Heat and Noise (Renao): Media Ecologies and Urban Futures

In this paper we report on an ongoing collaborative research-creation project focused around urban socioaesthetic ambiences. This custom media system sonifies group movement. We propose a speculative application of real-time gestural computation of group activity and poetically composed media which scopes movement and computing to a realm of concerns endemic to public life. What's at stake is the role of media, sensing, and computation in the composition of urban futures, social experience and public life (the commons). The computation intends to catalyze and intensify renao poiesis, while attuning to possibilities for improvised public life to create novel and ethical public futures.