SENTIENT CITY SURVIVAL KIT : ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE NEAR FUTURE
MARK SHEPARD
Biography Mark Shepard investigates entanglements of technology & urban life . Exhibitions include the Venice International Architecture Biennial , Ars Electronica , & the International Architecture Biennial Rotterdam . He is an Associate Professor of Architecture & Media Study at the University at Buffalo .
Talk The Sentient City Survival Kit is a collection of artifacts for survival in the near-future sentient city . Conceived as an archaeology not of a contemporary past but a possible future , these artifacts invoke a society yet to exist through fragments and traces of its technological milieu . As design fictions , they examine the material consequences of this urban future in playful and ironic ways , and ask us to imagine alternatives to this highly optimized , ever-more efficient and over-coded city .