Information Design Boosts Smart City

Our cities are producing numerical data and information on a daily basis. As part of the city, how could we understand the changing city faster and make our life more convenient? The answer is “Information Design”. It could summarize the city information and make the real-time data more directly visible to the urban authority, and also could make quick reactions and provide immediate services. The information design is able to help change the urban public service, improve life, and enhance the city quality. Changing the city and our life through the information design will make our city smarter.

As the feature exhibition for Beijing Design Week 2012, Geocity Smart City — International Information Design Exhibition displays the impacts of visual information on the future development of the city and industry from the angle of information design for the first time, and shows bright future of “big design development, big data service and big city”. GeoCity Smart City is the point of departure to provide a holistic way to view and understand complex urban issues via data visualization and information design. It studies urban mobility via mapping population, transportation, telecommunication, environment and security from the terms of “design changing city” and “design changing life”.

The idea of “big design development, big data service and big city” is to let the big design (information design) play a leading role, coordinate the new trend of the big data development and the productivity of digital innovation, to promote the construction of geocity to a new level. How does the urban city make smarter in the digital age? Yang Lei, Director of the CMoDA said, “Geocity Smart City is not only a combination of network and cloud computing, but also tapping of the great potential of big data era through big design (information design) to enhance people’s awareness and play to the people’s wisdom, to make the complicated city system smarter, and better serves Big City, leading to an ultimate lift in social well-being.”

The GeoCity model was developed by Ars Electronica FutureLab (Austria). GeoPulse Beijing is the model’s first Asian application after Linz and Berlin and is a collaboration of Ars Electronica Solutions, CMoDA CoINNO Lab and Design Beijing Lab at the Information Art and Design Department of Tsinghua University.

In Beijing, a fast growing international metropolis, there are many urban issues inevitably, for instance, the migration workers versus the static household and the social security system, the increasing number of private cars on the road versus the old capital’s closed traffic network that lacks service design, the downgraded air quality, more ubiquitous macro infrastructure but no micro walkable area.

Now, Beijing has evolved from Digital Beijing to Smart Beijing. The Digital Beijing makes the metropolis become a terra-data generator. In the era of Big Data with the booming social media and the internet, massive data couldn’t make the traditional data analysis ways reflect the data quantity. Therefore, how can we collect the various geo, spatial, social and urban data, and then help us to penetrate the urban issues? The answer lies in the city’s own data treasures.

According to the Global Agenda Councils Reports 2011–2012, Data visualization is a supporting tool to map the world as a complex system. It’s powerful to digest tons of data. For example, millions of pieces of data can be processed and translated into 30 seconds of 3D animation, zipping the decades into a short moment.

GeoPulse Beijing

An interactive book, a touch screen computer, three projections and seven screens could well display the dynamics of Beijing city. Geocity is the first-of-its-kind model application in Asia, to solve complicated urban problems through efforts from various sides. The real-time data about transportation, population, environmental quality and weather is updated on the loop video, exposing the audience to an information explosion. The interactive board and the projection wall would make us like the final BOSS of the science fiction movies, to get the firsthand information of Beijing and make the wisest decisions.

Plasma jet — Brad Miller (Australia)

The best part of the work is that when the audience stands in front of the big moving equipment, their any gestures could initiate the pulse and change of the plasma jet on the big screen. With the stereo sound around us, the infrared introduction camera and the network could capture every moving gesture of us, and display interactive images immediately. These brilliant and colorful magic lines actually reflect our movement. It could be like a whirlwind, grid or radioactive flower. Chang a gesture and explore the information beauty with Brad Miller and his Australian team.

Time Adjustment — Brad Miller (Australia)

The internet network functions as both an information receiver and feedback provider, and this work makes use of the characteristics to display China with image, sound, video and various other means. Each scene on the big screen is selected from every corner of Beijing during the “Geocity” feature exhibition. Ancient or modern, this scene might be intangible in a far place, but sometimes it is just around us. When standing in front of the work, the audience could move right or left to enlarge or shorten the image, or play the video slower or faster. Visible, tangible and audible, these scenes could make the audience feel like walking through the time channel and discover the connection between past and future.

Audi Connected City — Fei Jun and Li Xinlu from Digital Media Studio of CAFA

This work features a social network game equipment designed by Fei Jun and Li Xinlu for the Geocity International Information Design Exhibition. Unlike traditional computer games, this work uses a LED screen to create a virtual recreation micro city experimental space, including supermarket, cinema, cafeteria and other recreational places. The more interesting part is that the audience could pose activity information with newly downloaded APP program, such as organizing auto club friends to visit the virtual city to have a cup of coffee, watch a movie or have a racing car contest they have been dreaming of. Also the work is still about the concept game, but the network of the internet or the car, the collaboration between society communication and transportation reflect the future trend of the technological development.

Cucoloris Call-board — Ars Electronica FutureLab (Austria)

China has very delicate paper-cutting art and Austria has magical cucoloris callboard—Shawgram. This innovation equipment was highly popular at the 2012 Austria Ars Electronica Festival. It is like a fast camera and it only takes 15 seconds to print the sticky notes featuring the image of audience after the audience makes amusing pose in front of the sensitive plate. These notes could be posted on the public board, with bubble notes expressing personal feelings and opinions about the exhibition and city construction. It is interesting interactive equipment that could voice public opinions. What is the smart city in your mind? What do you expect of Beijing’s future? What could we do to make our city a better place? Then you can leave your image and voice here!

Microblog City #Position# — Xiang Yandong, Tang Yihu, Zhang Wentao (China)

Microblog city is a platform that features a virtual city created by images of all CMoDA. The audience could express their opinions: #position#+ contents, to make interactions. Later they will receive a feedback note with the position of the virtual world, and the image and ID of the audience will appear on the big screen. When the number of messages reaches a certain level, a virtual architect will appear in the city. The audience could position themselves at the city, to convey a message to other people: no matter in the real or virtual world, the spatial relationship among different groups of people is spontaneous and hardly depict able, but also definite and inseparable.