Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Upcoming: 6th International Urban Geographies of Post-communist States Conference: 25 Years of Urban Changes

Dear colleagues/CATs,
We would like to invite you to the 6th International Urban Geographies of Post-communist States Conference: 25 Years of Urban Changes (a.k.a. the 'CAT-ference') to be held in Prague on September 23–26th 2015.
Further details, including the call for papers and sessions, will be announced in December 2014. As usual, the event will showcase high-quality scholarship on the post-communist/post-socialist city, and there will be a dense social programme that includes a field trip.
In the meantime, please make sure that you reserve these days on your agenda. The official CAT-ference e-mail address is catference2015@natur.cuni.cz. Please use this address for any communication regarding the event.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

CFP: Urban Pop Cultures

The Urban Pop Cultures Project
Sunday 10th May - Tuesday 12th May 2015
Dubrovnik, Croatia

Call for Presentations:
For each generation, the world's cities have provided a fertile cultural landscape in which alternatives to the mainstream emerge and flourish.
From the jazz clubs of 1920s Harlem and the Swing Kids of 1930s Berlin, to the block parties that gave rise to hip hop and rap in 1970s New York, to the to the Freetekno movement that swept across European cities in the 1990s, to the punk scene of seventies London, New York and Sydney to the noughties emo revival, urban popular culture has provided a space in which society's disadvantaged, disenfranchised and generally disenchanted populations could assert agency through the formation of communities of resistance.

Of course the relationship between the mainstream and the alternative is in a state of constant flux, which raises important questions about what it means to be alternative in a globalised world, how the dynamics of the mainstream/alternative relationship play out over time and what social purposes are served by the existence of alternative cultures generally. The Urban Pop Cultures project will explore these issues with particular reference to alternative music culture that include but are not limited to indie rock, post-punk, hip hop, rap, electronica, post-rave, dark wave scenes and post-Gothic. We therefore welcome proposals for presentations, performances, installations, and interactive workshops on themes that might include:

Conceptualising Alternativity and Urban Popular Culture:
-What does it mean to be alternative - as a culture, a practice or a lifestyle?
-What draws people to or alienates people from alternative musical culture?
-What are the dynamics of the relationship between alternative cultures and the mainstream from which they diverge?
-What ideological positions motivate and underpin alternativity?
-Is there an inherent relationship between progressive sensibilities and alternative cultures?
-What events and factors trigger the emergence of alternate cultures and practices?
-What happens when alternative becomes mainstream?
-What does alternativity contribute to society in any given moment and why is it essential to understand these phenomena?
-What is it about urban spaces that causes alternative cultures to form and thrive?

Forms, Functions and Funding of Alternative Music:
-Case studies and first hand accounts of the emergence and evolution of specific alternative music cultures
-Ethnographic studies of alternative music communities -Formal analyses of musical styles that define an alternative music culture
-Band/artist profiles
-Economics of alternative music culture: industry status, funding, sustainability, etc.
-Performative spaces (clubs, scenes, etc.) -Lifestyles associated with alternative music culture
-Linguistic practices associated with alternative music cultures
-Intersections between alternative music culture and other subcultures

Alternative Music Cultures and their Urban Contexts:
-Impact of alternative music cultures on urban planning and development
-The relationship between immigration, multiculturalism and alternative music cultures -Alternative music cultures as engines for economic growth, commercialisation and tourism
-Racial, class and gender implications of alternative music culture
-Youth culture and alternative music trends
-Sexuality and alternative music culture
-Relationships between alternative music culture and fashion, film, television, computer games and the arts


What to Send:
300 word proposals should be submitted by Friday 23rd January 2015. All submissions are at least double blind peer reviewed. Proposals should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in programme, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract,
f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: UP5 ProposalSubmission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs:
Daniel Riha: rihad@inter-disciplinary.net
Rob Fisher: up5@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the 'Critical Issues' programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.


For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/cyber/urban-popcultures/call-for-papers/

Monday, November 24, 2014

"Liquidated CCCP"

"Liquidated CCCP" // "Sowjetunion liquidiert"
Urban contemporary artist Zevs hit Berlin during a special wall performance for the 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9th, 2014 at Urban Spree. This is the first public performance of the artist in Berlin after his infamous visual kidnapping of Lavazza in 2004 on Alexanderplatz


Foto: "Liquidated CCCP" // "Sowjetunion liquidiert"
Urban contemporary artist Zevs hit Berlin during a special wall performance for the 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9th, 2014 at Urban Spree. This is the first public performance of the artist in Berlin after his infamous visual kidnapping of Lavazza in 2004 on Alexanderplatz. #Zevs #Urbanspree

FYI: On squatting in Berlin

Monday, November 17, 2014

CFP: ENTANGLED HISTORIES, MULTIPLE GEOGRAPHIES











ENTANGLED HISTORIES, MULTIPLE GEOGRAPHIES
Belgrade, Serbia
Conference dates: 14-17 October 2015
Paper proposal deadline: 31 January 2015
CALL FOR PAPERS

The EAHN 2015 Belgrade Conference "Entangled Histories, Multiple Geographies" aims to explore how different discourses emerged within architectural historiography and have both constructed and reproduced multiple identities, histories and perspectives on culture, nature and society. It also aims to apprehend the complex hierarchic articulation of these discourses, in terms of dominancy and peripherality, normativity and transfers.

The principal aim of the conference is to shed light on how different interpretations of architecture and the built environment have contributed to different readings of history, culture, nature and society, either simultaneously or in alternation.

Special attention will be given to addressing conflicting and complementary views, explanatory systems and theories that stem from understanding and interpreting the past by means of architecture. By "entangled histories" we mean architecture as both a prerequisite to and an instrument in shaping and understanding different or even competing histories of the peoples and places, while "multiple geographies" refers to the roles of the built environment in constructing and interpreting time frames and spatial scales, as well as cultural and political entities in which these histories unfold.

The conference will be structured according to three broad themes.

The first theme is historicity. This includes architectural responses to the appropriation and interpretation of the past from antiquity to the recent past; the roles of architecture in constructing meaning; its roles in conceptualizing or negotiating historical time and time frames, as well as how the interpretation of the built environment deals with various regimes of historicity and produces conflicting identities.

The second theme considers tradition/ innovation in architecture, which can be traced equally in modern, early modern, and pre-modern periods. The theme explores the roles of architectural history in addressing questions of center-periphery, globalization, and cultural, political, or religious propaganda in the built environment. Examples might include transfer of architectural traditions and/ or innovations within Europe or beyond; appropriation of traditions or imposition of innovations for cultural, political, or religious reasons; or hybrid traditional-innovative conditions. It also opens the question of architectural history and its role in the simultaneity of multiple modernities, ideological restructuring of cultural and political discourse and similar topics.

Finally the third theme looks at the role of politics, both in terms of the direct interaction of (local) powers with the field of architecture and of the intermediate pressure of geopolitics. The topics treated here could range from ideological matters - such as the instrumentalisation of architectural historiography, etc. - to operative policies related to economic and social issues, including the role of the State (in early modern and modern times; as a specification, during the Cold War, it can treat both the socialist regimes and the welfare capitalist State). The geopolitical perspective could embrace a larger chronological span and explore, aside from the phenomenon of globalization (with all its aspects), mechanisms that led previously to shape networks of political influences.

We invite papers that explore one of the three main themes listed above. These themes have been, and could be, addressed from different conceptual perspectives central to the topic of "entangled histories" and "multiple geographies". These perspectives might include, but are not limited to, those of conflict and change; ruptures and continuities; global entanglements and segregation; regional integration and disintegration; political and cultural homogenization, and standardization and heterogeneity.

Proposal due date: 31 January 2015, noon CET (Central European Time)

Please submit 300 word abstracts through the conference website submission portal: http://www.eahn2015belgrade.org/submission

New Special Issue by Visual Documentation Journal, Routledge

New Special Issue of Visual Documentation Journal, Routledge
'The Imaginary City in the Twenty-first Century'
Volume 30 Number 4 December 2014
Editors: Ayşe Erek and Ayşe H. Köksal


This special issue of Visual Resources examines the ongoing debates about art and urban imaginary by connecting the city with its past and its present. Not only are the cities structured in different forms of representation and imaginaries they are also themselves spaces of imagination and creativity. Hence urban imaginary and art are interwoven in countless ways in the city to reveal or conceal multiple stories. The five essays collected here propose new interpretations on the dynamic ways of producing urban representation interlaced with the contemporary art world, the urban visual culture, as well as its institutions, such as museums, biennials, exhibitions, and cultural events.

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gvir20/current#.VGoAeleUeIk