Soft Ontologies and Meaning dimensions of the City

1. Soft Ontologies and Meaning dimensions of the City Mauri Kaipainen, PhD Knowledge Environments Research Group Tallinn University

2. My institution • Tallinn University, Department of Informatics • Interactive Media and Knowledge Environments (IMKE) international MA program • Knowledge Environments Research Group (KERG) • Tallinn Media Cluster (TMC)

3. My background and approach Backgrounds: • Cognitive science • New Media • Semiotics • Education • Musicology => Talking about a city as • A medium • An environment of joint sense-making (semiosis)

4. Aim To • Point out the omnipresence of ontologies • Spatialize and de-textualize the idea of ontologies • De-cartesianize ontologies of the city => Propose a hybrid ontological space as a bridge between textual and spatial ontologies

5. OUTLINE • About modeling • Ontology and ontologies • Soft ontologies • Multi-perspective media • Taggin’ Tallinn

6. ABOUT MODELS

7. Models Can be, e.g. • Miniatures • Visualizations • Spatializations • Dynamic system models • Mathematical models • Algorithmic and generative models • Conceptual models ... Big picture: Digital modeling of the whole world ongoing!

8. Models • Explain objects, processes, activities (and sequences) • Simplify rather than complicate • Help understanding • Structure ways of managing the objects of modeling (as in digital systems)

9. ONTOLOGY AND ONTOLOGIES

10. Ontologies as conceptual models Models of • How a domain is conceived to exist • What a domain is conceived to consist of • What relationships its constituents have with each other and the external world

11. Ontology in Philosophy • ”Study of being or existence” (WP) • Discipline of philosophy • Ontologies ”Bad” reputation in postmodern thinking: Associated with naïve realism

12. Ontologies in Computer science • ” Ontology is a data model that represents a domain and is used to reason about the objects in that domain and the relations between them” (WP) • ” An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization.” (Gruber)

13. Roles of Ontology Functions of ontology discussed: • Conceptual model of sense-making within a domain • Spatial model(!) • Backbone of Multidimensional Database media

14. Premise 1: Ontologies are always there Each message, text, or narrative assumes an ontology, either • implicit (usually), or • explicit City as a text (Lotman) or a story.

15. Premise 2: Ontologies reflect perspectives Not neutral but reflect someone’s: • priorities, preferences • values • meanings of the author or owner of the medium.

16. Premise 3: Ontologies are (typically) hard • Hard= Built into structure or technical implementation of the medium (here city) • Typically assumed to represent static ”reality” of the domain Example: City as a system of coordinates, system of electricity, plumbing, law & order etc.-> Truth?

17. Premise 4: Ontologies are monoperspectival Conventional ontologies are • Monoperspectival, representing the perspective of the author or owner of the medium

18. Premise 5: Ontologies are means of power • Means of top-down top-down media power

19. Premise 6: Ontologies are text-based • Text based • Not natively spatial • Not natively visual

20. Hard and soft ontologies • Hard ontologies (conventionally) • Soft ontologies (proposed!)

21. Implicit hard ontologies Embedded in the structure, presentation order or hierarchy • Language, vocabularies, terminology, concepts • Stories: cinema, theatre, etc. • Search engines, e.g. Google • City conceptualization and planning(?)

22. Explicit hard ontologies • Taxonomies: Linnaean botanical taxonomy • Library systems • Database architectures • Metadata systems, often hierarchical: Semantic Web • Hypertext link structure (flat): web pages, sites, hypertext • City infrastructure, administrative structure,, web presence etc. (?)

23. Key issues about ontologies of a city • What kind of story do I/you/we/they want to tell about a city? • Who/what defines a city and for whom? • Can there be a single truth about a city? • Whose own the (conceptualization of )the city?

24. SOFT ONTOLOGIES

25. Soft ontologies Dynamically multidimensional conceptualizations, by means of... Open sets of descriptive feature dimensions applicable to all items of the domain. • explicit • open ended

26. Purposes of soft ontology • To define a domain of information without a single fixed perspective • Support multiple perspectives to an ontological space • Allow open (accumulating) conceptualization of a domain

27. Implementation of soft ontologies • Numeric: Each item takes a value between 0 and 1 on each ontological dimension • => Spatial organization! • Dimensionality open: New features can be added and existing ones may be ignored at will

28. Ontology Example of soft ontology as table Ontological dimension Add dims! Add data!

29. Ontological space of a city Defined by: • Geographical dimensions (latitude, longitude, altitude) • Dimensions of meaning, experiential dimensions • Searches • Measurement dimensions: statistics, weather, measurements etc. • Dimensionality growing ad infinitum How can such an ambiguous space be made sense of?

30. MULTI-PERSPECTIVE MEDIA A concept for future media Demand created by two-way communication

31. Multi-Perspective Media • Media particularly designed to support multiple equally right/true perspectives to a domain • Media based on multi-dim databases (Manovich) • Supports interactive exploration of multiple perspectives, established by • Bottom-up media, public contribution of ontological dimensions (e.g. folksonomies) for Web 2.0

32. Exploring multiple perspectives A sketch for implementation (among alternatives): • Slider interface to manage perspectives (can be replaced by other interfaces) • Realtime projection, e.g. by means of multi-dimensional scaling • Browser and search functionalities

33. Choosing perspective

34. One dimension taken into account (Trivial case) • Orthogonal display of data with respect to the viewer • See the whole distribution with respect to a dimension

35. Two dimensions taken into account • Two dimensional matrix

36. Several dimensions taken into account • Nonlinear projection (here online multi-dimensional projection) • Analog to cortical projections (color maps, tonotopies, retinotopies, somatotopies) • Real-time exploration made possible • Challenging visualization • Requires active exploration and movement! • How to facilitate this by means of design?

37. Softness? Ontological dimensions can be • Taken into account or ignored • Added at will (next example), open endedness, ∞ - dimensionality • Graded degrees of relevance allowed Implies spatial organization

38. Short course of geo-semiotics • One case/utilization/example (just a point) does not yet constitute a meaning but • A meaning dimension is needed to establish a meaning (line) • A dimension makes sense only from near-orthogonal perspective • Making sense = projection from multi-perspective ontological space • Understanding = being able to see multiple perspectives • Knowledge = sharing perspectives within a community

39. TAGGIN’ TALLINN

40. Taggin’ Tallinn Blending virtual and physical presence in the city

41. Partners • Tallinn University • Eesti Kunstiakadeemia • EMT • Urban Mark • Tallinn City(?!) • RAK • more...

42. Project nature Framework and lab of: • locative media & urban presence • public contributions of content, software and ontologies • social software • new mobile technologies • mobile interfacing

43. Spraying graffiti not encouraged

44. Add a virtual tag • MMS + SMS • GPS + Online connection • Map-click (at home) Mauri was here! X 59°43.7’N 24°74.3’

45. Associate content with your tag X Via mobile or web

46. Tag content not fitting to any existing collection? Establish a new content collection

47. Content communityes Each content community Elaborates a particular dimension of meaning. Has • community of peers • a moderator • rules of e.g. membership, acceptance, priorization and evaluation -> game!

48. Tags, blogs and communities • Tag = X was here... • Individual presence • Coordinates • Place • Content link • Community Content community & ”game” = ontological dimension of the city Blog = individual track

49. Hybrid coordinate system of Tallinn Blend: • Geographical coordinates tracked by GSM, GPS, or manually clicked • Meaning coordinates Community software Locative media Collaborative environment

50. Explore own perspectives to the city • Multi-perspective view • Hybrid geo-experiential map • Mobile and web interfaces