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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Urban, Infrastructural Geography Of ‘The Cloud’ Looking At Where Data Moves, Where It *Lives*, Alan Wiig
The Urban, Infrastructural Geography Of ‘The Cloud’ Looking At Where Data Moves, Where It *Lives*, Alan Wiig
Alan Wiig
he relationship between data to space extends beyond the network equipment, services, and mobile devices that transmit and present information to a user. Pervasive wireless connectivity and ubiquitous computing, as ‘the cloud’ are central, common elements of contemporary urban life. Data centers translate, as it were, between individuals and their experience of the city by mediating experiences through digital augmentation. An example of this is Google Maps’ locative ability to place the user on the map and then orient said user to wherever they need to go.
Everyday Landmarks Of Networked Urbanism: Cellular Antenna Sites And The Infrastructure Of Mobile Communication In Philadelphia, Alan Wiig
Alan Wiig
Harnessing the utility of mobile communication and the mobile Internet is a common, everyday aspect of the urban condition. The wireless connectivity these pocketable devices are produced through an electromagnetic overlay that emanates from cellular antenna and towers. These sites have a distinct if often overlooked presence in the urban landscape of the United States. Through fieldwork in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, this essay examines the aesthetic impact of telecommunications network equipment such as cel- lular sites as a means of locating these sites as key socio-technical actors in one of the infor- mation and telecommunication infrastructures of contemporary, networked urbanism.