Your future Guimarães: is it smart?

Next week we will be in Guimarães hosting a free workshop about shaping the future of Guimarães which will be part of a short film. Can technology be a driver for action and interaction? We will be in the new Design Institute on Saturday 14 July from 14.00 – 18.00.

Sign up by e-mailing opencity@watershed.co.uk to book your free place.From Bladerunner to Minority Report, film and TV are steeped in visions of ‘smart cities’ driven by technology and screens. But is this the kind of city we want to live in? Should our governments be investing in this vision?

What might new technologies mean in reality for how we travel, work and play? This event invites the people of Guimarães to imagine how they would like their future city to be enabled and shaped by technology.

As part of the Open Cities strand of Guimarães 2012, the workshop will use a playful approach to explore people-focused ideas. It is aimed at curious people with a view on how their city should evolve. You do not need a background or understanding of technology to come along.

The event will help to develop scenes and ideas for a new short film by Geoffrey Taylor and design fiction academic Sam Kinsley, commissioned to parody technology company’s corporate videos, and instead depict how technology might be used by real people in future Guimarães. Filipa Carretas from Mo.ca. – Mobiliário de cartão will be creating the cardboard props used in the film.

Both the ideas and the resulting film will be shared world-wide as part of the Open Cities website and will feed in to the Open Cities showcase in Guimarães in the Autumn.

Don’t forget to sign up by sending an e-mail to:

opencity@watershed.co.uk

Check out the Facebook event too and spread the word.

Hope to see you there!

(Image taken from Kosareff, S. 2005 Window to the Future, San Francisco: Chronicle Books)