Conference - Superstructural Dependencies
Friday, October 15 2010 11.00 uur Studio T
Friday, October 15 2010 Reservations can be made by sending an email to rsvp [at] impakt [dot] nl The conference - edited by STEALTH and Kristian Lukic - brings together international practitioners and thinkers to discuss both the growing dependency of urban societies on their technological superstructures as well as the phenomena of massive online virtual environments with their unstable population and continuous reformulation of their own raison d’etre. This connects to the physicality of real-urbanism that loses its own purpose and function without networked technology, and to virtual environments that are losing their purpose without the physicality of human presence. Panel 1: Superstructural dependencies Through the technological superstructure of cities, the fast development of mobile devices and the automation of services, the urban environment is undergoing rapid changes. With Superstructural dependencies, a discussion is opened on the effect of a state of complete dependency on such an artificial technical (urban) superstructure – not only regarding for instance resources like food, water or energy, but as well other key activities like communication. Does such a condition of far-reaching reliance provoke certain anti-urban notions? In addition to this, what are the implications of a growth in urban population, which in a couple of decades will contain 80% of the world population? 11.00 - 11.20: Introductie 11.20 - 11.50: Eric Kluitenberg: Distance versus Desire: Clearing the ElectroSmog The talk will focus on the promise of information and network technologies to replace physical encounters with mediated ones as a formula for enhanced ecological stability, and the mythology of the 'electronic cottage' as put forward by Alvin Toffler in particular in the 1980s. The focus of the presentation is on mobility-out-of-control, and the reflection on this from the theoretical starting points that underpinned the ElectroSmog festival (last March) and the actual experience during the events. Not much has as yet come from the grand promise of electronic cottages and reduced physical mobility through mediated encounter, and much of the first hand experience from the festival demonstrated quite clearly some of the reasons why. 11.50 - 12.20: Konrad Becker: Urbanoid Strategies Global socio-technological architectures of security in urban life are replacing the traditional borders of national states. Immaterial systems of order are fragmenting, zoning, and stratifying urban spaces. Strategies of relational space time change potentials of cognitive labor into strategic realities of an informational matrix. 12.20 - 12.50: Michiel de Lange: Urban life in the hybrid city A host of digital media technologies are increasingly shaping the ways we live life in the city. They have profound consequences for how we organize formerly distinct social domains: living, working, traveling, leisure, and meeting. What are noticeable shifts, and how can 'urban design' at large respond to this? 12.50 - 13.20: Plenary discussion Moderator: Matteo Pasquinelli 13.20 - 15.00: PAUSE Panel 2: Virtual flight Virtual flight depicts the slow movement from the autonomous exclusive realm of virtual worlds, toward something that is more connected to real world physicality. During the last 5 years, we witness a stagnation in the development of virtual worlds. World of Warcraft with its "hack and slash" concept still dominates online worlds, while Second Life remains lost in defining the purpose for its own existence. This stagnation shows how technological, virtual platforms are dependent on a meaningful raison d'etre for individual participation, and that the massive euphoria around virtual online worlds from the mid 2000s ended in ontological dead-end, mostly because it didn't take into account the complexities of social laws. More and more examples point currently to fusions between virtual environments and “real” social events, where the virtual framework is mirroring offline realities. 15.00 - 15.10: Introductie 15.10 - 15.40: Esther MacCallum-Stewart: Online World/s, Changing Space/s? Esther’s presentation concentrates on the ways in which communities have interpreted virtual spaces, and questions the perception of stagnation in online worlds. Why is this happening, and what sort of responses do we see from designers and players as a result? Is the current condition of the virtual sphere a result of Adorno's pseudo-individualisation, with several huge companies dominating the market and its stylistic output, or is there room for development and innovation from within? 15.40 - 16.10: Ilias Marmaras: How offline fun is changing online (and offline) reality The immersion of virtual worlds and the networks of the digital social media in the recent years have strongly influenced and transformed our perception of the urban landscapes, changed the social relations and gave birth to new forms of political struggle. We cannot talk anymore about separated environments like the “physical” as opposed to the “virtual”, but rather about a fusion that is perceived as a constant change. Consequently, in these new environments identities, subjectivities and performative actions are born and function in a dimension that can be seen and analyzed as an ''imaginary dimension consisted of new forms of desire production'' while at the same time older ways of understanding the social and the political power relations and hierarchies should be considered. 16.10 - 16.40: Jaakko Stenros: Frames of play The lines between games and ordinary life are blurring. Play online is not confined to specific sites, but is spreading all around. 16.40 - 17.00: Plenary discussion Moderator: Kristian Lukic  Is an author, artist and producer in the field of culture and technology. He is director and co-founder of the Institute for New Culture Technologies/t0, ...  Is an independent theorist, writer and curator on culture, media and technology. Since the late 1980s he has been involved in numerous principal media art ...  Is a lecturer at the University of Chichester and a Research Fellow at SMARTlab, UK. Her work investigates the ways in which communities and players ...  Is a media artist. He studied plastic arts, urbanism and philosophy at the university Paris VIII. He is a co-founder of the new media arts ...  is a researcher working at Game Research Lab at the University of Tampere. He has studied pervasive games, role-playing games and play on social networking ...  Is finishing his PhD on mobile media technologies, urban life and identity (Erasmus University Rotterdam). He is co-founder of The Mobile City, a knowledge network ... 
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