Unit 3

Socially attuned networks: Agent x Attractor 

Main Lecturer: Woojae Sung

Unit Instructors: Hanjun Kim + Jooeun Sung

Image credit: Woojae Sung, Growing in Void
Image credit: Woojae Sung, Ultra Light

1. Unit Brief

The workshop will focus on ‘Agent System’ in order to understand how social figures connect to people in the city. In the computational way, we can refer to social figures as ‘attractors’ and people as ‘agents’,  since the behaviour of agents are mainly affected by attractors.

In South Korea, there is a unique job, “Mrs. Yakult”. They have their own personal territory for marketing, which are strictly distributed by the company. Not only selling yogurts, also they become the lodgement of neighbours’ socialising. 24h convenience stores in Korea are also common places for socialising in approximate territories since they are located on every single block, and interestingly each program of the store is different. However, Mrs.Yakult is relocating at certain times during the day, while the store is in the same position with different workers.

During the workshop, students will look into data of these social figures, which can be made reference to mobile attractors and static attractors, and will investigate how the pandemic situation affected the flow path of people as agents in their territory.


2. Tools


3. Aim and Scope


4. Expected Workshop Outcome