Realtime Subjects

Where do virtual humans reside? The workshop will explore this question by looking at recent urban simulations that virtualise cities and their populations. Specifically, we will use a recent smart city technology, the “digital twin”, as a topic of inquiry and design method. The digital twin, a virtual replica that maps data from objects in the physical city onto digital proxies in a simulated city, is the latest product being marketed to cities by global logistics companies and smart city technology firms. Digital twins are immersive, omniscient fantasy images, populated with real-time feeds of human activity, weather, traffic and other urban events. What is at issue in this technology is the reliance on a computational model to make the city legible to decision makers, who then use this model to create urban futures.

This workshop examines how digital twins represent cities and their subjects. It asks what the consequences of this technology are for collective urban futures and how this technology can be mobilised to produce more equitable, just and exciting urban visions. Specifically, workshop participants will technically and conceptually hack the components (data inputs, immersive visualisations and simulations, and outputs) of the digital twin concept and system architecture. Participants will produce a simple simulation of an urban environment using the Unreal Gaming Engine.

Prerequisites
No prior experience required!
A laptop with:

1. The latest build of Unreal Engine 5 → https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/download
2. The latest build of Cesium for Unreal Engine → https://cesium.com/learn/unreal/unreal-quickstart

Note! The number of participants to the workshop is limited. Participants will be selected based on a short motivational letter. Deadline for applications: 1 March 2023

REGISTER HERE