NJSTUDIO :::

Street Event Mapping SF, Data visualization

Since 1769, San Francisco has been one of the most significant cities in the United State of America.
During the Gold Rush period, it was the attractor for many people who were in the pursuit of new economic wealth.
In addition the city of San Francisco had a significant role during the World War II. Now, as a global city, San
Francisco generates new types of effects on the qualities of our economic and living conditions by supporting global
companies such Information technology enterprise, such as Google, Twitter, Facebook and so on. Apart from its
historical significance, nowadays, San Francisco stands as an important touristic attractor. Thus, San Francisco can be
considered as a single active living organism that functions as an aggregation of people’s individual intelligence.
Intelligence is addressed as an accumulation of experiences regarding places (secret spots), preferences
(historical place to buy Ukulele in SF), interests etc. In this context, my interest lies in revealing the “third place” as
a space that encourages people to share their individual intelligence and perception of the city. In order to reveal
the third place, I consider the understanding of homeless people’s life important, since it differs substantially from
the life of an average person. Homeless people utilize urban environment at the same time as their house, their
workplace, their sleeping place etc.

During my research on the homeless population in San Francisco, I recognized different types of homeless
people, based on their way of living. Among those different types, I wish to focus on those who tend to
form a daily routine, for instance, the ones that have developed particular skills based on their interest (musical
instruments, crafting etc.), or the ones that belong to certain groups etc. I consider these groups not as
deprived groups, but as memory of the city, because they have developed methods to take advantage of the
urban environment in an intelligent way that is not easy to perceive otherwise. The before mentioned, motivates me
to reveal and visualize space as a third place, as the place between home and workspace, where people can relax
and share their interests.

During my research, data can be considered as a tool for visualizing the patterns of similarity and difference
network based on people’s interest. Data makes it possible both to perceive and understand the third data
that control different perspectives in an indirect way. I believe that visualization, as an instrument for communicating ideas,
can shift our way of thinking and behaving. For example, if the energy consumption of a house could
be visualized as disproportionate to its size, people would be able to perceive their energy consumption based on
the size of their houses. If their house shrinks, this means that the consumption of energy is too high.
Iin the same context, visualization of trash tracing or sharing a taxi in NYC done by “SENSEable City Lab” can be
considered as examples for raising people’s awareness. Data visualization can be considered as a positive
motivation for people to rethink their living condition and urban environment and not as something
that urges people to shift their way of thinking entirely.

What if we visualize the human experience regarding urban condition in a tangible way? What if such individual small intelligence
can be transformed into a swarm of aggregated intelligence in the urban context? Although there are tons of places
where people can state and communicate their opinions and ideas in the virtual world, in reality, people
tend to disregard the potentiality of space to operate as a collective platform of sharing interests, by repeating the same routine
between home and workspace. So, what if I am able to reveal a space in the city, where people can participate
in as a third place, that can also be considered as a gateway between the real and the virtual world? Termite taxonomies
provide a good example for addressing collective intelligence. Termites’ individual intelligence is insignificant,
but when populated, they construct 30-meter-diameter mounds. I wish to learn how to reveal possible third
place’s pattern and how to generate collaborative urban intelligence, based on data visualization as the main research tool.