Pockets and Cities: Investigating and Revealing the Networked City through Interaction Design

This thesis is about investigating and revealing the networked city through interaction design. The ‘networked city’ describes an emergent urban condition where digital technologies and wireless communication are increasingly important across everyday urban life. The thesis explores the emergence of the networked city through practice-led interaction design research. The design and cultural spread of a film series titled Immaterials plays a central part in this practice. The Immaterials films visualise common, yet invisible, urban technologies. As illustrated by these films, the thesis takes a discursive approach to design research that uses interaction design to explore and communicate complex technological issues, and further as a catalysts for engaging with wider cultural discussions around emerging technologies. Alongside the practice-led aspects the thesis develops an interdisciplinary analytical position on the networked city and interaction design that draws together concepts from design and urbanism with culture studies and theories of everyday life. This analysis is further connected to how interaction design might be used to expand or stir the cultural conceptualisations of networked city life.

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