CitySkin: which color is your city?

Abstract

This paper discusses an experimental mobile application named CitySkin. The application uses mobile phones for data retrieval and mapping, to design an invisible skin of a city (an output map) following a user journey at a given moment in time. The project explores relations between subjectivity and raw data by combining hard data with visual mapping. Cities and their intrinsic diversity can be compared. Slightly different input variables can present greater changes in a recurrent path. CitySkin records the mood of a specific dérive and prompts consideration of the cultural implications of computing and the design of its ubiquity.