"If companies profits from the data generated by cities and their inhabitants shouldn’t the community reap a share?” A. Townsend - Smart Cities
Extending public control over the data produced by cities and communities could potentially foster the creation of new kinds services and local economies. It is to begin to explore this possibility that I crafted Antenna: a fictional tool and storytelling to speculatively ‘to hack’ into sensitive and otherwise inaccessible mobile networks and collaboratively explore possibilities for innovation. Local data and information from the mobile network were visualised as a way to trigger participation and dialogue about the possible consequences and concerns big-data practices and surveillance technologies might conceal. If infrastructures become ‘visible and relatable’ only when they brake down, speculative prototypes like Antenna, can be used to simulate unexpected situations, providing people and designers with the necessary 'material' to relate to these often invisible and unquestioned subjects; to articulate present and future issues around technology and together identify desirable ways forward without causing the disruption ‘real hacking’ event might cause to drive decision making.
More informations about Antenna and it meaning are available here