Art is Open Source, Yale World Fellows and the City of New Haven present:
“HENHV” – Human Ecosystems New Haven.
The digital life of a city
Opening Ceremony
December 9th, 2014 | 10.30-11:30am
New Haven City Hall |165 Church St, New Haven
Guests of Honor:
Mayor Tony Harp, Doug Hausladen (City of New Haven), Michael Morand, Professor Alan Plattus, Dr. Michael Cappello (Yale University)
Interactive Exhibit and Closing Party
December 12 | 4:00pm
Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design |15 Prospect St, New Haven
December 4, 2014, New Haven – From December 9-12, New Haven’s City Hall will feature the exhibit “Human Ecosystems New Haven: The Digital Life of the City.” Inaugurated by Mayor Tony Harp, the event marks the launch of a project combining art, research, innovation and real-time open data: one that effectively turns New Haven into a “Human-Driven Smart City.”
PRESS RELEASE:
Yale World Fellow Salvatore Iaconesi (philosopher, robotics engineer, artist, hacker and near-future designer) and his partner Oriana Persico (communications scientist, writer, cultural and social analyst) created the global project “Human Ecosystems” in 2013. This year, the project comes to New Haven. Human Ecosystems captures, in real time, public conversations happening on major social networks in 29 languages.
The enormous amount of data harvested from social networks through the Human Ecosystems project can help city administrators, activists, organizers, artists, designers, researchers and citizens explore New Haven in completely new ways. This new source of real-time, open data will be publicly accessible and will remain in New Haven indefinitely.
“As citizens, we have no idea how much information we’re producing on an hourly basis,” says Iaconesi. “We produce it everyday with our online expressions, but at the moment it’s only the social network operators, large corporations and secret services worldwide that can access them. With Human Ecosystems we give back this data to the community, creating a new digital commons, and we can teach people how to use it for their own purposes.”
Since their arrival in August, Iaconesi and Persico have worked side by side with the City of New Haven, Yale professors and students, The Grove New Haven and other city organizations and individuals to bring the project to life.
“Our desire as humans is to interconnect,” explains Iaconesi. “Through Human Ecosystems, New Haven’s diverse communities of citizens, activists, students, professors, researchers, cultures and organizations can learn, together, how to tap into the massive amount of data available in the Digital Public Space to create awareness, shared knowledge, civic movement, beauty and communal action.”
Iaconesi and Persico began collecting data in New Haven in October, and have conducted a series of intensive open workshops across the city in an effort to teach citizens, researchers, artists and students how use the project.
“The possibilities are endless,” says Persico. “You can tap into Human Ecosystems and discover the emotions of an entire city. You can find out where there is joy, love, hate, anxiety, or the sense of financial or physical insecurity. You can see where certain communities and cultures gather, how and why they come together or separate and what influences them.”
In learning how to use the system, individuals and groups will be able to create art, data visualizations, generate information about the city and its overlapping, ever-connecting communities, conduct research about their town (and its hopes, fears, dreams, needs and more), research complex scientific and social issues, create civic engagement and action, create new forms forms of social innovation practices and services, and discover new ways to organize citizens.
From December 9-12, an exhibit at New Haven City Hall will allow citizens will to interact with info-visualizations and participate in data-driven activities allowing them to explore New Haven in completely new ways. There is incredible potential, Iaconesi says, for this project to thrive in New Haven.
In partnership with the City and members of the Yale community, Persico and Iaconesi are working to find the project a permanent home in the community – a “Real Time Museum of the City,” which will feature a human data-connected “plantarium,” a learning laboratory and exhibits.
Human Ecosystems has been established in Rome, Sao Paulo, Montreal, Toronto, Cairo, Istanbul and Budapest. In the next few years it will move across the globe, generating scientific research, artworks, community projects, education projects, participatory decision-making and policy shaping tools. But first City Elm.
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CREDITS
HENHV is an event created by:
AOS – Art is Open Source; YWF – Yale World Fellows; The City of New Haven
In collaboration with:
YUDW – Yale Urban Design Workshop; CEID – Yale Center for Engineering, Innovation and Design; CEI – Yale Center For Emotional Intelligence; The Grove; D&I – Yale Design and Innovation Club; PII – Peace Islands Institute; ISYSA – Italian Society of Yale Students and Affiliates
Made possible by:
With the partnerships of:
with the support of:
Links & Info
Learn more about the PROGRAM and initiatives in town: http://worldfellows.yale.edu/human-ecosystems-new-haven
Learn more about the Human Ecosystems project: http://www.human-ecosystems.com/
Learn more about Salvatore Iaconesi: http://worldfellows.yale.edu/salvatore-iaconesi
Human Ecosystems on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HumanEcosystems
Contact:
Uma Ramiah, Director of Communications, Yale World Fellows
uma.ramiah@yale.edu | +1 203-432-1916