art

Article: Critical Imagination

Bottom-up Turned Inside Out

Decision-making in urban development today isn’t defined by the needs of empowered citizens but by two mutually supporting mechanisms: big corporate interests and retreating governments. Rather than a political vision of how life in cities ought to be organized, contemporary planning resembles a managerial task that coordinates flows of money, materials, people, and information. Paradoxically, […]
Article: Wishful Thinking
The White House by Ryan Mendoza

The White House

Ten years after the onset of the housing crisis, Detroit is still afflicted with emptiness and blight that it left behind. Ryan Mendoza preserved this part of American history by bringing an abandoned single family house around the world. What if we could make places so telling about the inglorious urban histories more prominent? Should […]
Article: Wishful Thinking

Housing is a Human Right

Following this year’s Habitat III, it is worth remembering that “Adequate shelter for all” was one of the two key issues of the previous Habitat conference in Istanbul. Ten years later we are looking at an even deeper housing crisis that does not only embrace homelessness and growing population of urban slums, but also growing […]
Article: The Unmasters

Technology, Creativity and the future of Cities

Christopher Lindinger, co-director of Ars Electronica Futurelab, talks about the creative lab culture that forms his working environment, shares his thoughts on group dynamics and organizational structures, and reflects on the potential and challenges of technological development for the future of cities and their inhabitants. CA: What is the Ars Electronica Futurelab, and what does […]
Article: The Unmasters
Stalker

Walking across Actual Territories

Rome-based collective Stalker has been exploring the neglected areas of the Italian capital and engaging with their marginalized populations for more than 20 years. Stalker co-founder Lorenzo Romito reflects on the group’s evolution and future plans. CA: Can you briefly explain what your practice is about? LR: I am one of the founders of Stalker, […]
Article: Wishful Thinking
very large bike

Very Large Bike (VLB), United Micro Kingdoms

What if we started to modify our bodies to make them fitter and more suitable for the environment we are living in rather than modifying the environment? The VLB project by Dunne and Raby depicts a fictive scenario for a society that abandons the use of technology and concentrates on using science to maximize their […]
Article: Wishful Thinking
Dillon Marsh - Nababeep South Mine

For What it’s Worth: Nababeep South Mine (1882 to 2000) – 302,791.65 tonnes of copper extracted

What if we could always get a preview of the breakdown that shows what things are made of and the values of those ingredients? What is our lack of knowledge (and sometimes also ignorance) on where things come from, how and what were they are made of actually worth? Would it change our thinking if […]
Article: Wishful Thinking

Public Anagrams

Public Anagrams is based on the manipulation and subversion of mainstream slogans describing well-known public art and urban development paradigms and strategies, such as “smart cities” or “urban regeneration”. By mixing up letters and by turning upside-down the slogans, the artist aims at raising critical awareness about the hidden outcomes of urban development strategies. Slogans […]
Article: Wishful Thinking

Microbial Money – Stock Analysis

The current finance and banking system is often considered unchangeable and uncontrollable. It is often mystified and presented as having a life on its own. Could other ways of looking at finance help us see the flaws that rule it, independently of the form it takes? What if we imagined money as living organisms? What […]
Article: Wishful Thinking

Friction Atlas

Everyday, citizens perform, on public surfaces, synchronised routines of elaborate moves. As we move across the city, laws define movements and gestures, unconscious reactions, behaviours and anticipations. They are sets of instructions, conditional statements, ultimately incorporating power; a structural force that plays into everyday life. What happens when we redefine the rules as the visible […]
Article: Wishful Thinking

Ziggurat, East, Summer

Vacant spaces are often considered ownerless. Detroit’s Fisher Body Plant 21 has been abandoned for more than 30 years. When Scott Hocking constructed a ziggurat structure out of 6,201 wooden floor-blocks inside of it, it’s devalued and deteriorated state has been called into question. It seems to have awoken a desire to control that space. […]
Article: Wishful Thinking
Giuseppe Licari - Wild Gold

Wild Gold

Nature is violently ostracized from the city. Parks are meant to substitute our need for natural presence, but their existence only makes it evident that everything in the city needs to be curated. Even nature. Escaping the control and exploitation of civilization, abandoned areas, transitional and inaccessible places, form what Gilles Clement calls the Third […]
Article: The Unmasters
Let us keep our own noon_2013_David Horvitz

No one owns the beach: On time and public space on and offline

AM: Could you tell us something about your latest projects? DH: Recently I have been thinking a lot about different ideas of time and its standardization. I have realized a few projects related to time zones and time distribution. In one of them I melted an old bell; in another I moved the border of […]