Rhythm of Capitalism (Lefebvrian video project/blog)

I stumbled across this project by a group of Amsterdam University-based students of new media who are putting together videos and Henri Lefebvre’s remarks on rhythmanalysis.

They write that:

“Our videos employ main themes of Lefebvre’s book such as rhythm and capitalism, critique of everyday life, rhythm, sound and the city, flows of capital and flows of crowds etc. The videos are not meant to illustrate the book but rather to engage into the theory of Lefebvre in depth through practice, through observation and art. Moreover, the blog contains several additional readings to the topic and other activist/artist projects based on the same themes.”

The site is here:

http://rhythmofcapitalism.wordpress.com/about-henri-lefebvre/

any humanities urban scholars involved in this yet…?

Miriam E. Sweeney

The Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) is a consortium of interdisciplinary scholars including humanists, social scientists, scientists, and engineers who share knowledge around new media, digital technologies, and critical perspectives in the information age.  I can’t say enough about the quality of this program, founded in 2002 by Cathy N. Davidson (Duke University) and David Theo Goldberg (Director, UCHRI).  Some quick statistics on the program give an idea of the breadth of engagement in this community:

• 9,150 HASTAC members
• 522 HASTAC Scholars between 2008-2012
• Over 120 institutions in North America and abroad have nominated HASTAC Scholars, with representation of a diverse range of community colleges, liberal arts colleges, public universities, and research universities.
• 29 HASTAC Scholar Forums on topics such as Grading 2.0: Evaluation in a Digital Age; Democratizing Knowledge; Critical Code Studies; Race, Ethnicity, and Diaspora in a Digital Age; and Queer and Feminist New Media…

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Grand Opening Party for the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space

Grand Opening Party for MoRUS (Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space) History Museum Saturday, November 17th, 2012 at 7:00 p.m.

MoRUS’s Storefront in C-Squat 155 Avenue C, NYC (on the west side of the street between 9th and 10th Streets)

Come help us celebrate the opening of our very own community history museum with a party on Saturday, November 17th. We will be opening to the public at 3:00pm on Saturday the 17th and having events throughout the day, including a chain-cutting ceremony, tours, slide-shows by Seth Tobocman, and presentations by community organizers. Later in the evening, we will have music, dancing, Marching bands, food, and drinks to kick-off the opening of this innovative museum. Please spread the word and come join us at our grand opening party!

About the Museum:
The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) is a living archive of urban activism. The Museum chronicles the East Village community’s history and grassroots activism. It celebrates local activists who transformed abandoned buildings and vacant lots into vibrant community spaces and community gardens. Many of these innovative, sustainable concepts and designs have since pulsed out to the rest of the city and beyond.

The Museum provides access to an often untold version of NYC’s history through photography, videography, and authentic artifacts and documents. Committed to a mission of open community-based action, the museum is an all volunteer-run organization. With the space, we invite visitors to learn about and engage in grassroots activism of the past, present, and future.

In addition to our space in C-Squat, the Museum will be offering sustainable community workshops throughout the City and daily neighborhood tours accenting our rich activist history.

Press link: http//www.morusnyc.org/about-us/press
Visit the website at: http://www.morusnyc.org/

Viv's Academic Blog

The Guardian today posted a gallery of old map images, to tie in with a book newly out looking at maps charting the development of cities. There’s also a related podcast, where map experts Simon Garfield and Jerry Brotton talk about Maps from Ptolemy to Google.

I used maps a lot in my taught postgraduate MPhil degree which was studying Cultural and Urban Histories 1650-1850. Maps are a wonderful tool for viewing changing urban layouts, and understanding how towns worked in the past, figuring out the relationship between different areas and different functions, and also the relationship between a town and its surrounding hinterlands. Of course we relied on maps being created in the first place and still surviving today. I remember once finding a reference in the town council minutes to a map created of Montrose in Angus in the 1740s, but the map couldn’t be found now…

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Conference in Madrid on October 23, 2012: City, Crisis and Resistance: Dialogues between Activism and Science

the artist was inspired by Ebenezer Howard…

Architecture Social Club

This series of hand drawings by Bartlett School of Architecture graduate Ned Scott presents a science-fiction world in which London grows a jungle of crops for fuel and food next to Buckingham Palace.

Above: The Mall

 

The War Rooms, St. James’s Park imagines a future in which the UK’s energy supply has been cut following a war over energy resources in 2050.

Above: The Mall – detail

 

Scott presents a closed-loop agricultural system where London provides energy and food for itself without relying on imports.

Above: Smart Grid

 

An anaerobic digester would stand on the outskirts of St. James’s Park, filled with vertiginous crops.

Above: MP’s House

A sky-scraping ‘energy tower’ nearby would have plants growing on every floor, and a smart grid would be installed for efficient energy use.

Above: MP’s House – detail

 

Scott was inspired by Ebenezer Howard, the late 20th century…

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SANDSOF.com (a CREATIVE CAPSULE)

‘slicetow, module 1’, 2010 by mathilde nivet
image © zoe guilbert

Words by Staff @Designboom

Cite de l’Architecture & Heritage in Paris, France, has organized an exhibition at Le Palais de Chaillot, entitled ‘Paper Architecture’ featuring designs by Ingrid Siliakus, Beatrice Coron, Stephanie Beck, Mathilde Nivet and Peter Callesen. The collection of work looks at iconic buildings and the creation of imaginary cities made of the thin sheets. During the presentation children will learn the techniques used in the art of folding and etching to realize the models.

Paris-based designer Mathilde Nivet takes the context of urbanism and the city as the source for her work. She uses a pop-up technique which combines folding, decoupage and montage to represent three-dimensional architecture at a large scale. The facades make up a paper town at different levels to evoke a sense of memory and metropolitan legacy.

‘slicetow, module 2’…

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CFP – Grassroots in the City

International conference on Grassroots in the City: Urban Movements and Activism in Central and Eastern Europe

Conference venue: Södertörn University, southern Stockholm, Sweden

Dates: 24-25 May 2013

The conference seeks to gather researchers working in the field of social movements and civic activism in the urban environment of Central and Eastern Europe. The aim is to discuss the prerequisites for, and forms of, collective action in cities in this social context.

Theme and rational

Why a focus on collective action in cities? Conflicts in the city are illustrative not only of

Potentials of Performance

‘…So if we do not stay in the same place, it is not to be lamented. If we are on the move, then we are, in collective forms, tracking the sites of injustice and in-equality, and our trail becomes the new map of radical change’ (Judith Butler, “Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy,” 2012)

This is a personal invitation to contribute to a project that seeks to construct collective research on the potentialities of disparate civic spaces, occupancies, performances and direct actions. We write to you from Athens, Greece. During the last four years we have seen an escalation of civic mobilizations vying for a ‘right to the city’. These include the riots of 2008, the occupation of Syntagma Square, mass general strikes, occupations of universities and schools, emerging neighborhood assemblies and support networks, squats, alternative forms of exchange and values, everyday artistic and political practices of re-imagining, reclaiming and re-constituting public spaces. In November of last year a group of us occupied a closed down theatre belonging to the Greek state. We have managed to keep this occupation running despite

Progressive Geographies

Room W007, Durham University, December 5^th 1-4.30pm

With the majority of humans on the planet now residing in towns and cities, it is de rigueur for commentators to describe the world as ‘urban’; to herald an ‘urban revolution’ and proclaim cities as the triumphal spaces that ‘make us human’ (cf. Brugmann, 2009; Glaeser, 2011). Even in places that are not visibly urban, it would seem that urbanism – as a set of political, economic, cultural and symbolic forces – is often identified to be fundamental in the organisation of geography and everyday life. These are big claims begging searching questions for researchers of Geography and Urban Studies. And in this regard, it is to be welcomed that the relations between ‘urban’ and ‘world’ (or ‘planet’ or ‘globe’) have become a primary focus for critical urban research in recent years. For example, and to invoke the extraordinarily prophetic thinking of…

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