‘Following the Conversation’ explores the impact of social networks, as current opinion generators, in the perception of the urban environment. As an initial concept, the project humbly ambitions to merge two concepts related with the actual data that we can generate and the effective impact that street art can have within the urban environment. On one hand, recent data visualization projects have increased the awareness about ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’ or ‘how’ users use technology to participate or initiate a discussion. On the other hand, certain pieces of street art have the ability to participate in the discussion using a language that resembles more to advertisement by the use of ‘punchy’ slogans or memorable images. This project finds that both models have the potential to change the perception of the physical environment; however, they are not normally recognized by the current methods of urban analysis, thus urban design processes. 

Framing the output of this reflections on the relation between urban analysis and social media in the content of ‘Models, Prototypes and Projections” has allowed to create a piece of software that analyses the impact of the tweets that higher education institutions have created through their official accounts in a local area in Cambridge. The final result of this exploration has led to a set of tools that allow to interfere in the analysis and provide other view modes.