Project summary

This project argues that patterns of mobility become increasingly influenced by how new technologies abstract the city’s realities in the virtual realm, and through different characterisations of the real. In so doing, it discusses how, drawing from different political understandings of space, algorithms dictate and change mobility around Jerusalem.

Project details

Location: Kenyon Institute, Jerusalem

Year(s): 2018/2019 (Travel Grant)

Project director(s): Emilio Distretti (SOAS, University of London)

Lead institutions and funding:

• SOAS, University of London
• CBRL

Project description

As governments increasingly use the intelligence of algorithms, the logic of population management has changed on a global scale: while individuals are objectified, data becomes increasingly humanised. Similarly, recent navigation, social, and gaming apps are developed to reflect how algorithmic logic directly impacts the mobility, and life of their users. This becomes particularly evident in conflict areas and divided cities where social interactions and mobility develop and shape experiences through, and in spite of, physical borders and boundaries.

In the context of occupied Jerusalem, where hard borders (walls, fences, checkpoints) (unequally) impact the movement of people, GPS navigation, social and dating apps (like Waze™, Tinder and Grindr), contribute to the algorithmic production of patterns of mobility across the city, challenging the mainstream Zionist narrative of a united Jerusalem.

This project argues that these patterns of mobility become increasingly influenced by how new technologies abstract the city’s realities in the virtual realm, and through different characterisations of the real. In so doing, it discusses how, drawing from different political understandings of space, algorithms dictate and change mobility around Jerusalem.

The CBRL travel grant enabled me to conduct initial fieldwork in Jerusalem where I interviewed app users, developers and activists.

Project bibliography

Distretti, Emilio. 2020. Algorithmic occupation. Bulletin of the Council for British Research in the Levant 2018-2019, p 20-21.

Cristiano, F. and Distretti, E. (2022) “Towards an Aesthetics by Algorithms. Palestinian Cyber and Digital Spaces at the Threshold of (In)visibility”, Behind and Beyond the Selfie. A Savage Journey into the Heart of Digital Culture, eds. Donatella Della Ratta, Geert Lovink, Peter Sarram, Teresa Numerico. Palgrave. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-65497-9_10 

Published:26 November 2021