This course examines mobile food networks as a method to research and map the contemporary city. In Shanghai, over the past few years, there has been an enormous transformation in the way the city feeds itself. Street food stalls, restaurants and marketplaces have all migrated online. This tendency towards virtualization was intensified during the Coronavirus pandemic, when, during lockdown, people used their phones to order food, which was delivered straight to their door.This course treats mobile food delivery as a media infrastructure. It examines how these new delivery systems form part of a distributed urban ecosystem that underlies the emergence of a Sentient City. Students will use the tools of critical cartography and digital storytelling to explore the cultural, economic and political issues that are raised by the explosive growth of mobile food delivery. Research topics include the economics of company platforms; logistical networks; the reorganization of food production; the socio-economic conditions of delivery workers; changing cultural habits of urban residents; the shifts in the city’s built environment as well as the design of the apps themselves. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Interactive Media Elective.

Interactive Media Arts (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks