ABSTRACT
Performative urban environments are emerging as a major research agenda among urban designers and thinkers. It focuses on exploring place-making within urban environments with new socio-technical systems, and by experimenting with prototypes for interactive urban artifacts. It investigates mobility, through digital technologies that track experiences. The experiments with performative urban environments point at more “progressive” and political agendas, as well. The performative urban environment focuses on what an interactive, mediating urban space does instead of what it is. The way in which an urban space acts with its surroundings is the focus of current experiments into the role of digital technologies in empowering mobile social agents. Current research also explores how new interactive technologies shape social relationships, environments and culture with local protocols, and how mobile technologies affect perceptions of space and participate in shaping interactivity. The crucial question therefore is; can performative urban environments create “civic meaning” and thus perform in a socially progressive manner? This important issue is explored through networked mobility and the expected performativity of urban environments.
