The Quantified City: Impacts on the Urban Context

This panel will be preceded by a creative (re)mixer and cocktail hour from 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM. Entitled ‘Design Against Extinction’ and orchestrated by Terreform ONE, the event will raffle books, drawings, and architectural models in support of endangered insects/animals.

The Quantified City is a panel gathering artists, architects and musicians, which reimagines how the creative potential of data and the built environment collide in the urban context. Each participant brings a unique perspective on how the urban landscape is evolving under the incredible impact of digital media in molding and optimizing various aspects of cities when data is applied.

The evening is curated by renowned artist, composer, and essayist Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky in collaboration with AIA New York’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Moderator:
Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, Artist, Composer, and Essayist

Speakers:
M. Alby Bocanegra, Interim Chief Technology Officer, Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, City of New York
Emily Bauer, Founder, BAU LAND; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Columbia University GSAPP
Tae Hong Park, Associate Professor, NYU Steinhardt
Mitchell Joachim, PhD, Co-Founder, Terreform ONE; Associate Professor, NYU

Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky, is a composer, multimedia artist, and writer whose work immerses audiences in a blend of genres, global culture, and environmental and social issues. Miller has collaborated with an array of recording artists, including Metallica, Chuck D, Steve Reich, and Yoko Ono. His 2018 album, DJ Spooky Presents: Phantom Dancehall, debuted at #3 on Billboard Reggae. His large-scale, multimedia performance pieces include Rebirth of a Nation, Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica, commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Seoul Counterpoint, written during his 2014 residency at Seoul Institute of the Arts. His multimedia project Sonic Web premiered at San Francisco’s Internet Archive in 2019. He was the inaugural artist-in-residency at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Met Reframed, 2012-2013. In 2014, he was named National Geographic Emerging Explorer. He produced Pioneers of African American Cinema, a collection of the earliest films made by African American directors, released in 2015. Miller’s artwork has appeared in the Whitney Biennial, The Venice Biennial for Architecture, the Miami/Art Basel fair, and many other museums and galleries. His books include the award-winning Rhythm Science, published by MIT Press in 2004; Sound Unbound, an anthology about digital music and media;The Book of Ice, a visual and acoustic portrait of the Antarctic, and; The Imaginary App, on how apps changed the world. His writing has been published by The Village Voice, The Source, and Artforum, and he is the editor of Origin Magazine.

Alby Bocanegra currently serves the people of New York as Interim Chief Technology Officer in the Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (MOCTO). He has dedicated his career to building expertise in talent architecture, business strategy, and performance management with a passion for civic tech. He is professionally certified in talent strategy, diversity recruiting and sourcing combined with military training in Human Resources, Military Leadership, and Strategy. Alby credits his career success to one rare quality: grit. A gift he received from his life experiences as a Mexican immigrant, soldier in the US Army, college dropout, and disabled person. He prides himself on his unique ability to excel in varied capacities across multiple disciplines and thrive in fast paced environments while building cohesive teams of smart and ambitious hustlers. Alby is passionate about civic technology, diversity in tech, and veteran hiring. In his spare time, he DJs, collects rare sneakers, and manages to avoid injuring himself while skateboarding or snowboarding.

Emily Bauer is the Founder of Bau Land, a design firm working at the intersections of landscape architecture, architecture, urban planning, and product design. Her work connects people and nature, creating symbiotic opportunities for both to thrive. She explores possibilities for constructed spaces to act as ecological agents —systems performing in harmony and adapting over time with changing environs. Emily approaches design through her background in the sciences. In the past, she conducted research on ecological impacts and climate adaptation. She was a designer at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), where she led the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency Project, and an Associate at !melk Landscape Architecture & Urban Design, where she helped realize the first park on the Las Vegas Strip. She has been a Juror for the AN Best of Design Awards and has lectured at Cornell University, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and Columbia University, where she currently teaches. Her work has been featured in the exhibition ‘Humanhattan 2050’ at the 2018 Venice Biennale, ‘Unzipped Toronto,’ and ‘The Street’ exhibition at the Van Abbe Museum.

Tae Hong Park was born in Vienna, Austria and spent his pre-college developmental periods in Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia.  He went on to earn B.Eng., M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Korea University, Dartmouth College, and Princeton University. His current interests include composition of electro-acoustic music, signal processing, computer-aided music analysis, cyber-physical systems, and human-computer interaction. His music has been heard around the world including Austria, Brazil, China, Canada, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, South Korea, Sweden, and the UK. His works have been played by groups and performers such as the Argento Ensemble, Brentano String Quartet, California E.A.R. Unit, Ensemble Surplus, Kaleidoscope, Nash Ensemble of London, and New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. He is chief architect of the Citygram soundmapping project recently featured in The Atlantic. The project will be launched as a Kickstarter Campaign in spring 2019. Park is board member of SEAMUS, serves as Editorial Consultant for Computer Music Journal (MIT Press), and serves as President of ICMA. He is author of “Introduction to DSP: Computer Musically Speaking” and is currently Associate Professor at NYU Steinhardt’s Music Technology and Composition programs.

Mitchell Joachim is the Co-Founder of Terreform ONE and an Associate Professor of Practice at NYU. Formerly, he was an architect at the offices of Frank Gehry and I.M. Pei. He has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and fellowships with TED, Moshe Safdie, and Martin Society for Sustainability, MIT. He was chosen by Wired magazine for “The Smart List” and selected by Rolling Stone for “The 100 People Who Are Changing America”. Mitchell won many honors including; ARCHITECT R+D Award, AIA New York Urban Design Merit Award, 1st Place International Architecture Award, Victor Papanek Social Design Award, Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability, History Channel Infiniti Award for City of the Future, and Time magazine’s Best Invention with MIT Smart Cities Car. He’s featured as “The NOW 99” in Dwell magazine and “50 Under 50 Innovators of the 21st Century” by Images Publishers. He co-authored three books, “XXL-XS: New Directions in Ecological Design,” “Super Cells: Building with Biology,” and “Global Design: Elsewhere Envisioned”. His design work has been exhibited at MoMA and the Venice Biennale. He earned a PhD from MIT, MAUD from Harvard University, and MArch from Columbia University.