CITY: A Vanishing ACT or A Cultural Dialogue?

Starting with a theoretical dialogue on the current "modus operandi" of the City through the prism of «new technologies», this paper discusses whether they are providing new «tropes» of social interaction and coexistence. Through the presentation of examples of socially driven operations in the Athenian Urban Grid (Hive Athens, Re-think Athens, Community based design networks), urban space is viewed as an ongoing production of spatial relations, as a field of infinite transformations beyond design. The discussion focuses on the ability of new technologies to transform cities into "communication modes" incorporating issues beyond morphogenesis, identified in the decision-making process leading to it. Finally, it raises some questions on whether new technologies, as socially embedded processes, can be rendered as the backbone of the social structure; whether, they can transform the urban environment into a place of constant participatory actions, into unique civic laboratories, and thus innovate the term "hybrid city".

Revista V!RUS, 2017

Understanding that contemporary city is becoming more complex due to the several relations that take place among people, environments and objects, in this article we search to explore some possibilities related to the theme of the V!RUS 14 magazine call, weaving the city in contemporaneity. Inspired by the Science-Technology-Society (STS) studies and the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), we bring to reflection our comprehension about a multiple city and its resonances in hybrid places, in the Architecture-Urbanism (AU) field, by reading authors from these areas. In this direction, we recognize the city as a territory whose performance is produced from crossings which involve assemblages and effects of the connections among different actants that participate of urban life. Associating STS studies, the ANT and AU allows to delineate an alternative ontology to understand, produce and perform the moves of a heterogeneous ensemble of entities or hybrid places that continuously coproduce themselves.

2008

The Design Journal

The high connectivity of people, things and ideas provided by ICTs has started a transformation of the physical aspect and the social relations of the city by creating hybrid spaces of interaction largely influenced by human factors. By assuming a human-centered perspective and providing tools and mental approaches suitable to tackle complex systems, the design has been contributing to this process. However the deep correlation between public spaces and social exchanges letting emerge new interaction patterns makes forewarn that, if aware, the design of hybrid public spaces would arguably lead to a sustainable development of future cities. It means dealing with complexity and at the same time with the participation of an increasing amount of people with different levels of expertise. So open and flexible tools derived from several disciplines are needed. As an example of what design for next would be, the paper shows some possible design frameworks.

New technological urban dimensions defies the traditional urbanistic approach of the city, which is no longer only a place to live, but a project of visualization, a terrain for the production of meaning. Cities are networks in and of themselves and they are also part of broader networks. The true place of their users (no more inhabitants) is the technological, processual chronotopic space in which they are inserted into the great urban hypertext. The challenge now is to comprehend the emergence of not only a new city, but also of a new awareness of informational fluxes that determine the role of the city. This paper points that the works selected for the second session of the 4th International Seminar on Urban Conservation (Interfaces on the Integrated Urban Conservation: Bridging Disciplines and Cooperative Action), promoted by CECI, reveal how such issues have already been transforming the relationship of the specialists in the day-to-day practices of researchers and professionals in relation with cities and their artifacts.

Acta Europeana Systemica, 2020

The widespread of Information and Communication Technologies and the consequently redefinition of roles in the usage and management of the city brought along new systems of relationships and interactions that produce an auto-organisation of territories or communities, showed also through temporary transformation of the environment. In effect, cities are continuously redefined by emergent properties that may, both be originated and then impact on social, political, cultural, and economical people practices. On the other hand, through the arrangement of its patterns the city shapes the social and connective relations occurring among people. So, the city can be regarded as a complex system, that in the last years has been expanded by the widespread of communication devices and sensors connected to the Internet. In this context, the design of new patterns of interactions that focuses on the new relationship opportunities, in part offered by the Information and Communication Technologies...

This paper introduces the main ideas of an integrated approach intended to address three vital yet relatively little explored dimensions in the social and material shaping of cities. First, it looks into ‘cities as systems of encounters’ in time and space – or how we find ourselves co-present with those like us or those different from us in public and private places. Second, it introduces a view to ‘cities as systems of communication’ – or how cities become contexts that help us to produce linguistic exchanges and create massive action systems from seemingly trivial situations. Third, it looks into ‘cities as systems of material interaction’ – or why we shape and fold space into urban space in order to express interactions in complex conditions of interdependence. Finally, the paper discusses substantive and epistemological issues regarding the improbable connections between the elusiveness of actions and the perennial tangibility of their spatialities. Journal Area Development and Policy Volume 2, 2017 - Issue 2 http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/3KwbXwtjAQV5qEcPxbS5/full

Cite as: Souliotou, A.Z. (2015) ICTs and Contemporary Art: a platform for the urban well-being, Proceedings of the 3rd International Biennial Conference Hybrid City 2015, Theona, I., and Charitos, D. (eds), University of Athens, pp. 339-344 Abstract. The objective of the present article is to show how ICTs can inspire or facilitate artistic creation and how art (inspired by ICTs or using ICTs) can contribute to the urban well-being. With the advent of the ICTs the boundaries between the makers and the users have considerably blurred in a way that the latter not only do they possess, but they also shape data. The users, thus, have become active participators and creators, so both technicians and users co-create and share information in virtual environments which can in turn influence the structure of urban physical space. This turn has led to a “Data to the people” tendency which empowers individuals and enables them to take initiatives in sharing information and in engaging with active citizenship. This new role of the user-creator has been already taken by artists who use ICTs in their artworks. All artists presented in this article have access and therefore use the ICTs within their cutting-edge art-and-technology practices which constitute a product of the information age in current post-industrial society. Whether they are telematic artists, Internet or post-Internet artists, GPS artists, GST artists or even artists making public art, their approaches show how the ICTs blaze new trails in contemporary art through a variety of projects and exhibitions using a lot of different media. As far as the telematic artists are concerned, their projects present a remarkable evolution thanks to new advances in data visualization and info-graphics which give them the opportunity to present the (flow of) telecommunications through images and maps by precisely locating and dating the communication processes. These new possibilities, thus, enable the visualization of the telecommunication networks which emerge from these processes, going beyond traditional telecommunication projects which just use telecommunication networks in installations or in collaborative projects without visualizing or mapping them. The Internet has given an unprecedented boost in communications and has notably given rise to Net Art (or Internet Art) which comprises a lot of Internet-based artistic projects presenting a high degree of heterogeneity. Especially the Web 2.0 social network platforms have led to an exponential increase of Internet Art projects. Post-Internet art has subsequently expanded the production of artworks inspired by the Internet by taking on-line data and translating them to material creations. GPS enables artists to draw by taking up physical activities like walking in cities or travelling between cities. GSTs are a considerable source of inspiration for contemporary artists, since they permit them to have a satisfactory –if not a complete– image of urban places and engage themselves with cyber-flânerie, ceaseless exploration of the urban space and interrogation about privacy and other social issues. As far as public art is concerned, ICTs can be integrated in urban public space or even translate existing public art installations from material to electronic, providing thus the participators with a new kind of experience. The material and the electronic, the physical and the virtual, intermingle forming thus hybrid urban environments and altering the urban physical context. Furthermore ICTs provide us with a clear urbi et orbi image of the world, since a lot of (collaborative) art projects which use ICTs extend not only in the urban, but also in the global scale. Thus, they give a comprehensive image of the 21st century global village which is characterized by the rapid growth of the urban phenomenon and the shift from the city to the metropolis and thereafter to the megapolis. (Perrault, 2011) Another important recent phenomenon, which relates to the ICTs use, is that although a lot of projects are a priori considered as technological or commercial, they also turn out to be artistic and we can particularly find them implanted in physical urban space. ICTs thus instigate an inquiry with regards to the (re)definition of the ‘artistic’ and render urban physical contexts platforms for the fusion of the technological, the commercial and the artistic. All the above approaches reflect different points of view with regards to ICTs and show that art (inspired by ICTs or using ICTs) can contribute to the urban well-being by: addressing current problems of the urban living, such as earthquakes, riots, social inequality; raising questions about privacy and voyeurism; proposing alternative ways for mapping or visualizing information, as well as for establishing communication and collaborations in urban, inter-urban and even global scale; bringing together people living in urban environments. In all the above ways art can give a more comprehensive image of the contemporary urban condition and (re)define the role of ICTs in society and human history by providing new insights into their potential uses.

Proceedings of the 7th Conference of International Forum on Urbanism "Creative Renaissance", 7-11 October 2013, pp. 566-574, 2013

In the contemporary city discontinuity and diversity characterize the built environment: it’s recognizable at least a consolidated centre, while the rest of the urban structure is blurred, mainly lacking in public spaces. Two realities coexist in the same whole: one is the expression of the spirit of place through heritage, a static superimposition derived from history, the other speaks the language of time, containing all contradictions of modern planning theory with a dynamic acceleration towards the future. Just apparently this two parts do not share the same identity: the analysis, if based on a comprehensive approach, can reveal a more satisfactory and nuanced urbanism, taking into account new fruitions of public dimension. Nowadays, by means of technology, people can experience public life across real and virtual, communicate personal emotions, browse local historic documents, wish for neighborhood improvements, connecting the real public city to the ever-changing spirit of place and time.

2014

The intention of this exercise is to investigate a specific area in the growing field of urban design. while learning in the process. As urban design is one of the practices trrat are directly affected by the pressures resulting from the current fast changes in our environments, it will be useful and fascinating to explore this dimension in the dtscourse. The theme of the discourse is therefore to reflect on the different thoughts and deal with the continual change in the Urban Environment that i~.resulting from technological advancements. Technology is generally discussed as the human mastery in perfecting the tools by which humans attempt to control their environments. Therefore the Urban Environment is presented to be the reflection of human level of technological success. The thesis hence revises the understanding of the Urban Environment. It emphasizes the fact that the Urban Environment is a continually transfoiming entity, whereby urban designers are expected to continually c...