Part 1
“The Traust Governance Group does not prioritize corporate greed or support the state agenda to surveil and track individuals. We believe that trust is significantly more important than surveillance.”
Welcome to QPL Arcology, an audio worlding experience created by Aljumaine Gayle and Car Martin. A mash-up of architecture and ecology, arcologies exist in the worlds of speculative fiction. In this particular speculative narrative, a tree at the base of Parliament Street takes you on a journey into a possible future for the Portlands. Recently conceived as the home for a new model “smart city”, QPL Arcology imagines the neighborhood rooted in data justice, interspecies collaboration, and trust-based governance.
Aljumaine Gayle is a queer interdisciplinary creative technologist working at the intersections of technology, art, design, and data justice. They are currently enrolled in OCADU’s Digital Futures program and actively co-organizes/ co-designs programming on behalf of IntersectTO. Aljumaine is also a researcher with the University of Toronto’s Technoscience Research Unit. Their art and research practice explores othering of Blackness in contemporary life, and aims to subvert this othering through Afrofuturism and the artistic use of technology. Their practice challenges the tokenism and trauma narratives that characterize the majority of mainstream Black art, film and music. @Aljumaine
Car Martin is an architect, artist, and facilitator who has recently launched Cyan Station, an architecture studio that focuses on using technology and user-centered principles towards a vision of collectivism, care, and environmental justice. Car is a professor at the George Brown School of Design, where they teach interaction and experience design (UI/UX) at the Waterfront campus, a stone’s throw from the proposed Quayside development. In 2020, Car led a series of student projects exploring smart city technologies from a critical perspective, including prototypes for anti-surveillance fashion and design interventions. Car also recently contributed to a book on the same topic, “Smart Cities in Canada: Digital Dreams, Corporate Designs”, based on research about marginalized communities fighting surveillance in beautiful and creative ways.
Part 2
In the second half of the episode, Aljumaine and Car unpack their speculative utopia and its neighbourhoods. Ideas around power, collective care, and the need for speculative and critical design rise to the surface. How can we learn from natural intelligence and make better technological tools for collaboration and cooperation? How can data be decentralized, transparent, and transmuted into public art? And how can we educate citizens on how their data is used, to return power to the people, and better inform our communities?
Part 1
“The Traust Governance Group does not prioritize corporate greed or support the state agenda to surveil and track individuals. We believe that trust is significantly more important than surveillance.”
Welcome to QPL Arcology, an audio worlding experience created by Aljumaine Gayle and Car Martin. A mash-up of architecture and ecology, arcologies exist in the worlds of speculative fiction. In this particular speculative narrative, a tree at the base of Parliament Street takes you on a journey into a possible future for the Portlands. Recently conceived as the home for a new model “smart city”, QPL Arcology imagines the neighborhood rooted in data justice, interspecies collaboration, and trust-based governance.
Aljumaine Gayle is a queer interdisciplinary creative technologist working at the intersections of technology, art, design, and data justice. They are currently enrolled in OCADU’s Digital Futures program and actively co-organizes/ co-designs programming on behalf of IntersectTO. Aljumaine is also a researcher with the University of Toronto’s Technoscience Research Unit. Their art and research practice explores othering of Blackness in contemporary life, and aims to subvert this othering through Afrofuturism and the artistic use of technology. Their practice challenges the tokenism and trauma narratives that characterize the majority of mainstream Black art, film and music. @Aljumaine
Car Martin is an architect, artist, and facilitator who has recently launched Cyan Station, an architecture studio that focuses on using technology and user-centered principles towards a vision of collectivism, care, and environmental justice. Car is a professor at the George Brown School of Design, where they teach interaction and experience design (UI/UX) at the Waterfront campus, a stone’s throw from the proposed Quayside development. In 2020, Car led a series of student projects exploring smart city technologies from a critical perspective, including prototypes for anti-surveillance fashion and design interventions. Car also recently contributed to a book on the same topic, “Smart Cities in Canada: Digital Dreams, Corporate Designs”, based on research about marginalized communities fighting surveillance in beautiful and creative ways.
Part 2
In the second half of the episode, Aljumaine and Car unpack their speculative utopia and its neighbourhoods. Ideas around power, collective care, and the need for speculative and critical design rise to the surface. How can we learn from natural intelligence and make better technological tools for collaboration and cooperation? How can data be decentralized, transparent, and transmuted into public art? And how can we educate citizens on how their data is used, to return power to the people, and better inform our communities?