PLATFORM URBANISM

The 2019/20 module programme deals with „platform urbanism” as part of a global development in which decisions about social life, urban projects and infrastructures are increasingly becoming the domain of platforms.

For years, platforms such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and WeWork have sought to penetrate as many areas of social production and reproduction as possible outside of their original business model in order to expand their own market dominance and drive forward a generalisation of their speculative investment model in the structure of financial capitalist lending. The leverage of financial speculation platform companies can use in their choice of investment beneficiaries also affects the willingness of cities to meet the expectations of these investors. The investment-worthy city has thus become the target of today’s urban development, and not the city in which citizens can develop freely. Pleasure and enjoyment have taken the place of free development, two components that serve as both an incentive and a means for the investing city to compete for the top places in international city rankings.

The term „platform urbanism” thus does not only refer to the instrumental use of new technologies in urban space, as the smart city concept and its promise to offer more efficient services claim. What we therefore want to address in the module program under the title „Platform Urbanism” is a completely new paradigm of social organisation, which is expressed in a positive attitude to peer-to-peer interaction, in a dramatic destabilisation of existing institutions and in new kinds of entrepreneurship and for which urban space has become a key technology. How can we understand this radical change of our time and how can a model of critical practice be developed in this environment?

Visual Culture Module
Tuesdays, 11:00-20:00
Start: 01 October 2019
Location: Seminarraum Argentinierstraße 8, ground floor

For further details please see link below