The Smart City

Technology as a driver for action and interaction. Within the Smart City intervention we would like to engage an audience on the concept of the Internet of Things and visualize the future of Guimarães in a connected world.

We have commissioned film make Geoffrey Taylor and design fiction academic Sam Kinsley to produce a short film which acts as a window into Future Guimarães focusing on the personal impact as well as the technological opportunity. It tells a story of daily life in 10 or 15 years time – and is seen through the lens of a city which is historic at present, but with an ambitious view of its future.

This vision is utopian in scope – an “imagine if” – grounded in the technology of the possible, or nearly possible, but extending that to an aspirational conclusion.

The project has taken the world of design fiction as a starting point, and in particular Microsoft’s vision of the future videos.

Writer Bruce Sterling, defines design fiction as ‘the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change…It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind of design. It tells worlds rather than stories.’

The film will also be screened within the Cidade Campus in Guimarães 2- 3 November 2012 – bringing together similar sized cities from across Europe, and including previous Capitals of Culture, to discuss urban development and regeneration.

Simultaneously it will be used as a conversation starter or provocation for groups around Guimarães, from Schools to community groups, to discuss their vision of Future Guimarães

Take a look at some of the behind the scenes photos.