The project aims at exploring and mapping the complexity of elements, which constitute the urban, social and cultural texture of squatter settlements in the city of Mumbai. Considering these areas within the broader framework of urban transformations and redevelopment projects, the studio looks at the slums as forms of ‘emergent’ urbanities, which function with a multiple logic and structure of relations both within itself and with the outside.

Strategically, the studio questions both binary logics of opposition and problem-solving attitudes. Polarities such as formal/informal, legal/illegal will be put under scrutiny in order to understand the intertwining and shades of meanings that operate within a multi-faceted context. An explorative and analytical attitude will be therefore encouraged as a device to understand unfamiliar urban mechanisms in a non-judgemental way.

Questions of self-organisation, informal micro-economies, gender roles, private and public spheres will be addressed in relation to both their impact on the actual definition of the slums and to their relation to the broader network of power and political structures of the city. The main focus of the studio will be the slum of Dharavi; being the largest squatter settlement of Asia it allows for a deep and privileged understanding of the multiplicity of layers – on the local, regional and international level – that operate in the constitution and definition of these urban emergences.

Streets will be addressed as the crucial element of analysis. They represent the physical realm of interaction and social experimentation while also being the membrane through which different types of spaces mingle and transform. They will be the “laboratory” to understand relationships between flows of capital, labour forces and patterns of dwelling and inhabitation.

Throughout the nine weeks of its program, the studio will propose and interdisciplinary approach that will be developed through a variety of devices. An “action-learning” approach would foster students to embrace an experiential understanding of knowledge production.

The first four weeks will be dedicated to getting “acquainted” with the urban, social, political and cultural context of Mumbai in general and Dharavi in particular. Seminars, guest lectures, video screenings will be part of the program. Students will be also provided with a basic methodological tool-kit that will allow them to relate in a morally and professionally sober way to a non-western and unfamiliar context.

The studio will then propose a three-weeks research and mapping field work in Mumbai, which will be followed by two more weeks for elaboration and post-production of the collected material.

The “results” of the studio will be presented in a public exhibition at TU Delft and NAi and will be the core material for a forthcoming publication. There will also be a follow up of the research that will be presented at the CCA, Canadian Centre for Architecture, in Montreal in the Fall of 2009.

Here are some of the aims and key themes that the studio aims to explore:

This studio provides a base for the students to further explore the notion of ‘emergence’ and informality within their final projects, thus Urban Body remains at one level an exercise of active observation, but on the other level it intends to provide the observations/tools and lessons learnt to the people (inhabitants / activists / NGOs / governmental bodies) who can use them to intervene and improve the quality and living conditions etc for the dwellers of Dharavi.

Possible themes:

- Spatial Economy: the interaction of the informal and formal…’slum’ and the city
- Idea of migration and floating population within cities
- Role of women in the informal economy
- Notion of Emergence

The studio (20 students and 4-5 associate professors/collaborators) will spend about 3 weeks in India (first 3 weeks of march) engaging in studies and visits as well as workshops with inhabitants of Dharavi / activists / NGOs/Thinkers and Academics.

If any of the members on the list would like to help or have any suggestions or are in contact with any NGOs or individuals who could contribute to the studio, please do write to me.

We are also looking for schools of architecture in Bombay to participate in the studio thus we can begin to exchange knowledge with the local students if

Chintan Gohil - chintichinti [at] yahoo.com

The multitude of inputs, exchanges, and disruptions will be distilled in an exhibition which opens at PROGRAM BERLIN on January 31, 2008 to coincide with transmediale.08. Here the variations will continue to multiply as the process is augmented by the actions of visitors to the space.

TRANSIT LOUNGE is a project by Katie Hepworth and Miriam Mlecek and involves the following artists: Chris Bennie (Brisbane), Bianca Calandra (Berlin), Robert Curgenven (Berlin), Cat Hope (Perth), Tanja Kimme (Melbourne), Somaya Langley (Berlin), Sarah Last (Muttama), Silvia Marzall (Berlin), Ben Milbourne (Melbourne), Michael Prior (Melbourne), Lynda Roberts (Melbourne), Jodi Rose (Berlin), Sumugan Sivanesan (Sydney), Anna Tautfest (Berlin).

George Legrady, Professor of Interactive Media at the University of California, Santa Barbara holds a joint appointment in the Media Arts & Technology graduate program and the department of Art. His current research addresses data collection, data processing methodologies and data visualization presented simultaneously in interactive installations and the internet. The projects make use of self-organizing systems and algorithmically generated visualizations. He has integrated digital processes into his artistic work since the mid-1980’s, investigating 2 different directions: methodologies to address the organization of cultural data, and new forms of visualization coming out of algorithmic processes.

Pockets Full of Memories consists of the public contributing data (an image of an object and semantic descriptors) to a database whose data is visually organized by the Kohonen self-organizing mapping algorithm in a 2Dimensionl map. The algorithm basically looks at all the data and continuously organizes them in a 2D space so that every object is surrounded by others of similar semantic attributes until order is achieved at the local and global state. The exhibition has been presented in Paris, Rotterdam, Linz, Budapest, Helsinki, and Manchester between 2001-2005. The accumulation of collected data at these exhibitions has become a subject of study in itself. We are currently analyzing what kinds of data has been collected and how everyday objects such as cellphones, notebooks, keys, etc. differ in their cultural descriptions at each of the venues and how these differences can best be expressed visually.

Making Visible the Invisible is a commission for the new prestigious Seattle Public Library, by the internationally renown architect Rem Koolhaas. The project consists of analyzing and then visually mapping on a daily basis changes in what the public is reading, tracked through the circulation of books going in and out of the library. These are to be presented on 6 horizontally positioned plasma screens in the main “Mixing Chamber” research room.

Global Collaborative Visual Mapping Archive (GCVMA) focuses on cellphone transmission visualized as a dynamically changing 3D architectural structure. Research addresses methods of wireless cellular technological telecommunications devices, methods of data assembly such as self-organizing, neural-net, networks models, swarm intelligence algorithms, and the visual interface by which the images and their data are to be accessed and interacted with.

The aim of ArtCamp07: Re:Use is to bring the open, participatory and creative energy of BarCamp to the world of art in an interdisciplinary forum. As an unconference, it’s about using principles of self-organization to bring people together, and to create an emergent format where people may talk, meet, show work, present ideas, receive input, and generally discuss, view, and advance ideas, research and projects. The unconference format is borrowed originally from the technology community, where it was observed that conversations happening outside formal sessions at traditional conferences were often more enjoyable, productive and illuminating than the sessions themselves.

ArtCamp06 overturned the New Forms Festival conference in order to undertake the first ever unconference devoted to the subject of art. The event was attended by over a hundred artists, designers, programmers, critics, theorists, curators and practitioners from all fields who presented 30 workshops, talks and hybrid events in a single day. This will be the second iteration. We are excited this year to add to this fascinating mix a group of invited moderators, including:

Andrew Feenberg: Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University; Lindsay Brown: Writer and Critic; Jesse Scott: Artist and Curator (memelab, CineCitta); Alissa Firth-Eagland: Director and Curator of Media Arts, Western Front; Patrick Lichty: Artist, Curator, Writer, Editor-in-Chief of Intelligent Agent Magazine.

The event is free and open to the public but space is limited: add your name to the list of participants so you won’t miss out.

ArtCamp07: Re:use is co-produced by the New Forms Festival and Upgrade! Vancouver.

Questions, Information: Contact Kate Armstrong, ArtCamp Convenor: kate at katearmstrong dot com

ArtCamp07 wiki: http://2007.newformsfestival.com/artcamp
Upgrade! Vancouver: http://www.katearmstrong.com/upgrade/vancouver/
New Forms Festival: http://2007.newformsfestival.com/

Back in 1995, LambdaMOO creator Pavel Curtis informed us that, “People are the killer app.” But somehow we still don’t believe him. We stubbornly believe that there is some magic inside the network itself, a quintessence within the wiring, the routers, the transponders and repeaters, that make the network something more than the sum of its parts. But this has never been true, nor will it ever be true. The value of the network is entirely in its ability to connect us together. Only insofar as a service makes it easier to connect people together – a service, like, say, SMS – will that service be adopted by the users of the network. Digital social networks such as MySpace and Facebook hold out a tantalizing promise of greater connectivity, but so far that promise has gone entirely unrealized. We don’t need them, and we never have. All we need is the means to connect. We’re perfectly able to handle all the rest …

A company can set its own tariff rates, or build out a high-speed infrastructure, but that is not the network. The network is us mob, a mass of individuals connected together in ever-evolving configurations of purpose, with ever-expanding capabilities….” From Mob Rules by Mark Pesce, Hyperpeople.

A 4 Day Cultural Festival

HABITATS: a 4 day Cultural Festival :: Artists, scientists, and cultural commentators are joining together to create a collective vision of a sustainable habitat. The Habitats conference and festival is a 4 day event organized to promote an exchange between art, technology, and environment. With public and private cooperative efforts leading to cleaner water, the Gowanus Canal area has experienced an increase in wildlife and improved prospects for commercial and cultural revitalization. Habitats celebrates this process. Instigated by Eidolon Culture, The Habitats conferences will include speakers such as best-selling author Steven Johnson (“Emergence” and “Mind Wide Open,”); long-standing community organizers such as the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation (GCCDC) ; electronic artists such as Pauline Oliveros (Deep Listening Foundation) ; site specific sound and video recordings, live music performances, site specific installations, collaborative projects, recycled art, workshops and active audience participation.
The placement of the artworks in their site-specific rendition, the sharing of thought provoking ideas of contemporary cultural relevance, and the active role of audience interaction all create a “Habitat” — a place defined by the indispensable nature of everyone and everything within it. Habitats is being Presented by Eidolon Culture and Sponsored by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Polytechnic University: Integrated Digital Media Institute (IDMI), CEC Arts Link, New York State Council on the Arts, and Material for the Arts.

Date: November 9th – 12th , 2006
Time: Programs begin daily at 12:00pm until 11pm
Location: The Brooklyn Lyceum 227 4th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215
N Train to Union Street, Corner of President Street
Contact: mwarren[at]eidolon.org
Admission: $5 for environmental + cultural conferences, $15 for live performance program
www.global-habitat.net

ArT. ENVirONMENT. CULTUrE. COMMUNiTY. gOWANUS

CONfirMED CULTUrAL SPEAKErS

Steven Johnson – author of “Emergence, the connected lives of ants, brains and cities”
Douglas Rushkoff – author of “Media Virus”
Peter Principle of Tuxedomoon
Daniel Pinchbeck – author of “Breaking Open the Head”

ENVirONMENTAL CONfErENCE

Coordinated by: Gowanus Canal Community Development Corp

COMMUNiTY ArTS AND WOrKSHOPS

Carol Caputo, IRUBNY
Walking Tours of Gowanus with NY Acoustic Ecology
Workshop with the Prospect Park Zoo

iNSTALLATiON/ PErfOrMANCE ArTiSTS

Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening Foundation
Amoeba Technology, NYC
Kim Holleman, NYC
David Linton of Unity Gain
Bill Etra, NYC
Michael Schumacher of Diapason Gallery
free103.9, NYC
Share, NYC
Keiko Uneshi, NYC
Disney NasaBorg, NYC
Harlan Emil, NYC
2012, sponsored by CEC Arts Link
Project503, Russia
Antartic Project, Russia
Efi Amantidou, Greece
Luis Maurette, Argentina
Klauss, Argentina
Eva Sjuve, Sweden
Ken Hiratsuka, Japan
AlsoÂ… Zarah Cabanias, Hans-Christoph Steiner,
Kathi von Koerber, Marianna Ellenberg, Lary Seven,
Zemi17, Peripheral Media, Claire Barrett, Ne(x)twork

GCCDC is a neighborhood preservation non-profit organization dedicated to the revitalization of the Gowanus Canal area in South Brooklyn, New York, for twentyfour years. A community-based group with an extensive record of initiatives and involvement in the physical improvement of the Gowanus Canal, Red Hook and Carroll Gardens communities. GCCDCÂ’s efforts are focused on the environmental remediation of the Gowanus Canal, housing, economic development, and commercial revitalization.

Eidolon Culture is a Brooklyn based non-profit arts organization, directing and producing onsite and online platforms for interdisciplinary projects, bridging the gaps of specialization between disciplines and geographical distances. Eidolon Culture focuses on the potential for creative activity at the intersections of art, technology, and culture. Eidolon Cultures identity is based on interactive sustainable business practices, promoting collaboration and partnerships between government, industry, foundations, non-governmental organisations and the general public.

FOR aDDitiONaL iNFORMatiON pLease visit www.global-habitat.net. Day aND eveNiNg pROgRaM scHeDuLe aND DetaiLs wiLL sOON be avaiLabLe.