One Day in the City

Rebecca Ross is an academic researcher and graphic designer with interests in urbanism, interaction, and media. She recently completed her PhD Candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her thesis, "All Above: Visual Culture and the Professionalization of City Planning, 1867-1933," considers interactions between broad cultural enthusiasms for viewing the city from above—manifest in forms such as tethered hot air balloons, bird's eye views, observatories—and visual practices associated with installation of urban planning as a new and enduring professional category. Rebecca also teaches graphic and interaction design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

Abstract: Realtime London

This project explores a contemporary vernacular portrayal of London by displaying text and images being created in and of London and uploaded to the internet as of 'right now'. These images are drawn from the most recent uploads to various public databases (e.g. Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, Google). Our aim is to frame these new types of visual and textual vernacular representation in relation to one another, examining how they produce new understandings and experiences of the city 'on the ground', and how they operate as new forms of participation in London life.