Geographies of Information
2015
By Taraneh Meshkani, Ali Fard

Digital information and data flows permeate every aspect of our society. Within this context, design extensively avails itself of the technological bounty of advanced digital tools. Yet beyond these tools, the fluidity of digital information and the seemingly immaterial nature of communication dominate most discussions.

Understanding the contemporary networks of information and communication as inherently geographic, Geographies of Information attempts to realign design’s relationship to information and communication technologies (ICTs) by expounding on their multiscalar complexities and contextual intricacies. From the impact of digital social media on political action and the rise of predictive technologies in speculative real estate to new ways of mapping temporal conditions of a site and the evolving role of information in how designers see, understand, and act on space, ICTs exert critical influence. This issue of New Geographies examines the forms, imprints, places, and territories of ICTs through spatially grounded and nuanced accounts of the hybrid conditions that ICTs generate, the scales at which they operate, and how this production of space is manifested in both advanced and emerging economies.