Socializing Public Spaces With Shared Input From Mobile Devices — Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Ph.D.
Channel: IgniteNYC
Date: 2018-06-11

Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Ph.D.
“Socializing Public Spaces With Shared Input From Mobile Devices”

Jonah is an award winning researcher, artist, writer, and Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Networked Culture at Lehman College / CUNY. He received his Ph.D. in the Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department of Trinity College Dublin. His writing has appeared in publications such as WIRED, Make, Gizmodo, Neural and more.His is also the Executive Vice President of Lively Event.

This talk discusses recent projects Jonah is working on that focus on allowing large-scale collaborative input from people in shared spaces using data from the mobile devices such as cellphones and tablets. He also discusses an iOS app project he is working on called “ContactRot” that examines memory decay through our increasing reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud based computing. Beginning with an earlier project of mine called “SimpleTEXT” (2003) that encouraged mass contributions from people sending text messages from mobiles phones to drive a public performance.

Jonah expands on this project by introducing a new product he launched called “Lively” that takes advantage of the ubiquity of mobile devices using browser- based output and WebGL visualizations of incoming text messages by large audiences. The project has been performed at a wide range of public spaces such as large conferences, public movie theaters and performance spaces, and co-working spaces. Jonah discusses recent commissioned work he created for Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx that encourages people to use their cellphones in waiting spaces in the hospital to engage in anonymous collaborative travel through sending text messages of destinations to a 3D model of the earth.