At 12:01 AM on December 10th, buses stopped moving in Ottawa as the over 2,200 members of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 279 officially went on strike, while at the same time over 30 centimetres of snow was falling and one of the four bridges linking Ottawa and neighboring Gatineau was only open to limited vehicular traffic due to structural concerns … While the snow has since been cleared and the Chaudière Bridge remains open to cars, the drivers, dispatchers and maintenance workers of OC Transpo are still on strike. OC Transpo has a daily ridership of 350,000, which represents about 20% of the commuter traffic in the city…”
Continuing on the theme of urban salons, The New Art of Suburbia, a two-evening panel discussion and forum recorded for podcast, will address these changes and implications for the arts and culture. Dealing with changes in the development and urban fabric of Toronto, speakers from a variety of backgrounds will tackle pressing questions:
What is the nature and role of creative communities in the suburbs?
How can we better understand and support arts and cultural activities in the suburbs?
How can we create and support a vibrant arts scene in suburban communities?
Issue 6 of the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest documents the work of artists deeply engaged with communities, labour and rights struggles. It has some noteworthy articles ranging from Daniel Tucker and Nato Thompson on a community documentation project which records town hall meetings on urban and regional art strategies, in this issue focusing on the Los Angeles event; Bonnie Fortune and Brett Bloom’s proposal for a regional Midwest Radical Culture Corridor; Kate Rich on ‘feral trade;’ an extensive section on artists and war including war art; and Karla Diaz’s incisive piece on the relation between (SMS) texting and contemporary graffiti which I’ll be teaching from for sure. Some of the material is full of self-consciously put-together sentences, but these are worth reading through. One strategy is a first read for keywords and ‘good ideas’ (for thought or action): the cutting edge of contemporary theory is well represented in this issue and is rendered into practice. After acclimatizing in this way, one can go back and pick out the details reading sections as they are of interest, and finally a third read attempts to ‘put it all together’ concentrating on Introductory comments and sections which synthesize or give an overview of the whole book. Just one of the key notions in this text is the ‘precariat’ (the lumpen who consider themselves to be doing well but are in fact flexibly employed and therefore in a precarious economic situation) . Cost: $US15.
An arrow in the recreation yard at Camp Delta, Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Cuba points the direction to Mecca, the Islamic holy city, so the detainees know which way to face if the call to prayer sounds while they are outside. Every cell and recreation yard has similar arrows. Photo taken in April, 2006. (U.S. Army Sgt. Sara Wood)
All detainees at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are given a copy of the Koran. Surgical masks are provided to the detainees so they can keep the Koran off the floor and prevent guards from touching it. Photo taken in April, 2006. (U.S. Army Sgt. Sara Wood)
With support from the Battelle Endowment for Technology and Human Affairs and The Ohio State University, we are organizing the Communicative Cities: Integrating Technology and Place Conference. The Urban Communication Foundation began exploring this topic about three years ago and held planning sessions in Washington, DC, Rome, and Paris.
We invite planners, designers, city officials, policy-makers, communications professionals and others to submit proposals for presentations.
Join us in Columbus, Ohio June 25-26, 2009. The conference will have a distinguished set of keynote speakers. The theme: “Communicative Cities” encompasses a variety of areas (design, public policy, journalism) across different scales and settings (downtowns, city/regional, global), and seeks to address questions such as:
What makes a communicative city?
How do cities facilitate communication?
How can technology and face-to-face communication be integrated in a global world?
What are the challenges from the exponential rise in communication technology?
What are the potential impacts on place and community?
How can global connectivity and data accessibility be achieved?
The submission Abstract proposal DEADLINE is January 20, 2009. We will notify you by March 15 if your presentation is accepted.
We welcome three kinds of presentations: Traditional papers; Presentations of designs or plans; Symposium on a single topic with 3-4 presenters and a moderator. Awards will be given for the best student paper and best student design or plan.
Jack L. Nasar, & Kate Terzano, co-chairs Communicative Cities, The Ohio State University
On-line submittal
