Curiouser and Curiouser

The paper ‘Model extracting individual’s curiosity level in urban spaces review’

explores the idea of being able to determine someone’s level of curiosity in accordance with their speed of walking.

When I first began reading the paper this seemed obvious, because when walking anywhere people will automatically slow down when something catches their eye. Reading on, proving this turned out to be more complex. Variables such as everyone having a different speed of walking and obstacles slowing people down for different reasons can affect results.

It reminded me of ‘flâneur’ which I learnt about through my friend Raichel's architect project this year. Flâneur is French for strolling and the idea of flâneur is that of "a person who walks the city in order to experience it". I wonder if a shop front can induce flâneur, ie, make someone who was not intent on experiencing the environment around them, stop, take note and engage.

Aside from the practical aspects of this article, it describes how modern technology could completely transform a person’s experience of an urban environment. The idea is that modern technology could read what a person is curious about through sensors and global satellite positions embedded in smart phones. It would then suggest other places they may find interesting using similar data collected from other people.

In this manner it could almost force clusters of like minded people together rather than it happen spontaneously. I wonder how that would affect the popularity of places over a short and long period of time. Hidden gems wouldn't be so hidden anymore and the normal routine could be interrupted and changed.

The main idea that started me thinking was producing a “map of curiosity”. It sounds like something straight out of Alice and Wonderland. It’s a nice idea to think about what an individual’s map of curiosity would look like and what would be at the end of the ‘rabbit hole’.