NOW 2008 :: November 29 – December 1, 2007 :: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), Montalegre, 5. 08001 Barcelona, Spain.

This fourth edition of NOW explores three dimensions of the new urban condition: the conquest of the radio-electric space, the recovery of the public space and the city as an ecological challenge. Imminent changes in the way digital society is managed, resistance to the depoliticised city and the challenge of sustainable urban development are three interconnected processes that require greater knowledge, creativity and commitment from more and more citizens.

The Invisible Conquest: a Social and Cultural History of Hertzian Space with Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Honor Harger, Armin Medosch and William J. Mitchell; Coordinated and moderated by José Luis de Vicente; November 29 at 7 pm, Hall.

The radio-electric spectrum—the field of electromagnetic waves in which radio and television transmissions, mobile telephone and GPS signals, Wi-Fi networks and much more circulate—is the information society’s building land. Its increasing conquest and colonisation over the course of the 20th century has transformed both the way cities are articulated and the relations between individuals. Nonetheless, we know little about this spectrum: who owns it, how it is governed, how its use is decided. Despite being a supposedly scarce and precious resource, the way it is regulated is rarely subjected to processes involving public scrutiny.

Two years from the “Digital Switchover”—when all radio and TV transmissions will go completely digital—more and more voices are demanding far-reaching changes in the way the radio-electric spectrum is managed, calling for greater emphasis on its dimension as a public and community space and for more social players to be allowed access to it, especially now that we are all broadcasters, at least to some extent. “Open spectrum” activists also point out that the shortage of airwave frequencies that makes it necessary to regulate the system is inherited from an outdated technology model that, if redesigned, could open up a new era of “infinite broadband”.

Reclaiming the City: Street Art, Graphic Dissidence and Counter Advertising with Richard Sennett, Steve Lambert and Pierre Humeau; Coordinated and moderated by the RiSc Observatory; November 30 at 7 pm, Hall.

More and more, the contemporary city is becoming a privatised, depoliticised city, a permanent shop window for products on sale and commercial messages that hinder interaction in equal conditions, political negotiation and collective representation. We move around and consume the public space of the neo-liberal city, but we hardly use it. This is a reflection we make during our travels through the space in which we find messages written in dissonant tones. Artistic and counter-advertising interventions in the urban space alerts us against consumerist hypnotism and encourages us to question rules that penalise different ways of thinking, seeing and creating.

Neurotica: Habitat. The contemporary Habitat Faced by Climate Chaos with Václav Cílek, Alex Steffen and Joan Rieradevall with the special participation of Vandana Shiva; Coordinated by Capsula; December 1 at 7.30 pm, Hall.

By 2008 it is predicted that, for the first time in human history, most of the world’s population will live in the cities. The objective of the second phase of the Neurotica project is to study the metabolism of urban habitats and the possibilities that ecological innovation can improve the quality of life in the mega-cities and surrounding rural areas. The challenge is to find solutions in preventing the countryside from being turned into a controlled market garden devoted to producing food and energy products for the city, and to slow down trends toward hyper-consumerism.

Is technical and scientific development the environmental solution or the cause behind unsustainability? What is society’s view of our advance towards climate chaos?

NOW is a working platform that will take place at the CCCB from 2006 to 2009. The project reflects on the present on the basis of the scientific, technological, artistic, social and spiritual transformations taking place at the start of the 21st century — because today it is no longer possible to explain art and culture without interiorizing scientific concepts and working with a systemic view of the world. NOW is a process of research, creation and diffusion bringing together different local and international agents involved in promoting a change of paradigm in the information and knowledge society and in globalized cultures.