Digital visual publics.

The two day gathering on 7 and 8 January 2019 was hosted at St John's College, Oxford. We assembled a group of scholars and practitioners to discuss the ways in which digital visualising technologies are convening different types of publics across cities and heritage organisations.

Structured around the themes of digital urban publics and the imagined pasts of urban heritage, each of the two days fostered dialogue between media theorists and digital humanities professionals, digital designers, cultural geographers and urban campaigners. Anchored by keynotes and developed through panels and discussants, the event brought together an impressive congress of digital media scholars and professionals.

Publics and smart cities

The first day took four cuts through the digital, visual and cultural in urban settings. Examining environmental data, urban screens both large and small, storytelling about urban change, and engagements with future urban technologies, we drew academics and practitioners into conversation to consider the various ways in which publics, both actual and projected, intersect and gather around digital and visual media and technologies.

The sessions included:

• Environmental data and urban publics, with Jennifer Gabrys of the University of Cambridge, a campaigner from Friends of the Earth in Oxford and Tony Bush of Apertum, Oxford.
• Urban screens and public address, with Scott Rodgers of Birkbeck, University of London, and Philippa Tipper.
• Smart cities and their alternatives, with Adam Greenfield, author of Against the Smart City and Radical Technologies, in conversation with Alison Powell of the London School of Economics.
• Screen publics and urban media, with Zlatan Krajina of the University of Zagreb in conversation with Susa Pop of Public Art Lab, Berlin.

Publics and heritage

The second day was built around a pair of keynote addresses from Ayona Datta of King's College London and Monica Degen of Brunel University. Where Dr Datta's research concerns the digital turn and postcolonial urban futures, Dr Degen's work takes up questions of urban temporalities with a current focus on the Museum of London's planned move to a new site.

Both considered the various ways in which the future of urban spaces is alternately bound up in complicated histories and imagined futures projected as being distinctly visual. Each keynote was matched with a discussant. We were delighted to welcome Dr Padmini Ray Murray of the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology as discussant of Monica's keynote, and a professor from the University of Exeter as discussant of Ayona's keynote.

Accompanying these talks was a panel taking up questions of digital heritage as they are finding articulation both online and in contemporary museum spaces. Heritage academics were placed in conversation with heritage and digital design professionals, moderated by a member of the School of Geography and the Environment. Participants included:

• Kathryn Eccles, University of Oxford, CABINET project
• Damien Smith, Creative Director, ISO Design, Glasgow

Speakers and contributors

With thanks to Jennifer Gabrys, Kayla Schulte, Tony Bush, Scott Rodgers, Clare Walton, Philippa Tipper, Zlatan Krajina, Susa Pop, Alison Powell, Adam Greenfield, Monica Degen, Padmini Ray Murray, Kathryn Eccles, Damien Smith, Ayona Datta and John Wiley for their contributions.