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Today, the spaces and societies in which we live are infused with media and technology. Smart cities, digital sociology, Industry 4.0 and augmented realities are just a few of its examples. Simultaneously, there are places and practices untouched and unaltered by the effects of technology – whether due to a lack of resources or a reactionary response to change. The questions this raises are boundless and interlinked. They are relevant across spaces, times and disciplines: architecture, urbanism, heritage, sociology, transport, business, education, politics and more. In this context, when we discuss new medias or technologies in any field, we are obliged to think equally about traditional practices, theories and concepts.
In response, SOCIETY. SPACES. SCREENS asks you to critique contemporary practice in your own discipline. It asks whether it has, or has not, been altered by advances in technologies and medias. For example, CAD involves new modes of design in architecture, while architects champion participatory planning. Urban data informs the management of cities, while the phenomenological experience of space is central to its use. Spatial computing brings disruptive change to public engagement and the ‘democratic process’. At the same time, there are political forces rejecting a future of remote and absentee voting. Social media alters how we interact in spatial settings, yet reports daily on acts in physical space. In every discipline then, technological advances find their analogue parallels.
In exploring the interconnected questions we face today when critiquing the society and spaces in which we live, this conference is open to various questions. We are interested in architecture and urbanism. How has data, BIM and intelligent infrastructure modified our understanding of planning? Equally, how does design practice continue without it? In the social sciences, has technology altered community connections to place, and how have they evolved without it? In the arts and design, how do traditional practices continue to thrive in parallel with the digital realm? In cultural studies, what happens to identity and tradition in an online world, and what do these mean in ‘unconnected’ parts of the globe? In teaching and learning, has remote pedagogy altered what happens in the physical classroom?
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In treading these terrains, SOCIETY. SPACES. SCREENS brings together universities from the USA, Brazil and South Korea. A small sample of the questions they ask includes, but is not limited to:
Cross-Institutional. Analogue Worlds – How do ‘traditional’ disciplines and practice thrive alongside the digital realm | Arizona State University. The Virtual Polis >> Interactive Geographies, Immersive Narratives, and Participatory Governance |
Cross-Institutional. Smart, Intelligent, Digital – Visions of the Future in Architecture, Planning and the Social Sciences | CESAR School (with NIX). Mediating Visions >> Challenging Mainstream Narratives through Peripheral Perspectives |
Cross-Institutional. Art, Design & Technology – Creativity & Experimentation in Contemporary Practice, Teaching & Theory | Yonsei University. Medias >> Surface, Space and In-Between |
Image: Colin Lloyd
