PROJECT PIAQ5454 – Lina Dovydenaite

We are facing greater accelerations of climate change, pollution, soil degradation, depletion of natural resources and so on. In this video work I look at emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence(AI), as a way to safeguard our civilization from the catastrophic consequences of climate change, unsustainable development and resource depletion. The project presents a thought experiment that asks what if sustainability goals, along with human needs, would organise our cities? The video work presents the city model which works like a biological organism with multiple systems with unique functions co-operating in real time. AI and data enable a city to be self-aware and dynamically reconfigurable in real-time or near-real-time as any changes to the state of the system are continuously monitored and are thus analogous to the way biological systems operate and respond to their environment. Cities generate vast troves of data which, as an aggregate, provide a representation of human relations to their urban environment. The urban model seeks to answer how new technologies can make cities sustainable and beneficial to the people who live in them and to the environment. A real-time operating system transforms a city into a self-regulating, living organism, turning the linear and unsustainable management of resources into circular flows, commonly known as circular urban metabolism. This process is a necessary part of urban evolution, reducing human impact and facilitating better, more efficient resource management. The video work asks: How can a city be fully sustainable and not to deplete or destroy critical resources? How the neighborhood, as an urban unit, could become more self-sufficient and embody alternative energy sources, while reducing pollution and harm to the environment. How can a city be fully sustainable and contribute to the health of the planet and the population of the future, how can it be both pollution neutral and resource neutral?