Madrid´s Mayor, Manuela Carmena, makes a speech on Sunday, May 24, 2015. AP Photo/Paul White. All rights reserved.
The smart city model has become extremely influential throughout the world in the last decade. But this model, based on centralised management and the commercialisation of citizen's information, is now falling apart. It doesn't stop there. All of the practices, narratives and methods that relate to 'data' and 'city' are beginning to point in the opposite direction. The research-action symposium data for the common good, held in the Medialab Prado in Madrid, is reinventing the management of such data from a non-centralised perspective.
Following Edward Snowden's revelations, cryptography has become the latest trend in this new era, which is simultaneously reclaiming transparency for the public and privacy for individuals. What's more, for the first time ever, the ecosystem of the commons – collectively owned resources which are accessible to all members of a society – is beginning to relate directly to democracy. So what would democracy of the commons be like? How could commons technology improve participation in the city?
