Patricio Dávila | York University (original) (raw)

Papers by Patricio Dávila

How can mobile technology create more ways for audiences to participate in live stage performance... more How can mobile technology create more ways for audiences to participate in live stage performances? CoPerformance is a research project that aims to design and develop a set of participatory performance modules that allow for this kind of engagement. These modules will be stand-alone, plug-and-play boilerplate templates and scripts that will allow designers to quickly build and test interactive experiences that utilize mobile devices. CoPerformance can be deployed via mobile browsers or native applications. The goal of this platform is to use existing code-without further abstracting what is already useful-and offer designers and artists a powerful set of tools for interactive performances; and decrease the barrier for entry into this domain.

Nordic Design Research Conference, 2015

Different Data is a collaborative critical design research project by which we collect, manipulat... more Different Data is a collaborative critical design research project by which we collect, manipulate, and display data in location-specific, and theme- driven scenarios. As research through-design and practice-based research, we investigates place and explore methods for generating and collecting data, developing an experimental approach to visualizing connections and meaning. We map hidden, overlooked and silent aspects of the urban cultural ecology. We collect narratives of cities using standard datasets transforming it to ‘different data’—that which is affective, emotional, and subjective; marginal and little-valued; esoteric and ephemeral; idiosyncratic and absurd; questionable and inappropriate. Work is executed publicly into a seamful artifact that creates an alternate or counter- narrative. These explorations are designed to challenge preconceived notions of place and its dynamics, and offer another view of given reality.

It is difficult to enumerate all the interactions, messages, and presences that contribute to the... more It is difficult to enumerate all the interactions, messages, and presences that contribute to the work involved in a project like this. I am grateful to the many people including family, friends, and colleagues who have indulged my obsession, and given me the space and resources to complete this work. In particular, many thanks go to my advisor Janine Marchessault who recommended that I undertake a Ph.D. in the first place and who has guided the development of my work throughout. My deep appreciation to committee member Jan Hadlaw who generously offered her knowledge and expertise, and helped me further my own understanding of critical engagements in design. My sincere thanks to committee member Caitlin Fisher who, since my Master's work, has continued to provide inspiration from her own work and guidance for mine. I also feel a deep gratitude to David McIntosh, a teacher in my undergraduate career, and now a close friend and colleague who encouraged my pursuit of this degree and continued to emotionally and intellectually support its development. Dave Colangelo and I collaborated on numerous projects throughout my time in the Communication and Culture program. These projects and our conversations illuminated many of the ideas in this dissertation in practice. I would like to also acknowledge the role that my students have played in generously responding to the incremental implementation of concepts developed over the last five years. It is their enthusiasm for this scholarship and practice that drives me to contribute to the field.

for their enthusiasm and creativity. Finally, I am forever grateful to my wife Patricia Pasten fo... more for their enthusiasm and creativity. Finally, I am forever grateful to my wife Patricia Pasten for her patience and support through a very challenging but rewarding year. vii

In this paper, we explore emerging modes of digitally-mediated participation in urban space that ... more In this paper, we explore emerging modes of digitally-mediated participation in urban space that engage bodily and architectural relationships with data rich environments. We contend that the combination of data visualization, public space, and digital display technologies represent an important aesthetic and technical challenge that engage new dimensions of presence in a social and material environment characterized by networks and data.

Aesthetic visualization projects that incorporate users, community stakeholders, multiple modalit... more Aesthetic visualization projects that incorporate users, community stakeholders, multiple modalities and technologies necessarily emphasize the way that an artistic visualization can be both an artifact and a process — a conceptualization of aesthetic visualization that is useful for thinking about visualization in general. In this paper, the authors propose the concept of expressivity as a move away from the indexical claims of visualization and instead towards an acknowledgement of the entangled nature of social, political, economic, cultural, technological and environmental actants. Through a description of the In The Air, Tonight public visualization project, the authors suggest that by making manifest the connections between these actants, a visualization project, as a form of expressive cartography, can contribute to the visibility of and engagement with important issues (e.g. homelessness) that affect society.

Leonardo electronic almanac, 2012

As practices in reactive architecture and locative media converge and urban screens and projectio... more As practices in reactive architecture and locative media converge and urban screens and projection technologies proliferate we are becoming increasingly able to interact with data in public space. This confluence presents us with modes of digitally mediated participation in urban space that highlight bodily and architectural relationships with data rich environments as well as new sets of problems and possibilities regarding aesthetics, poetics, and politics. The article will analyze works by Alfredo Jaar, Krzysztof Wodiczko, and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, as they respectively exemplify the efficacy of the key components of public data visualization: mapping, expanded presence through architecture, and the ”˜incompleteness’ and participatory nature of relational aesthetics. A more recent example, the E-TOWER project, an interactive data visualization project of Toronto’s energy visualized on the CN Tower for Nuit Blanche 2010, will also be examined as a form of collective participation i...

In this paper we describe the theoretical background of E-Tower, a mobile phone based interactive... more In this paper we describe the theoretical background of E-Tower, a mobile phone based interactive installation with the CN Tower for Toronto’s Nuit Blanche 2010.

This paper is concerned with addressing social concerns with large-scale, multi-modal media art t... more This paper is concerned with addressing social concerns with large-scale, multi-modal media art that uses digital networks, reactive architecture, and the city as semiotic resources. As artists and designers who are involved in socially engaged practice, we see an important role in foregrounding political and social issues through networks and architecture, negotiating and furnishing access to both while shaping compelling interfaces that allow people to contribute by amplifying an area of common concern. We discuss some previous work by Davila and Colangelo and focus on our latest project, In The Air, Tonight, which aims to visualize local wind patterns combined with fluctuations in the conversation around #homelessness through Twitter on the LED façade of the Ryerson Image Centre in Toronto. Author

Interactive Film & Media Journal

This paper reports on two iterations of our ongoing Receipts project. The project serves as a mea... more This paper reports on two iterations of our ongoing Receipts project. The project serves as a means to experiment with and propose processes that use social practice and machine learning technologies to prepare testimonies and listeners to more clearly and impactfully speak, hear, and feel what it is like to respond to mimetic trauma and be part of an equity-deserving group in public space. The work is guided by the following question: How can the process of facilitating the preparation and presention of anonymized testimonies of discriminatory aggression in public spaces with the witnesses and victims of said agressions create structures of accountability, solidarity, healing, and community? The first project, Receipts (2020), was presented as part of The Bentway’s Safe in Public Space program in Toronto, and addressed anti-Asian aggression in public spaces. The second project, Receipts NB, in collaboration with ArtFix, an organization that works with artists with substance abuse a...

Interactive film and media journal, May 25, 2022

Information Design Journal

The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project is an example of critical visualization practice that interroga... more The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project is an example of critical visualization practice that interrogates both its own conditions of production and how who is represented is also affected by the representations. In order to describe and analyze this form of practice the notion of assemblage as well as tools from actor-network theory are employed. These concepts allow the researcher or designer to consider how visualizations operate beyond its existence as a discrete representation but rather as a process that weaves a network of humans and non-humans together which is especially relevant to a critical engagement in information visualization practice.

Leonardo, 2016

Aesthetic visualization projects that incorporate users, community stakeholders, multiple modalit... more Aesthetic visualization projects that incorporate users, community stakeholders, multiple modalities and technologies necessarily emphasize the way that an artistic visualization can be both an artifact and a process-a conceptualization of aesthetic visualization that is useful for thinking about visualization in general. In this paper, the authors propose the concept of the visualization as boundary object, a move away from the indexical claims of visualization and instead towards an acknowledgement of the entangled nature of social, political, economic, cultural, technological and environmental actants. Through a description of the In The Air, Tonight public visualization project, the authors suggest that by making manifest the connections between these actants, a visualization project, as a form of expressive cartography, can contribute to the visibility of and engagement with important issues (e.g. homelessness) that affect society.

In this paper we explore emerging modes of digitally-mediated participation in urban space that e... more In this paper we explore emerging modes of digitally-mediated participation in urban space that engage bodily and architectural relationships with data rich environments. We contend that the combination of data visualization, public space, and digital display technologies represent an important aesthetic and technical challenge that engages new dimensions of presence in a social and material environment characterized by networks and data.

Public projections serve to both complicate and augment the relationship between various entities... more Public projections serve to both complicate and augment the relationship between various entities in public space by creating affordances for the enfolding of temporal, spatial, and material contexts via digital-networked media. Drawing on the work of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Camille Utterback, the authors argue that re-embodiment and transversality are key interface effects of successful public projection installations. These tactics serve an important function in engaging negotiated subjectivities and identities within the shifting parameters of media and the city. The discussion concludes with a brief description of "The Line," a research-creation project proposed by the authors which attempts to instantiate some of the strategies covered.

Proceedings of the 16th International Conference, Sep 23, 2014

Nordic Design Research Conference, 2015

Leonardo electronic almanac, 2012

Interactive Film & Media Journal

Interactive film and media journal, May 25, 2022

Information Design Journal

Leonardo, 2016

Aesthetic visualization projects that incorporate users, community stakeholders, multiple modalit... more Aesthetic visualization projects that incorporate users, community stakeholders, multiple modalities and technologies necessarily emphasize the way that an artistic visualization can be both an artifact and a process-a conceptualization of aesthetic visualization that is useful for thinking about visualization in general. In this paper, the authors propose the concept of the visualization as boundary object, a move away from the indexical claims of visualization and instead towards an acknowledgement of the entangled nature of social, political, economic, cultural, technological and environmental actants. Through a description of the In The Air, Tonight public visualization project, the authors suggest that by making manifest the connections between these actants, a visualization project, as a form of expressive cartography, can contribute to the visibility of and engagement with important issues (e.g. homelessness) that affect society.

Proceedings of the 16th International Conference, Sep 23, 2014