The Bay Area of course is famous for creating movements. We named this for a previous “summer of…” and it’s that energy from the sixties that still casts a long shadow in San Francisco and I believe it’s different from what we see now. In the sixties we protested the establishment, today we cam simply write to its API. In fact, 81 cities and 34 countries worldwide have opened up to our data. Soon after we did “The Summer of Smart”, the government of Singapore rang up and said, "We are really good at that top-down cities thing, but we're curious about that bottoms-up innovation that's going on there. Could you run what you ran in San Francisco in Singapore?" We've now called it the UP festival, the Urban Prototyping festival. It'll be in Singapore this summer, right as they're opening they're data, culminating at the cities' festival, with 400 mayors. Then it's moving on to Zurich, which is also opening it's data this fall. Our goal is 7 continents in 3 years.
Everything I've talked about so far, all of these innovations are about how to make the city more responsive. I haven't talked a lot about the most visible part of our cities; its buildings and its architecture. Cities themselves are actually now becoming more responsive. The internet spills into the real world, and as any surface can become a display, that responsiveness can become part of how we experience our city. A good example is San Francisco's one of the most digital cities in the world. You wouldn't know it except you saw the big Zynga sign.
At MIT there is a building that is programmable and responsive as art. In Helsinki, that's the power plant, the more power that's used; the more the meter goes up. It's actually a way of using data to feedback, work with, and control the city. There are a number of ways of doing this. Here in San Francisco, a local organization Obscura Digital, has gotten really good at laser mapping buildings and creating wonderful responsive environments where the virtual architecture interacts with the real world. In New York recently, at Grand Central, this Financial Times, we could call it an ad but it's really not an ad, it's sharing global financial data with people. It's not just global financial data; it uses sensors to make that architecture responsive, so they're actually playing a simulation with the building and with that data in real-time, on a wall in New York. I think this is where it's going, and where those of us who care about these things need to bring it.
| 25,000 people came to San Francisco to take a look at the Creator's Project. This is Chris Milk's piece, The Treasury of Sanctuary. The mayor came along and he was amazed that such a big part of the city was interacting and playing with this, and it really suggested a lot of opportunity. It’s feasible to pull this stuff back into public space and create a canvas of possibilities. Marshall Mcluhan said that, "Augmentation breed amputation." You're sitting in your car and it's like you don't have legs. I think we have a chance to make cities more about storytelling and art. In fact, storytelling in place is kind of an old human trick. 30,000 years ago, in the Caves of Lascaux, we did it. You can imagine moving down that city with a flickering torch to see what it's like. This is the experience designer's view of that. New York City is on to this; they have a request for a proposal for a full digital lighting district. In San Francisco, this is central market. Twitter just moved to the center of the city and yet it’s blighted. A number of us in design, tech, and real estate are introducing a ballot proposition to create the first digital arts district in the nation; a permanent area that will be 1800 feet long, 60 buildings, 85 digital surfaces. One big virtual display that can be used for telling stories or art, with 40% dedicated to advertising. We’re just beginning to explore what can be, but it’s clearly a really interesting canvas that can be created. By the way it has to be a ballot proposition because 30 years ago San Francisco banned all forms of electronic signs because of urban renewal. |    |
Yet if you go back to 1939, where I began there was San Francisco lit up and alive; an expression of 20th century urbanism. We think we can make this an expression of 21st century urbanism, but this time, responsive with many more people involved and a native form to San Francisco. New York of course, is famous for Time Square, with is ruthlessly, single-mindedly commercial. We think we can approach it differently. We're a city about data, about play, stories, art, activism, and engagement. Our idea is to treat that a little bit differently, tomorrow I think still remains one of the strongest brands ever. I think there's a new steward in town, and he is us. I think that's the beginning of one of the most exciting stories about cities and how we're working with them that I can think of.
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