OPEN URBAN TELEVISION
What
JARD (Javier Argota, Rodrigo Delso) & Alberto Gómez
Action
non-profit platform to monitor spaces of protest, and engage interactively with them. The project deploys a network of realtime streaming cams on the most iconic spaces for public demonstrations of the city, whose content can be remotely accessed by any citizen 24/7 and projected on an urban screen. Instead of the surveillance systems of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV), Open Urban Television (OUT) is a network designed to be re-appropriated by citizens – due to its open information, collaborative communication and research approach. Monitored public spaces are signposted with different QR codes, which can be scanned by citizens with their mobiles, refreshing the content of the webpage and the media façade, as an expression of citizens’ mood across the city. Fostering a distributed citizen communication system, OUT can provide critical continuous information for urban studies, e.g. for improving mobility, citizen mobilisations, activist practices or daily scheduling. OUT also makes visible the blurring limits between public and private spheres, the increasing privatization of urban space or the diversified ways in which the urban environment is experienced. Different visualisations of the streaming received are being tested to be used as an analytical tool. Why The increasing streaming of cities and its protests – by public and private agencies – mutates its relation between control, surveillance or recognition by adding remote monitoring to the physical presence of police corps. Within this framework, OUT aims to analyse, think, and act on this specific urban infrastructure traditionally monopolized by private agencies through the spaces of protest. It is a project about equalising and democratising the use of urban visualisations by generating an infrastructure that could empower citizens. In this
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Open Urban Television (www.openurbantelevision.com) is a
Saving Face (2011) by Karen Lancel & Hermen Maat, Public Art Lab, Bauhaus Foundation Dessau, CC Network, 2013 © Ruthe Zuntz
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Mégaphone, (2012) by E. Paquette & A. Lupien, Quartier des Spectacles, Montreal, 2013 © Frédérique Ménard-Aubin
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Introduction Recoil (2015) by Robert Seidel, City Visions Jena, 2015 © Christian Seeling
ARS ELECTRONICA CENTER Linz, Austria
Mission
The Ars Electronica Center (AEC) is a landmark of the city of Linz. It has a prominent, highly visible location across the river from the city centre, and its mission is to engage the citizens of Linz (and the wider region) with the relationship between art, technology and society in a multitude of ways. These characteristics, along with continuing support from the city government (and therefore the people's representatives) give the citizens a strong sense of connection to and ownership of the building. The media façade, built in 2009, is a very direct way of making the presence of Ars Electronica visible in the built environment. By curating content for the façade in a way that incorporates a variety of events and projects in which the citizens of Linz feel invested, the sense of ownership is reflected on an architectural scale.
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Content
There are several layers of content. A range of artistic projects constitute the standard programme, scheduled every day and every week. This also includes the daily “façade terminal” slot, two hours every evening during which anyone can approach a terminal outside the AEC and put their own content on the façade via several different modes: a bluetooth-based music visualiser, a live video camera, and a “pulse interface” which transfers the heartbeat of the visitor to the façade. Another layer is the support of public events and special uses: the façade may display a red ribbon for World AIDS day, a rainbow flag for the local youth cultural centre or a logo for a company's event held on the premises. The third layer is made up of curated special projects, ranging from resident artists' works to student projects. The façade has a large architectural presence, high visibility and low resolution – it is therefore best suited for more abstract works utilising subtle combinations of shapes and colours, or simple messages; it is most “readable” (due to its resolution) from the other side of the river, and is most immersive directly on the “main deck”, the public square next to the AEC.
Context
Next to the AEC is a public square with several cafes, in the warmer months this square is full of people sitting outside on wide concrete stairs that are part of the building. A few minutes' walk across the Danube bridge, is the entrance to the city's central square. To the left of it, a busy road with a park along the river.
Ars Electronica Center, Light Night (2010) by Ars Electronica Futurelab, Fassadenterminal, 2010 Š rubra
CONNECTING CITIES CHINA Guangzhou, China
Mission
Connecting Cities China (CCC) is a satellite of the international Connecting Cities Network. The goal is to create an intercultural exchange in the field of urban media art between Western and Chinese culture. It started in 2014 as an independent and projectbased platform articulated through a series of lectures and workshops. The project developed in 2015, through the realisation of bigger urban media art productions, like the Peoples Screen (2015) by Paul Sermon and Charlotte Gould: a real-time installation bringing audiences in Guangzhou and Perth, Australia together in a real-time scenario on the virtual space of two connected screens during the Guangzhou International Light Festival. The specificities of the Chinese urban context, characterised by metropolises of five to fifteen million inhabitants, generate an approach to the public space which significantly differs from the Western perspective. In the Chinese megacities, for instance, graffiti and street art are not tolerated, but the public infrastructure is decorated and extraordinarily well kept. The next step for CCC is to initiate a Chinese-European exchange programme for urban media artists.
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Content
The programme focuses on developing new interactive works in cooperation between Chinese and international artists and designers. Therefore key elements are workshops, prototyping activities and the involvement of the fast-growing Chinese markerscene. Interaction, participation and the presence of contemporary artworks and events in the public space are still rare in China. Hence, CCC strives to introduce a new way of working in China, exploriing original avenues in the cultural sector, in collaboration with Chinese partners as well as with artists and designers from the global Connecting Cities Network. The variety of the themes proposed mainly depends on individual curatorial ideas, which interact with the manifold local situations, occasions and traditions addressed by artists and partners. Some examples from the lates workshops and exhibitions are Design Fiction, HyperCommune, Ambilight or Realtime Rituals. The CCC approach
aims to facilitate experimental, playful and participative works providing socio-cultural impacts and impulses to the audience in the public space.
Context
In China, cities are rapidly expanding and have completely changed their appearance within the last twenty years during China’s massive economic growth and urbanisation. The developmental pattern of the urban space is revealed by the height of residential buildings where forty oors is the average size of most newly constructed buildings, due to the migration pressure from the countryside. Buildings older than thirty years, unless of historical value, tend to be demolished and replaced by new ones. The urban environment is changing its face at a speed and a volume that is not comparable to other countries. Additionally, there is a proliferation of a particular kind of shopping mall (combined with restaurants, hotels and offices) establishing a new standard infrastructure in the public space, which is fully commercial. The government, as the owner of all real estate in China, is ultimately in charge of redesigning the city. The consequence is promotional governmental campaigns on the big urban screens, embedded in most recent buildings. The synthesis of contemporary Western cultural discourses and Chinese distinctive qualities generates a rather unusual setting for the artistic programme.
CC Network China, International Festival of Light, Guangzhou, 2015 Š Marc Piesbergen