Sign (2023)
- Christopher Kullenberg, et al, “What Are Analog Bulletin Boards Used for Today?” PLOS One (August 27, 2018).
- Jessa Lingel, An Internet for the People: The Politics and Promise of Craigslist (Princeton University Press, 2020).
- * Bettina Makalintal, “A Deep Dive into the ‘Gentrification Font,’” Vice (September 9, 2020).
- Shannon Mattern, “Steel and Ink: The Printed City,” in Code + Clay, Data + Dirt: 5000 Years of Urban Media (University of Minnesota Press, 2017): 43-84.
- * Bradley Maule, “Signs of Change,” Hidden City (June 17, 2023) [on the evolution of Philly’s street signs].
- New_Public.
- * Humphrey Obuobi, “Searching for My City”’ Reboot (March 9, 2024).
- Keith Placek, “I Can’t Control the World, But I Can Leave Stickers on It,” The New York Times Magazine (December 5, 2023).
- Maya Pontone, “The Brooklyn Artist Revitalizing New York One Flyer at a Time,” Hyperallergic (July 11, 2023).
- * Paul Soulellis, “Posting” in Urgentcraft 1.0.
- * Nina Stössinger and Kel Troughton, No Parking, Letter Study 01 (Letter People, 2023).
- * Streets Dept.
- Paul Timm, “The Bulletin Board: Economy and Effectiveness in Organizational Communication,” International Journal of Business Communication 13:2 (1976).
- * Shonna Trinch and Edward Snajdr, What the Signs Say: Language, Gentrification, and Place Making in Brooklyn (Vanderbilt University Press, 2020) + interview with Sheryl McCarthy, “Gentrification: What the Signs Say,” One to One (April 7, 2021) [video: 27:28].
- Violet Whitney’s Work.
Digital Gardens
- Claire L. Evans, “The Word for Web Is Forest,” New_ Public (September 3, 2021).
- Gossip’s Web.