Smart city projects across the world are invested with the ideal that smart technological innovation smoothly negotiates the objectives, interests, and moral orientations of many different stakeholders. This article explores the politics of this ideal of “smart seamlessness” by taking a close look at the unfolding of the Amsterdam Smart Lighting project undertaken by a consortium of civic, academic, and corporate partners at a square in Amsterdam Southeast. This project envisioned the “smartening up” of lampposts on the square by making them real‐time adaptive to local conditions. As these plans were only partially realized due to a multitude of institutional, cultural, and material frictions, the materiality of the perpetually “unfinished smart lampposts” was subject to a constant interplay of shifting understandings regarding their social, political, and technological significance. Whereas the formal narrative of the project suggests this process of meaning‐making to be fully inclusive, producing “learnings” for all participants, the article contrasts this strategic and explicit inclusivity with the implicit “action orientation” (Haughton et al. 2013) of the project. While the Smart Lighting project’s narrative explicitly gestures toward open and inclusive innovation, it produced more implicit and subtle markers of exclusion that alienated those participants unfamiliar with the jargon, style, and pace of market‐oriented forms of spatial development.

中文翻译：

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未完成的路灯柱：阿姆斯特丹智能照明项目的（反）政治

投资世界各地的智慧城市项目的理想是，智慧技术创新可以顺利地协商许多不同利益相关者的目标，利益和道德取向。本文通过仔细研究由市民，学术界和企业合作伙伴组成的财团在阿姆斯特丹东南部的一个广场上开展的阿姆斯特丹智能照明项目，探索了“智能无缝”理念的政治意义。该项目设想使广场上的路灯柱能够实时适应当地情况，从而“提高”灯饰的质量。由于这些计划仅是由于众多机构，文化和物质上的摩擦而部分实现的，因此永久性的“未完成的智能路灯柱”的重要性在不断变化的对其社会，政治和技术意义。尽管该项目的正式叙述表明这一意义形成过程是完全包容的，为所有参与者提供了“学习”，但本文将这种战略性和明确的包容性与隐含的“行动方向”进行了对比（Haughton等人，2013年）。该项目。尽管智能照明项目的叙事明确地指向开放和包容性创新，但它产生了更多隐含和微妙的排斥标志，使那些不熟悉市场发展空间的术语，风格和步伐的参与者疏远了。本文将这种战略性和明确的包容性与项目的隐性“行动导向”（Haughton等人，2013）进行了对比。尽管智能照明项目的叙事明确地指向开放和包容性创新，但它产生了更多隐含和微妙的排斥标志，使那些不熟悉市场发展空间的术语，风格和步伐的参与者疏远了。本文将这种战略性和明确的包容性与项目的隐性“行动导向”（Haughton等人，2013）进行了对比。尽管智能照明项目的叙事明确地指向开放和包容性创新，但它产生了更多隐含和微妙的排斥标志，使那些不熟悉市场发展空间的术语，风格和步伐的参与者疏远了。