Introduction
Digital cities, intelligent cities, knowledge-based cities, and smart cities are designations that refer to the permeation of the digital into the daily life of cities and the resulting exponential growth and accessibility of urban resources. This digital/technological component can be summarized in the following categories: The first three items are related mostly to the digital knowledge and representation of cities through time and space, while the last concerns the functionality of the city in modern and future time. The complexity of this research topic stems from the transformative nature of the city as a living organism interconnected with the environment (humans, animals, and vegetation), with its geomorphological context and intangible factors such as social, cultural, and political dynamics. The mechanics of this world are based on complex information units that are difficult to describe by internal and external observers. In other terms, the perception and representation of a city are built by a continuous and co-evolving interaction between internal and external communities and by place-making this human knowledge in memories and empirical spaces. This knowledge is created by our spatial embodiment. In fact, the perception of space is a biocultural domain, since the human mind is genetically designed by motor skills for exploring the environment (size, scale, dimensions), while the definition/description of space depends on cultural and chronological contexts. Digital/virtual simulations and the visualization of cities are addressed to highlight the potential attitudes and affordances of the urban context in its multiple relations with the present, past, and future. Therefore, digital cities are able to be experienced as mediated realities at the intersection of empirical observation, multisensory narrative, social memories, and multivocal imagination.
