NETWORKED CULTURES

Whether put into effect by transnational politics or global economies, new technologies or urban social movements, networks have become the defining characteristics of twenty-first-century social and spatial organisation. They have widely changed our cultural forms of cohabitation and communication over recent years. They have also changed the ways we produce and experience the spaces we live in: Cities, regions and larger entities of spatial cohesion are no longer fixed territories, but emerge as highly contested and instable topologies. They are performed and constituted by networks of interacting realities.

NEGOTIATING CULTURAL DIFFERENCE IN CONTESTED SPACES

Departing from sites of geopolitical conflicts and social confrontations, the NETWORKED CULTURES project, based at Goldsmiths, University of London and TU Wien, aims to reconsider the cultural transformations under way in Europe through examining the potentials and effects of networked spatial practices. The project, in particular, investigates art, architectural and urban practices located in contested spaces whose work allows for a multi-inhabitation of territories and narratives across cultural, social or geographic boundaries. In doing so, the project seeks to extend current debates of architectural and spatial planning by addressing the emergence of new forms of urban engagement, by re-evaluating the relationship between space and conflict and by establishing trajectories of an architectural culture geared towards network formation.

Interaction networks and transient aggregations of spatial practices do not only form important sites for critical urban engagement, they are also sites of knowledge production. NETWORKED CULTURES seeks to conceptualise the knowledge embodied by these new forms of socio-spatial organisation and group action and will explore the ways in which they offer new perspectives for dealing with contested spaces. In particular, it investigates how the examined spatial practices can reduce our dependence on fixed and separated knowledge, while giving us the tools to develop new knowledge together. The development of a set of practice led frameworks around architectural and cultural networks aims to contribute to enhance an understanding of how the architecture of space is malleable and can be transformed by those who are actors in a space of relationships.

In accordance with the particular character of this project, public communication and presentation form an essential part of it. Outcomes of the research have been distributed via conferences, workshops, reports and publications. Audio-visual reports and other components of the project have been presented in numerous exhibitions worldwide. Venues include the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam, Toronto Free Gallery, Toronto, Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, Trafó Gallery, Budapest, The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon, Proekt Fabrika, Moscow, Pro qm, Berlin, santralistanbul, Istanbul, Open Space – Zentrum für Kunstprojekte, Vienna and Whitechapel Gallery, London.

Project director
Prof PETER MÖRTENBÖCK

Project coordinator
Prof IRIT ROGOFF

Team
Dr HELGE MOOSHAMMER
MARIAN URSU
DANIELE RUGO

Funded by
ERC-FP6
BMWF