A Mini, Mechanical Metropolis Runs On Real-Time Urban Data

With the omnipresence of smartphones, social media, and online video, the connected generation spends more and more of each day in the digital world, a trend which shows no sign of stopping, for better or worse. Innovative British artist Stanza has taken this reality and extrapolated it to its next (extreme) frontier—a metropolis-shaped array of circuits called The Emergent City that uses the vibrations and sounds of London to power this “mechanical city” installation. 

The largest section of the project is a collection of computer components laid out on the gallery floor to look like a traditional city—skyscraper circuit boards encircled by ‘roads’ made of wires and other computer components. This main component handles data from sensors Stanza has placed within the gallery, in Watermans, Brentford (where the piece premiered), as well as all over London.

The sensors gather data about the city’s transit system, as well as temperature, light, pressure, and the sound of the urban area. These inputs adapt and change the installation as time passes and new data flows through its circuits.

The gallery walls are covered by drawings and paintings of urban maps and several projector screens. The screens respond to the data that The Emergent City is processing, creating a unique experience for every single visitor who sees the exhibit.

According to Stanza, The Emergent City is an “Open social sculpture that informs the world and creates new meaningful artistic experiences. The artwork is also a highly technical project that gives vast amounts of information about the environment. By embedding the sensors like this we can re-engage with the fabric of space itself and enable new artistic metaphors within the environment.” 

Stanza’s meditation on the intersection of digital data and real-world stimuli is an engaging work that sparks larger thoughts about how cityscapes both inform technology and get affected by machines themselves. 

Stanza also created a video to showcase the project:

For more of Stanza’s visualizations of an ever-complicating future, check out his website here.