PROJECT III:

Real-Time Porosity: Using Computer Gaming Technology to Map and Analyse Pedestrian Movement in Public and Private Space

Dates: 2009-2012

Funding: Australian Research Council Linkage Grant

The University of New South Wales in Collaboration with the Emergency Information Co-ordination Unit, New South Wales State Government

Artist: Richard Goodwin in Collaboration with Russell Lowe

Assistants: Julian Cromarty, Tina Salama, Vinh Nguyen, Joshua Harle

Videos: Real-Time Porosity Town Hall

PROJECT III:

Real-Time Porosity: Using Computer Gaming Technology to Map and Analyse Pedestrian Movement in Public and Private Space

Dates: 2009-2012

Funding: Australian Research Council Linkage Grant

The University of New South Wales in Collaboration with the Emergency Information Co-ordination Unit, New South Wales State Government

Artist: Richard Goodwin in Collaboration with Russell Lowe

Assistants: Julian Cromarty, Tina Salama, Vinh Nguyen, Joshua Harle

Videos: Real-Time Porosity Town Hall

Real-Time Porosity

In 2003-5 Richard Goodwin’s Porosity project took a snapshot of the public use of private space in Sydney’s CBD. By employing sensors that feed information from real environments, computer gaming technology will let us experience Porosity in real time and in first person. The result will provide many new ways to experience, test, observe, archive, review and assist people’s movement through space, however, the danger is that it might be mistaken for a non-serious, purely recreational computer game. Mistaking real time Porosity for entertainment is what Paul Virilio would call its “accident”. But with the incredible growth and popularity of computer games could this accident have unintended, and useful, implications? We think so.