Why & How To Hack Cities For Sustainability

Lars Zimmermann This talk is about inventing sustainable circular
cities. It unfolds a positive utopia in order to inspire hacking
our cities – for the better. It starts with an analysis why it is
so hard to even envision sustainable cities today: We are
surrounded in them by unsustainable structures and processes every
day. They shape our days and occupy our mind and make it hard to
see beyond. We are “locked in” – physically and also mentally! How
to get out of these “prisons for our imagination”? Hacking seems to
be the best and most sustainable answer we got. Hacking as a way to
repurpose already existing systems can unveil new potentials and
realities. Let’s create these and experience them and by that
“unlock” our imagination step by step. And it is just sustainable
to use what is already there! After a presentation of this analysis
the talk will present a longer and entertaining list of examples of
hacks. They reach from small street-art-like interventions into
road markings to complex hacks to outsmart camera surveillance that
consolidates current – linear – power structures.  It will end
with an outlook how everyone can get active and contribute to the
global reinvention of our cities through hacking. The talk has
another political dimension: It wants to contribute to the “smart
city” discourse. This discourse is often governed by companies or
institutions that push ideas to deploy sensor networks or similar
technologies across the city that can quickly be turned into
surveillance and “control” systems. But there are and positive ways
to make our cities smart and effective that don’t create “potential
weapons” against its citizen but the other way around. Let’s find
them and advocate for them! And by doing that discover and discuss
what are really good uses for digital technology and what may not
be that good.  Context: The talk presents ideas and research
of the art and activism city hacking project ”The City Is Open
Source”.