The next stage of the urban interface series is the exhibition and conference in Oslo in Septmeber 07. We created a second website for urban interface oslo and copied all blog entries which were posted during urban interface berlin.

If you have registered as a blogger to urban interface berlin, your login is still working, but your entries will only be shown on the UIB website. If you prefer to submit a blog entry to the new Oslo website then you would need to register again by sending your request to blog@urban-interface.net.

We are sorry for this inconvenience. Shortly we will update the urban interface websites with a joint first entry page.

Interrogating Public Space is an ongoing series of interviews exclusive to Creative Time’s website by Curator Nato Thompson with artists, theorists, policy makers, and community organizers about the issues surrounding public space. These questions serve to complicate and broaden the notion of what constitutes a public practice and what mechanisms are available to increase social justice. As the study of space has grown to include multiple discourses, this investigation anticipates finding connecting issues that bring together disparate forms of analysis—from public housing to theme parks to public art to community organizing to interventions.

See first interview with Fritz Haeg.

Announcing the dates and theme of the 2008 Festival McKee said:

“Glasgow international has always extended beyond the established art spaces in the city to inhabit derelict or renovated lesser known sites. In 2008 this will continue as the festival spreads even further across Glasgow.”

He added:

“Appropriately, the theme of the third Gi will centre on ideas of public and private—examining the changing nature of public space, the evolving landscape of public and private art funding and the fluid boundaries of privacy in a world of converging mobile technologies.”

Further details of the Gi programme information will be announced in the coming months. For additional information visit http://www.glasgowinternational.org and register your details to receive updates.

Giovanni la Varra has published a very interesting article about the temporal nature of public space which he calls the Post-it city. I don’t know how old it is, but I just came across it now. The subsol website has even more good essays on the subject of ‘urban space in movement’.

See article:

Die Stadt Duisburg und die Duisburg Marketing GmbH loben einen internationalen, offenen Wettbewerb für neuere Formen der Kunst im öffentlichen Raum aus. Der Wettbewerb „Paradoxien des Öffentlichen – Kunst im öffentlichen Raum“ wird durch die Kulturstiftung des Bundes, den Minister- präsidenten des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, die Initiative StadtBauKultur NRW und Vodafone gefördert. Mitveranstalter ist die RUHR.2010 – Kulturhauptstadt Europas.

Um als Keimzelle und Labor für das Neue zu wirken, ist eine der wichtigsten Fragen der Kunst: Wo entstehen heute die Kristallisationspunkte des Öffentlichen, die gesellschaftliche Dynamik ausstrahlen und wie können sie mit Hilfe der Kunst ein Gesicht, ein Bild, eine Form bekommen? Ziel des Wettbewerbs ist es, in Vorbereitung der Kulturhauptstadt RUHR.2010, neue künstlerische Formen für veränderte öffentliche Räume zu initiieren, die die Wahrnehmung der Stadtnutzer (als Fahrende, als Konsumenten und als Telekommunizierende) berücksichtigen und bestenfalls auf Partizipation mit der Bevölkerung ausgerichtet sind.

Aufgabe ist es, künstlerische Arbeiten zu entwickeln, die sich mit den ästhetischen und gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen der drei folgenden öffentlichen Räume auseinandersetzen: 1. Konsumräume (Shopping Malls und Passagen) 2. Transitorische Räume (Autobahnen und Straßen) 3. Datenräume (mobile Technologien).

Teilnahmeberechtigt sind Künstlerinnen, Künstler und Künstlergruppen aus den Bereichen bildende Kunst, Medienkunst, Performance, Architektur, Stadtforschung / Raumplanung.

Folgende Preise werden von einer Fachjury ausgelobt: 1. Preis: 5.000 Euro 2. Preis: 3.000 Euro 3. Preis: 2.500 Euro Außerdem vergibt die Jury zwei Sonderpreise in Höhe von je 2.500 Euro für eine Künstlerin oder einen Künstler aus Nordrhein-Westfalen und aus Duisburg.

Es ist beabsichtigt, drei der prämierten Arbeiten im Mai 2008 für begrenzte Zeit im Rahmen des Festivals „Akzente – Kulturfestival des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen“ zu realisieren. Einsendeschluss: 01.10.2007

Website des Wettbewerbs mit Formulardownload

COMPETITION Paradoxes of the Public – Art in Public Spaces

The City of Duisburg and the Duisburg Marketing GmbH are the organizers of the competition „Paradoxes of the Public“ which is supported by the Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes), the Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia, the North Rhine-Westphalian Initiative UrbanBuildingCulture (Initiative StadtBauKultur NRW) and Vodafone. Co-organizer is the RUHR.2010 – European Capital of Culture.

In order for art to work as a germ cell and laboratory for what is new, one of the most important questions that must be answered is: Where are the public crystallization points emerging today, the points that radiate social dynamics, and where can art help them to take on a face, an image, a form

The goal of this competition, in preparation for 2010, the year of the European Capital of Culture in the Ruhr, is to initiate new art forms adapted to changed public spaces that take into account the perceptions of the users of a city (as drivers, consumers and telecommunications users) and will ideally invite people to participate.

The assignment will be to develop artists’ works exploring the aesthetic and social conditions of the following three public spaces:

1. Consumer Spaces: Shopping Malls and Arcades 2. Transitory Spaces: Streets and Motorways 3. Data Spaces: Mobile Technologies

Admitted to participate are artists and artists’ groups working in the fields of visual arts, media arts, performance, architecture, urban research / spatial planning.

It is proposed to realize three of the award-winning works in May 2008 for a limited period of time as part of the festival “Duisburger Akzente – State Cultural Festival of North Rhine-Westphalia”.

Deadline for submissions is October 1st.

Website

urban interface oslo Exhibition 14 September – 7 October 2007 Conference 14 + 15 September 2007

Vacant shop in Gruoenerlokka

Conference The Porous City: Art claiming the urban void

Today’s city is a porous and dynamic terrain; the physical world constantly interfaces with the immaterial sphere of electronic and digital data which can easily and unobtrusively cross physical borders. At the same time, the complexity of the city and the widely undefined boundaries between private and public space create a variety of urban voids and grey areas calling for occupation and definition.

The Porous City is a two-day conference on contemporary art practices responding to the multivalent porousness of the urban environment. Artists, theoreticians and curators will discuss the constraints and potential of the urban voids and loopholes, contributing to a contemporary conception of art in public space.

The first day of the conference will focus on the impact of electronic, digital and mobile media on the city. The ubiquitous use of digital, networked and mobile technologies raises new questions about conditions of both private and public spaces. Imperceptible surveillance systems and spy bots, the semi-private on-line forums, the use of the cell phone in public space, easy-to-tap-in wireless data transmission in general – they all have a strong impact on our understanding of private and public space – demanding precise definitions and demarcations of these spaces.

Particularly the 70’s and 80’s celebrated the idea of new technology supporting an open, democratic and networked society. Although these optimistic expectations were not fulfilled, the potential of intercultural and intersocial communication still inhere in new media.

When it comes to public art, new media is capable of occupying physical, virtual and hybrid spaces, offering multiple points of access. In addition, the processual and audiovisual nature of new media results in multifaceted and time-based perception of this type of public art.

Building on the technology centred discourse of the first day, the second day will try to localise interventionist and process-based art within the public art field, the art market and art funding. We will look closely at how these works push the boundaries of the public art genre for its own good and the effect this has on the understanding of urban culture. Emphasis will be laid on the analysis of artistic strategies which invite the audience to interact, contribute to and become active voices in the public sphere.

On both days, the artists who created works for urban interface oslo will introduce the audience to their artworks, thus illuminating practical and conceptual issues related to public art production and the specific terrain of Oslo’s public space.

In addition, the Open Forum on day two will provide a platform for artists and designers to present current, upcoming and past projects to the conference’s audience and speakers. The Open Forum aims to provide an interactive exchange of knowledge and perspectives on the topic of public art. It gives its presenters the opportunity to draw attention to their individual art practice and to benefit from responses by the target audience.

Confirmed speakers:

Laura Beloff

HC Gilje

Habbestad&Larsson

John Hawke

Drew Hemment

Susanne Jaschko

Vibeke Jensen

Lev Manovich

Jan Inge Reilstad

Martin Rieser

Florian Rötzer

Sancho Silva

Michelle Teran

Jeremy Wesh

More to come.

Another book recommendation by urban interface.

Thanks to new wireless technologies (WIFI, GPS, RFID) and mobile media, public space is subject to drastic changes. It is being traversed by electronic infrastructures and networks, and alternative cultural and social domains are evolving, though often invisible from a conventional viewpoint. The traditional physical and social conditions of the public domain are being supplanted by zones, places and subcultures that transcend the local and interlink with translocal and global processes. The question is whether there are also new opportunities for the individual and for groups to act, participate and intervene publicly in this hybrid, seemingly flexible space. How do people appropriate the new public spaces? Where does the ‘public’ take place in this day and age? Who shapes and moulds it by devising spatial, cultural and political strategies?

With contributions by Drew Hemment, Howard Rheingold, Saskia Sassen, Frans Vogelaar/Elizabeth Sikiardi, Noortje Marres, Koen Brams/Dirk Pültau, Marion Hamm, Kristina Andersen, Ari Altena, Daniel van der Velden, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, Esther Polak, De Geuzen, Max Bruinsma and Logo Parc Guest editor: Eric Kluitenberg, Jorinde Seijdel and Liesbeth Melis (eds.)

See Nai publishers for more details.

Drew Hemment will be a speaker at the UIO conference The Porous City in September 07.

—researches and spatial probes—-

as metaphor: The small aggressive dog (drug dealers inhabiting the park) The running moose (civil police and their startled response) = monument to tactical spatial victory of black economy.

The small aggressive dog (the norwegian state—freed from foreign domination) The running moose (foreigners—here, the impoverished third world that must be run off ) =monument to Norwegian vigilance; an inspirational goal.

as lived space—a preferred site for beer drinking due to protection afforded by sculpture—sculpture detourned to abet illegal uses.

the site Bordered by Securitas (private security firm) Oslo Corporate Headquarters, Oslo Department of Urban Planning.

intervention log: couch removed from dumpster, carried to site cone and sign removed from site of nearby minor road accident warning tape found as trash at various construction sites

-dialectical forces of Permission and Maintenance Law, code, permeability within the state apparatus (permission) versus site presence unfolding in time (maintenance). The static, binary gesture of permission versus the continuing insistence of maintenance.

We wonder, wether this monument praises the moose or the moose hunting dog…and who put the couch and the barrier in front of it…...