TIM LUKE AND BENJAMIN BRATTON: The Terrors of Design

New Sciences of Protection Conference: Plenary 3 with Tim Luke (Design as Defence) and Benjamin Bratton (Dissimulation and Terrorism)

Tim Luke and Benjamin Bratton discussed the architecture of safe living in both its actual and virtual dimensions. ‘Architecture’ is concerned with both the concrete material structuring of a space, but also with the projection of form, [...]

SpotShotter: New Technology Could Help Detect Gunfire

The SpotShotter tool is a gunfire detector gadget. Its wireless sensors pick up the sound of gunshots and differentiate sfrom other loud noises, such as fireworks. When a gun goes off, a sound wave registers on the device, which sends a message within seconds to the police dispatch computers. It can detect gunfire as close [...]

Workshop 5: CASA SEGURA by Robert Ransick

Robert Ransick (Media Artist and Professor of Digital Arts, Bennington College)
Casa Segura / Safe House
Robert’s project highlights various issues dealing with immigration, border control, those who cross the US/Mexico border and those who live near the border. His work  can be seen on his casasegura blog and is currently [...]

Workshop 4: Protocols, Procedures & Institutions

Read more about the Protocols, Procedures and Institutions workshop here>

The Tower Hamlets Unregulated Zone

A CONFIDENTIAL MEMO discussing the IF-POLITICS membership and duties of the Lancaster University Expert Assessors of Tower Hamlets Unregulated Zone from the UK Government Regulation Office, Division 3496723. Source: ANON

Safe Driving?

Taking its lead from recent high-profile experiments in the Netherlands and Germany , the Kensington and Chelsea council wants to begin removing traffic lights from Exhibition Road. It is part of an audacious campaign by the council to forge modern ’shared streetscapes’ where eye contact between motorists and pedestrians and simple common sense replace a [...]

Buried But Not Forgotten?: The Secret of Yucca Mountain

Brian P. Bloomfield & Theo Vurdubakis - Department of Organisation, Work and Technology, Lancaster University
ABSTRACT: Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nevada (USA), is the site of a very ambitious project to construct an underground repository for high-level nuclear waste. The object of [...]

‘The School Journey: visible and invisible dangers’

Duncan Whyatt and Marion Walker, Geography, Lancaster University
ABSTRACT:
This paper stems from an ESRC funded project that uses a combination of traditional and novel techniques to gain a deeper understanding of the school journey. A group of 30 teenagers were asked to use a customised mobile phone application, which automatically recorded their routes, to take photographs [...]

Secure Urbanism and Resilient Infrastructure - The New Politics of Ecological Security

Mike Hodson and Simon Marvin - Centre for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures (SURF), Salford University
ABSTRACT: Secure urbanism and resilient infrastructure argues that a new logic is beginning to reshape the material development of urban infrastructure networks both within and between cities. World cities are strategically assessing the resilience of their critical infrastructure networks [...]

Locating Social Reponsibility: CCTV & Public Space

Department of Psychology, Lancaster University - Mark Levine and John Dixon

ABSTRACT:This paper will present data from a Home Office funded study of the impact of public order measures like CCTV surveillance and street drinking legislation on social relations in public space. The focus of the research was the town square in Lancaster city centre. Data [...]