Urban

@ianmcque
Attention
Part
One
 “To visit the sites that are
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producing our networked

experiences is thus an
attempt to understand
these new entanglements,
sensations and practices,
these network-associated
changes — this new way
mol : ontology of being” (Mattern).
 @ianmcque
“Infrastructural systems
are not necessarily
static; often they are
even mutable, portable,
transient; and so some
infrastructure
engagement projects
focus on processes or
easterling : active forms events” (Mattern).
 “Thus they
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hope their
projects will
generate not
just awareness
about existing
infrastructures
but also the
capacity to
imagine
potential
pedwell : affective inhabitation ones” (Mattern).
 “Driving, for most of us, is
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what psychologists call an

hayles : nonconscious cognition
‘overlearned’ activity. It is
something we’re so well
practiced at that we're able
to do it without much
conscious thought. That
makes our life easier, and it
is how we become good at
things” (Vanderbilt 75).

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hayles : nonconscious cognition
“They were, by external
measures, ‘paying
attention .’ But keeping
one’s eyes on the road
is not necessarily the
same thing as keeping
one’s mind on the
road” (Vanderbilt 81).
 “Our eyes and our
james : attention

attention are a
slippery pair […]
Sometimes we
send our eyes
somewhere and our
attention follows;
sometimes our
attention is already
there, waiting for
the eyes to catch
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up” (Vanderbilt 88).
clark : extended cognition
“if there is a general
law of urban criminality
here, it’s that cities get
the types of crime their
design calls
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for” (Manaugh 35).
 “It’s not just the city’s grid or its
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transportation infrastructure that

easterling : active forms
can affect burglars or the police
who track them; something as
immaterial as the mathematics
of the city’s street-numbering
system can affect the ability of
the police to interrupt crimes
that might be
occurring” (Manaugh 50).
@ianmcque
“Yet where is move-making
taught as a special subject in
school? Do we take that new job,
transfer to another town, try a
new resort or drive-in, sell the old
house, rent another flat, find a
better bus, pick another
commuting route, choose the
sunny side of the street, stay off
the interstate? Decisions,
easterling : active forms decisions, decisions” (Clay 110).
 @ianmcque

“Because beats are

easterling : active forms
cyclical and regular,
they serve to organize
human movements in
and around cities and
offer visible clues to
cities’ functional lives.
Beats are predictable,
mappable, and often
negotiable” (Clay 112).
Part
Two
 “These three factors
[number, density,
diversity] condition all
aspects of our
experience in the
metropolis” (Milgrim
james : experience
1461).

pedwell : affective inhabitation
“Rather, adaptation
occurs in the form
of gradual evolution
of norms of
behavior” (Milgrim
1464).

pedwell : affective inhabitation
“There is a reason we
can imagine others’
perspectives, have
empathy, infer others’
goals, communicate—
and it begins with a
shared gaze”
(Horowitz 82).
benjamin : flâneur
“The practice of
recording the city
has many parallels to
the ways writers and
urban flâneurs walk
and explore the city”
(Nilsen 56).
 “Locators are among the few
people who can even begin to
comprehend that dense
archaeology—the ghosts of no
longer used telecommunication
networks, of housing booms and
busts that necessitated new
conduits, of urban planning that
saw underground utilities as a way
to create a more bucolic, natural
mattern : guides landscape” (Burrington).
“Locators are experts in
the minutiae of landscape.
Variations in strains or
color of grass and cracks
in pavement can offer as
much insight as a device
equipped with Bluetooth
or elaborate touch-screen
interfaces” (Burrington).