What Happens when the Smart City Crashes?

Abstract

From a photograph of a malfunctioning digital sign, this article discusses the interplay between the concept of Smart Cities and the impacts of using advanced surveillance and control technologies in urban spaces, questioning the system's failure and its consequences on citizens' lives. The text addresses the specific challenges faced in implementing Smart Cities in the Global South, examining the operation of new forms of colonialism and a new model of capitalism based on the data market. Primarily based in the Global North, these models can distort the relationships between individuals and their connections with the world and cities, highlighting their role in exacerbating socioeconomic and cultural tensions. The text presents Smart Sampa, a project underpinned by the concept of Smart Cities under progress in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as a means of elucidating the complexity of programs that promise to manage cities through labyrinthine digital networks that integrate everything from surveillance cameras to government services on a single platform. The study prioritizes diverse knowledge frameworks, employing a non-hierarchical and cross-cutting approach that connects empirical findings and scholarly sources and fostering a debate on the myths of infallibility and neutrality surrounding these control technologies. The article is an investigative exercise that examines concepts, approaches, and potential gaps within the Smart Cities framework, which inspire artistic and activist actions that challenge the assumed normalcy imposed by such technologies.