51 | Smart Cities w/ Dietmar Offenhuber

51 | Smart Cities w/ Dietmar Offenhuber

Author: Enrico Bertini and Moritz Stefaner March 19, 2015 Duration: 1:10:16
Hi Folks! Dietmar Offenhuber We have another great guest on the show. Dietmar Offenhuber visits us to talk about smart cities and visualizing data coming from cities. Dietmar has an interesting background. He has a background in architecture with a Dipl. Ing. from the Technical University Vienna and then he got a MS in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab and a PhD in Urban Planning from MIT. He's also been a key researcher at Ars Electronica Futurelab. Now he is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University in the departments of Art + Design and Public Policy, where he does research on the technological and social aspects of smart cities and urban governance. In the show we talk about many of his super interesting projects such as Wegzeit (timespace visualizations of LA) and Trash Track (on tracking and visualizing where garbage goes), and interesting concepts such as Accountability Technologies and Infrastructure Legibility. We also talk about the future of smart cities and what we should expect to get our of smart cities. Enjoy the show! LINKS (Moritz Launched ON BROADWAY with Lev Manovich, Dominikus Baur, Daniel Goddemeyer) Our Guest: Dietmar Offenhuber Arts Electronica Future Lab MIT Senseable City Lab Northeastern University Department of Art + Design Wegzeit - timespace visualizations of LA Comment Flow (social media visualization) Semaspace (graph editing tool) Trash Track (tracking and visualizing trash) Smartcitizen (distributed crowdsourced sensors) Bill Mitchell (MIT Media Lab Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences) Mapping the archive (project with Dietmar and Moritz on the Arts Electronica Archive) Dietmar's Interview: Sorting Out Cities Deitmar's Book: Inscribing A Square (how urban data shapes public space / discourse, and what kinds of representations are involved, and what is their function) Dietmar's Book: Accountability Technologies – Tools for Asking Hard Questions Dietmar's Book: Decoding The City

Enrico Bertini and Moritz Stefaner have a conversation you’re invited to join. Their Data Stories podcast sits at a fascinating crossroads, where the technical craft of data analytics meets the intuitive design of visual representation. Each episode feels like pulling up a chair at a cafe with two experts who are genuinely curious, unpacking not just the "how" but the "why" behind the ways we see and understand information. You’ll hear them explore the latest tools and research, but also grapple with the deeper questions of narrative, aesthetics, and human perception that give data its true meaning and impact. The discussions are grounded in their professional experiences, making complex ideas in technology and design feel accessible and immediately relevant. It’s a space for anyone who creates, studies, or simply wonders about the charts, maps, and diagrams that shape our world. By weaving together perspectives from arts, education, and visual practice, this podcast reveals how data, when thoughtfully handled, can tell stories that are as compelling as they are informative. Tune in for a consistently thoughtful look at the evolving language of numbers and shapes.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 170

Data Stories
Podcast Episodes
80 | Indexical Visualization with Dietmar Offenhuber [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:33
We have Dietmar Offenhuber, Assistant Professor at Northeastern University, on the show again to talk about “Indexical Visualizations”: visualizations that reduce the gap between the recorded phenomenon and its represent…
79 | Information Design with Isabel Meirelles [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:07
We talk with Isabel Meirelles, Professor in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University in Toronto, about her book "Design for Information" and Information Plus, the data visualization conference she organized in June.
77 | Polygraph and The Journalist Engineer Matt Daniels [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:57
We have Matt Daniels on the show, the "journalist engineer" behind Polygraph, a blog featuring beautiful journalistic pieces based on data. If you are not familiar with the site, stop now and take a look. Matt starts wit…
76 | Bocoup and OpenVis Conference [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:37
We talk with the data visualization team from Bocoup about how they work with groups to create open-source data visualization software. We also discuss the OpenVis Conference that they organize each year.
074  |  Data Ethics and Privacy with Eleanor Saitta [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:16
Eleanor is Etsy’s new Security Architect and "a hacker, designer, artist, writer, and barbarian." We talk with Eleanor about how to deal with data ethics and privacy.
073  |  Kim Albrecht on Untangling Tennis and the Cosmic Web [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:10
Kim is a visualization researcher and information designer. He currently works at the Center for Complex Network Research, the lab led by famous network physicist László Barabási. Kim works in a team of scientists to cre…
71 | Tapestry Conference Review with Robert Kosara [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:09
This is a special edition from Tapestry, the conference on Data Storytelling that gathers visualization experts, journalists, designers, NGOs, academics, etc. Enrico sits together with Robert Kosara to talk about the con…