Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Funding Urbanism - Call for Participation


Image produced by SDO, SKINN and the other participants of the Project Space Budapest 2013.

In the past decade, as an effect of various social movements and the economic crisis, many actors in the architecture and planning fields recognized that traditional funding models lost their capacity to feed small-scale, community-oriented urban projects. While designers elaborated new methods and working models to address problems of locality, community, participation and ecology, they created alliances with a new generation of developers, economists, social media experts, social and political scientists as well as law specialists to elaborate the appropriate funding models to finance their ideas.

Between 28.10.2014 and 1.11.2014 the wonderland platform for european architecture will hold in Berlin, in cooperation with the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum (DAZ) and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF), a workshop with lectures, debates and film screenings on the topic of alternative funding models to help bottom-up urban regeneration in our cities.

Wonderland invites protagonists of this new economic movement to send their concepts and case studies, contributing to an exhibition and discussion of alternative funding mechanisms in urbanism. The contributions may be in the range of, but not limited to crowdfunding, seed-investment, cooperative financing, community land and development trusts, community shares, community investment, development trusts and social finance. 

Contributions may be in the form of texts, projects, videos or any other communicative means which will allow to share a valuable insight of a practical experience or a theoretical insight. The jury, composed by the Wonderland Board and DAZ, will select 15 cases that will be invited to Berlin to share their experience and join the debate, all expenses will be covered by the organisation. All the contributions that will be considered interesting by the Jury will be presented in the DAZ during the meeting period and authors will be invited to join the conversation though Skype.

Deadline: 5th September, 2014
Evaluation: 10th September, 2014 
Formats: 
- design projects in A3 format vertical, pdf files
- text max 5 A5 pages, doc files
- videos (in English or with subtitles)

The Berlin workshop is second in a series on alternative funding models in urbanism, after the Rotterdam event in late August (organized with Pamphlet Urban Debate, Rotterdam and New Generations, Madrid) and before the Paris event in late November (organized with Banlieues d’Europe within the UrbArt project funded by the Youth in Action program).

Contact
Daniela Patti and Levente Polyak: projectspace[at]wonderland.cx
wonderland platform for european architecture
www.wonderland.cx

Friday, August 15, 2014

BERLIN UNLIMITED at the ZKU 03.10.- 10.10.14

 
Berlin Unlimited is the first international transdisciplinary festival gathering arts, architecture and urban discourses to establish a picture of the contemporary Berlin 25 years after the fall of the wall.
The 7 days festival settles in the Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (ZK/U) in October 2014.
Workshops, exhibitions, lectures, conferences, film screenings, creative caterings, performances, guided tours and urban parties will take place with numbered artists and special guests, inviting all Berlin enthusiasts to discover a complete narrative of the city based on the contemporary architectural and artistic production in context.











































Wednesday, August 13, 2014

CFP: Cinema in times of radical urban transformation

Berlin, December 12, 2014
Deadline: Aug 31, 2014

New Visions. Cinema and cinematic practices in times of radical urban transformation

Change is arguably the most consistent characteristics of cities; and cinema, from its very beginning, has played a major role in raising awareness about processes of urban transformation. However, in particular, moments of large-scale urban redevelopment trigger the advent of new topographic imaginaries. In the 1960s, for example, the citydweller's perspective in relation to the urban habitat emerged as a central focus in several studies on the urban lived environment.

Publications such as Kevin Lynch’s "Image of the City" (1960) or Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe’s "Des hommes et des villas" (1965) asserted the importance of organizing changing urban spatialities into recognizable visual-mental patterns. Concurrently, a return of realist traditions became apparent in both the visual arts and counter cinematic production. This return was, in part, a response to a need for redefining subject positions during a time of social and political crisis. It was a time when many cities in the western world faced particularly drastic structural changes, resulting in a growing disagreement with the living conditions created this way.
 
Aiming at an interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between artistic production and changing urban environments, this workshop takes cities and cinema as a starting point from which to discuss cinematic production of urban space in times of transformation. This strong connection of habitat and artistic medium seems especially evident in practices of underground cinema, often times premiering in the very same urban environment it was produced.

Assuming that every cultural product is concurrently framed by the circumstances of its creation as well as by the material environment in which it is conceived, the focus will be on the interrelations between urban representations in different forms of cinema and their specific institutional and discursive contexts. While the main focus ison North American counter cinemas of the postwar era, we welcome contributions extending the historic and/or geographic frame. Looking at the ways in which cinema refers to constitutive conflicts of the contemporaneous urban society, prospective presenters should refer to any of the workshop's key questions:
- In which ways is the urban cartography construed in the films? What kinds of experiential space is built up for the viewer and how does cinema mediate urban change?
- If the political impact of art and cinema lies in the ways it redefines the frame of how an everyday environment is perceived, to what extent do films reorder the perception of the metropolis by testing new cinematic forms? 
- What kinds of intertextual relations with other forms of artistic and cultural production and with industrial filmmaking determined the films treatment of urban space, either content wise or stylistically? And, in return, how did other forms of urban cultural production influence different forms of cinema?
- How did prevailing practices of film production and consumption interact with the urban realities they encountered? To what extent did they shape the cities' fabric?

The workshop will take place December 12, 2014 at Technische Universität Berlin in form of a one-day symposium with panel discussions and three lectures by Edward Dimendberg (UC Irvine), David James (University of Southern California) and Mark Shiel (King's College London).

Please submit your proposal (300 words max.) for a 15 minute presentation along with a short CV by August 31 to berit.hummel@metropolitanstudies.de. All applicants will be notified by the middle of September.

The presented papers shall be circulated amongst all participants 2 weeks prior to the workshop. In order to create an interdisciplinary dialogue between doctoral students and young researchers studying the interrelation of cinema, visual culture and the urban, the workshop is open to a variety of disciplines ranging from film studies and art history to cultural studies, geography and architecture.

CfP: Other Senses of Place: Sociospatial Practices in the Contemporary Media Environment

This issue of Sociologica will explore the numerous ways in which the contemporary diffusion of locative and mobile media puts into relief the spatialization of communication events, as well as the communicative quality of places, in a condition of diffuse addressability (Mitchell). This underlines a co-emergence of information and sociospatial formations, pointing to the performativity of both (Mackenzie; Thrift). The issue also foregrounds the way in which the relation between the subjects and objects of communication also changes in such contexts of distributed agency and pervasive mediation, in which new sociotechnical formations emerge.
Contributions focusing on empirical case studies as well as methodological and theoretical reflections on (but not limited to) the following topics are welcomed:
  • Communication, space and mobility (location and mobility, theoretical and practical redefinitions of space and place, mobile methodologies, material and virtual mobilities, net localities, mobile devices);
  • The creativity and performativity of space (the social sciences after the non-representational turn, embodiment and situated aesthetics, materiality and mediation in space, locative arts);
  • Sociotechnical formations in mediaspaces (sociotechnical assemblages, hybrid spaces, mobile interfaces, The Internet of Things, smart objects);
  • The reshaping of the urban sphere (augmented environments, urban games, urban screens, open source urbanism, community and participative practices in digital localities, citizenship and civic engagement, the redefinition of the public and the private);
  • Mapping practices (geomedia environments, new visualization systems, surveillance, Location Based Social Networks, code/spaces, the aesthetics of mapping, grassroots mapping, emergency mapping, media-flânerie and navigational platforms).

Abstracts of 450-500 words, together with a short bio (100-200 words) describing the author’s background, current affiliation and research interests, should be submitted by e-mail before 30 September 2014 to the symposium editor (Federica Timeto) at the following address: ftimeto@gmail.com
Upon abstract acceptance, papers of no more than 8,000 words (including references and notes) in Word format must be submitted by 31 December 2014. Papers will go through a double blind peer review process. Notification of acceptance will be given to authors, along with the reviewers’ comments, by February 2015. Final papers after revision will be due by March 2015.
Visit: http://www.sociologica.mulino.it/news/newsitem/index/Item/News:EVENT:278.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

PhD fellowship "Urban reconfiguration in post-Soviet space"


The Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL) in Leipzig kindly invites applications from highly qualified and motivated individuals for
1 PhD fellowship
to commence as soon as possible. The IfL is a non-university research institute and member of the Leibniz association with currently around 70 employees. It is institutionally financed by the Free State of Saxony and the Federal Republic of Germany in the context of a common research funding agreement.
The fellowship includes
-a monthly stipend of 1400 Euro granted for six months
-access to the academic service infrastructure of the IfL (e.g. the Central Geographical Library, the Geography archives, cartographic and IT services, scientific seminars)
-individual support in terms of exchange and discussions within the international research network of ira.urban
-flexible working arrangements in Leipzig

The fellowship will be financed within the framework of the international comparative research project “Urban reconfigurations in post-Soviet space” (ira.urban). The project aims at analysing and explaining continuities and discontinuities in the reconfiguration of urban spaces in the light of traditional, reproduced Soviet and newly formed post-Soviet conditions, as well as of changing global economic and social orders. On the basis of transnational comparative case study research, the project focuses on the question to what extent urban development has become part of a socially negotiated adjustment processes, and a mirror of a comprehensive modernisation process of urban societies in the republics of the former Soviet Union.
The fellowship relates to the ira.urban subproject on urban economy:  in spite of a shared institutional legacypost-Soviet  cities have experienced different trajectories of economic  development. The subproject seeks to gain insight into which factors and preconditions influence processes of urban economic transformation, and promote a city’s success or downfall.
We expect that the candidate looks at various government as well as private initiatives on different scales (such as the creation of innovative territorial clusters; the creation of small and medium-sized enterprises; bottom-up social initiatives, etc) which influence urban economic transformation in and of post-Soviet cities.
The following issues are of particular interest for the project:
·To which extend does the Soviet industrial legacy and newly emerged market economy form urban life and urban space nowadays?
·How does the allocation of new enterprises influence post-Soviet urban areas development? How was the economic base of post-Soviet cities transforming during the last decades?
·Which institutes, adaptation tools and strategies are the drivers for economic prosperity or depression for post-Soviet cities?
·Which role do the local economy and private initiative play for the development of post-Soviet urban areas?
The awardee addresses in his PhD thesis the aforementioned topic and deploys it empirically and theoretically for a local or comparative case study in the post-Soviet space. In the context of the ira.urban project, he/she contributes to the comparative analysis of urban development strategies and institutional mechanisms in different post-Soviet countries and their repercussions on reconfigurations of post-Soviet urban space.
The successful candidate has to be in an advanced stage of his/her PhD project. He/she has a good knowledge in economic analysis, as well as he/she is acquainted with quantitative and statistical methods, social research methods, and is able to produce a comparative urban research in post-Soviet space.
Furthermore, we expect from a candidate a geographic flexibility, fluency in English and in at least one language of the post-Soviet space, as well as working knowledge in Office software. The position requires hard-working individual with analytical strength, communication skills, self-initiative and a strong team spirit.
Please submit your complete application package in English as one pdf file by e-mail to personal@ifl-leipzig.de. The deadline for applications is September 1st 2014.
Please enclose the following documents:
·CV
·letter of motivation/statement of purpose, including a short display of the links between your project/idea and ira.urban (2 pages max.)
·exposé of your PhD project, including your work schedule and work progress   (5 pages max, excluding sources)
·list of your publications and presentations
·certificates, references …
Should you have any further queries, please contact Dr. Isolde Brade (I_Brade@ifl-leipzig.de) or Dr. Irina Slepukhina (I_Slepukhina@ifl-leipzig.de). We are looking forward to your application!
For further information about the project: www.ira-urban.de.
For further information about the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography: www.ifl-leipzig.de.
For further Information about the Leibniz Association: www.leibniz-gemeinschaft.de
 

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Application : Graduate Research Program Berlin

 Bild


The International Graduate Research Program
“THE WORLD IN THE CITY: Metropolitanism and Globalization from the Nineteenth Century to the Present” is now accepting applications for 12 FELLOWSHIPS for PhD Candidates and 1 Post-doc Position beginning May 1, 2015.

Application Deadline: September 30, 2014.

http://www.geschundkunstgesch.tu-berlin.de/fachgebiet_neuere_geschichte/menue/dfg_graduate_research_program_2012-2016/application/



The open call for Playpublik Kraków 2014

Don't miss out!
The open call for Playpublik Kraków 2014 - festival for playful public spaces - has been PROLONGED till August 17!
We want your games to make Playpublik a meaningful and mindblowing experience. Submit your game ideas now for one of the 20 archetypal places that will be the central stages for Playpublik in Kraków's center.

We need your amazing games to make Playpublik Kraków meaningful and diverse! Our Open Call for Games starts now and goes until August 1. (Update: extended deadline: August 17)
 Playpublik Kraków will run from October 3-5...
Check out more information on playpublik.de : http://playpublik.de/en/the-open-call

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

CFP: Dialog Ost. Aktuelle Forschung zur bildenden Kunst, Architektur und Alltagskultur im östlichen Mitteleuropa.

CFP: Dialog Ost. Aktuelle Forschung zur bildenden Kunst, Architektur und Alltagskultur im östlichen Mitteleuropa. Interdisziplinäres Kolloquium an der Universität Bern - Bern 12/14 
 
Dr. Sarah M. Schlachetzki, Dr. Richard Nemec, Dr. des. Jörg Richter, Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Universität Bern; Dr. Kathrin Chlench-Priber, Institut für Germanistik, Universität Bern 
 12.12.2014, Bern, Universität Bern 
 
Die Öffnung der ostmitteleuropäischen Staaten ab 1989 hatte komplexe Transformationsprozesse zur Folge, die gegenwärtig keineswegs abgeschlossen sind. Für die Geisteswissenschaften brachte dies u. a. den Zugang zu Archiven, die Akzeptanz einer Methodenvielfalt und die Möglichkeit zum Aufbau neuer Kontakte mit sich. In der Folge sind vermehrt Studien im Entstehen begriffen, die kulturelle Phänomene der Region nun jenseits der vorherigen Systemkonkurrenz historisieren. 
Vorrangiges Anliegen des eintägigen Kolloquiums ist es, den fachlichen Austausch und die Vernetzung von NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen in der Schweiz aus den Bereichen Kunst-, Architektur- und Geschichtswissenschaft, Germanistik, Slawistik, Soziologie, Anthropologie und Ethnologie zu fördern, die zur visuellen Kultur des genannten politisch-geographischen Raumes forschen. Es geht darum, eine Plattform zur Verfügung zu stellen, auf der konvergierende thematische sowie methodische Ansätze vorgestellt werden können. 
Zur Präsentation sind im Entstehen begriffene Arbeiten eingeladen, die in einer historischen Perspektive Bildern, Architekturen und Räumen im östlichen Mitteleuropa gewidmet sind. Anknüpfend daran möchte das Kolloquium dezidiert Raum für Diskussionen lassen und den informellen Austausch anregen. Die methodologische Klammer der vorgestellten Forschungsarbeiten sollte eine historisch-kulturwissenschaftliche Arbeitsweise sein. Als kritisch kommentierende Respondentin wird Frau PD Dr. Beate Störtkuhl (Bundesinstitut für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa; Forschungsschwerpunkte Neuere Kunstgeschichte Ostmitteleuropas, Architekturgeschichte des 20. Jahrhundert) anwesend sein. 
 
 Bitte schicken Sie Ihre Vortragsvorschläge samt eines Abstracts (ca. 500 Zeichen) und kurzen Lebenslaufs bis zum 10. September an: sarah.schlachetzki@ikg.unibe.ch. Vortrags- und Diskussionssprachen sind Deutsch und Englisch. Zusagen werden bis zum 5. Oktober versandt.

Monday, August 4, 2014

GSZ Berlin: Announcement /Call for Application

The Georg-Simmel-Centre for Metropolitan Studies is an interdisciplinary research institute that brings together urban scientists from different academic fields and backgrounds, such as, in particular, human geography, sociology and European ethnology/social anthropology. The Georg-Simmel-Centre is part of Humboldt University and integrates relevant institutions from the greater scientific community in Berlin. The centre is likewise intended to contend with current metropolitan politics and planning issues, and to contribute to these in multiple ways. With its entrenchment both in academic and political spheres, the Georg-Simmel-Centre for Metropolitan Studies is an outstanding institution for conceptual and applied urban research.
The Georg-Simmel-Centre for Metropolitan Studies offers four short-term grants (€800 p.m.) for six months each to prepare proposals for PhD scholarships starting January 1. The successful candidates are expected to write a full proposal in the field of new mobilities and touristification research for submission to an academic or political foundation. Berlin is facing a significant growth in tourism each year, which has lead the city to be one of the three biggest urban tourist destinations in Europe. Urban tourism has a significant impact on the city’s economy, but simultaneous tensions exist between the visitors and citizens who feel increasingly annoyed by the crowds. Urban tourism has, thus, an ambivalent gesture in Berlin. From a top-down perspective, Berlin’s tourism is an important sector of the urban economy and also an important tool for image production. From a bottom-up perspective, urban tourism in residential quarters produces conflicts between tourists and the local population about noise, dirt and rising living costs. Against this background, the practices and consequences of urban tourism in Berlin should be scrutinized in the envisaged PhDs with an interdisciplinary perspective along the following key topics:
  • New mobilities and gentrification in Berlin´s centre
  • Heritage, touristification, and the production of urban space
  • Urban tourism and the urban economy
  • Night economy and the transition of neighbourhoods
The successful applicants are provided with a work space in the Georg-Simmel-Centre and supervision of the full research proposal by specialists of the centre in the particular field. Presence at the Centre during the term of the grant is expected. Applicants need an above average master’s degree in one of the following fields: human geography, sociology, social anthropology, cultural studies, history or related academic fields. Applicants should send a copy of a short research proposal (max. 1.600 words) of the project, a cover letter setting out your motivation for applying for the short-term grant and highlighting the particular skills and experiences you would bring to research your particular topic. Furthermore, a copy of a current curriculum vitae should be submitted, which should include inter alia your full name with title, education, details of your present post with date of appointment, degrees (subject/major, institution, date of award), other academic/professional qualifications (subject/major, institution, date of award) and publications. Applications should be submitted electronically to bueroleitung-gsz@hu-berlin.de. Consideration begins October 1st 2014.