Surveillance Scape Analog Agents in the Digital City

  • Image courtesy of Stephen Zimmerer.

Consisting of research, experimental design studies, an interactive installation and a publication, SURVEILLANCE SCAPE is a research project concerned with the presence of digital urban surveillance data and its relationship with the human body. Through intertwined strategies of geospatial data visualization, machine fabrication, and analogue construction, SURVEILLANCE SCAPE aims to re-singularize the body in relation to both the spatial and digital city.

Consisting of research, experimental design studies, an interactive installation and a publication, SURVEILLANCE SCAPE is a research project concerned with the presence of digital urban surveillance data and its relationship with the human body. Through intertwined strategies of geospatial data visualization, machine fabrication, and analogue construction, SURVEILLANCE SCAPE aims to re-singularize the body in relation to both the spatial and digital city.

Milestone

2019.Q3
Project awarded Design Trust Seed Grant

2020 Q4
“Surveillance scape” exhibition and zine publication

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2019
Grantee: Stephen Zimmerer

Stephen Zimmerer is an urban designer based in the Greater Bay Area whose research is concerned with the implications of an emergent digital ecology. Drawing upon realities including CCTV recording and fundamentally unknowable networks of digital sprawl, his work employs tactics from observational drawing to speculative design in order to critique systems which erode human autonomy.

Upon moving to Hong Kong in 2016, his undergraduate thesis was concerned with devising architectural machines to mediate between the scales of the body, the urban village, and the contemporary megacity of Southern China. Since, he has worked for international design practices including TLS Landscape Architecture and Counts Studio, and he currently freelances for boutique research practices in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. He has completed installations for the Seoul Biennale of Architecture, AssBook Group, Buffalo Art Studios, and Satellite Art Fair. He lives and maintains a studio practice in Hong Kong.

Project Progress:

Machine Generation. Image courtesy of Stephen Zimmerer

Rendering. Image courtesy of Stephen Zimmerer