Paper short abstract:

Which are the futures produced through digital twinning? The contribution delves into the new logics of urban digital twinning in future-making processes via à vis the "climate-neutral regime”, following them in action during the actual development and experimentation.

Paper long abstract:

The contribution examines Digital Twins (DTs) in EU cities within the framework of the "twin transitions” (JRC 2022). We contend that climate-digital transitions introduce a new regime of anticipation, knowledge production, and governance, which interferes with the previously established regime centered around "smart urbanism” focused on efficiency, public-private partnerships, and real-time service delivery.

Theoretically, the contribution delves into the new logics of urban digital twinning in future-making processes (Anderson 2010) in relation to what we term the "climate-neutral regime”. These logics are considered part of a contested "timescape" (Adam 1998; Kitchin 2023) specifically generated within the friction of the promissory and future-oriented nature of technological innovation (Rip 2018), the "mission-oriented" approach (Mazzucato 2018) at the core of the EU Green Deal, and the emerging AI paradigm based on correlation (Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier 2013).

Empirically, the contribution follows these logics in action during the ongoing development and experimentation of a DTs in an Italian city part of the "100 Climate-neutral Cities by 2030 – by and for the citizens" program. Here the author is engaged in the design process as researchers, which are observed through qualitative methods and analysed adopting discourse analysis.

Considering the gaps and frictions arising from the interaction between digital and climate in actual urban digital twinning, the contribution aims to understand how technopolitical processes, knowledge infrastructures (Edwards 2011), and innovation interact and are shaped by the climate crisis, ultimately influencing the remaking of futures.