[spectre] Nov 5th: From the real-time city to read/write urbanism, Open City lecture by: Mark Shepard

[V2_]

 From the real-time city to read/write urbanism
Open City lecture by: Mark Shepard

On November 5th, media architect and researcher Mark Shepard will
deliver a lecture within the context of the Open City Event Program of
the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR). Shepard
studies the influence of new media and network technologies on
architecture and the city. The theme of his lecture is 'Connectivity'.

Cities today are complex hybrids of both physical and informational
space. Brought into being through common everyday techno-social
practices, these hybrids rely on a wide range of networked media,
information and communication systems that continually make and remake
the spatial conditions of urban life. Take for example the pervasiveness
of mobile phones capable of not just synchronic voice communications but
also asynchronic data transactions - text messaging, web browsing, photo
sharing, to name just a few. These mobile computing devices have
introduced new ways by which we connect with each other and interact
with and within our shared urban environment.

Mark Shepard's lecture will present a survey of recent work in urban
computing, ambient informatics and locative media, and examine its
implications for architecture and urbanism. How is our experience of the
city and the choices we make there transformed by these new spatial
practices? How do they reconfigure traditional urban relationships
between privacy and publicity within urban public space? To what extent
can we deploy them toward a form of open and participatory space-making
within these new and emerging urban topographies? How do we - as
architects and urban planners - begin to think about our role in shaping
the immaterial architecture of software infrastructures and influencing
their performance or enactment of new urban organizations and spatial
experiences that are diverse, sustainable and dynamic?

The Mobile City's Martijn de Waal and Michiel de Lange will introduce
the lecture and discuss its themes with Mark Shepard. Moderator is Jaap
Jan Berg <http://www.fflug.nl/site/english.html>.

About Mark Shepard
Mark Shepard <http://www.andinc.org/v3/> is an architect, artist and
academic. He has founded the Media Architecture educational program
<http://cva.ap.buffalo.edu/mac/> at the Univeristy of Buffalo, and
organized the exhibit 'Sentient Cities
<http://www.sentientcity.net/exhibit/>' with the Architectural League in
NYC . He is also one of the editors of the The Situated Technologies
Pamphlet Series <http://www.situatedtechnologies.net/?q=node/75>.

Where & when
Speaker: Mark Shepard
Date: Thursday November 5, 2009
Time: 20:00 hrs
Location: NAI Rotterdam, auditorium
Language: English
Admission: ¤ 5,- / ¤ 3,- (discount) / Passe Partout
Reservations: www.nai.nl/register <http://www.nai.nl/register>