Performative Urbanism Lab for Spatial,
Social, and Scenographic Experimentation
Salon II
Street Smart Urbanism &
Performative Approaches to Urbanism
Thursday, April 11th, 2019 18h00-20h00
Ethnography Lab, EV 10.625
Concordia University SGW
1515 St. Catherine St. W
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How can researchers from different disciplines and practices come together to diversify and critically imagine the public discussion around Smart cities? What does it mean to invoke the term ‘smart’ in a complex urban context? In English the word ‘smart’ goes beyond the generally received definition of modish and intelligent as it relates to current trends towards connectivity, responsive and mediated urban environments, generally predicated upon a ‘digital agenda,’ wherein the privileged position of smart and intelligent technologies are being furthered.
The intention of this Salon, the second in a series facilitated by Performative Urbanism, is to invite artist-researchers from a range of disciplines and practices to contribute to a ‘performative’ inquiry of the subject of Smart cities, and the sociocultural and spatial implications of emerging ‘smart’ urban technologies. A performative approach to urbanism considers emergent (and perhaps overlooked or marginalized) expressions and practices of urbanity, the politics surrounding the ‘right to the city,’ ways that less visible and powerful urban agents are at play within cities, and the affective, critical and creative role they have to play in the design, planning, and cultural production of cities. What critical framework can the ‘performative’ bring to the spatial politics and narratives of urban change in the era of Smart cities?
Laura Acosta & Santiago Tavera
Novels of Elsgüer: Virtual and Corporeal Dislocation
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Laura Acosta is a Colombian-Canadian transdisciplinary artist based in Montréal. Her creative research revolves around usingperformance as a way to observe the power that a body has to claim, create, alter, or disrupt spaces. Her practice consists of producing absurdist performances that invite the public to utilize objects, costumes, sounds, movement and speech in order to create their own narratives. Her work presents objects or individuals in a constant process of translation, conversion, or adaptation as a way to explore themes of identity, representation and belonging. Laura has exhibited work across Canada as well as in Latin America. She completed residencies in Argentina, Colombia, and Canada, in which she has worked with various groups of people in developing public performances that emerge from collaboration and improvisation. She holds an MFA in Fibres and Material studies from Concordia University, as well as a BFA from NSCAD University. www.laura-acosta.com
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Santiago Tavera is an interdisciplinary Colombian and Canadian artist, based in Montréal. He explores virtual narratives of dislocation and perception through the construction of interactive and immersive multimedia installations. In Tavera’s work, a combination of videos, 3D graphic animations, sound and reflective materials place bodies in spaces of translation between the physical and the virtual. Santiago Tavera is an emerging researcher and project coordinator of the Elastic Spaces lab at Concordia University. This research-creation lab is composed of an international network that develops projects employing artist-led methodologies exploring notions of virtual coporalities in relation to the environment and digital technology. Tavera holds an MFA (Intermedia) from Concordia University, and a BA (Honors) Specialization in Visual Arts and a Major in Psychology from Western University. Tavera’s projects have recently been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and the Ministry of Culture of Colombia. www.santiagotavera.com
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Nima Navab
Ambient Feedback Ecology
Nima Navab is an Iranian-Canadian media artist and designer with a professional background in Environmental Design and Computation Arts. Using a variety of mediums and approaches, he explores the different roles humans play in shaping the built environment that is ecological, political and sensory. His projects are particularly focused on spatial design, and examine the role of art and technology to enhance interactions in intimate and large-scale public spaces. His increased attention to everyday spatial interactions brings to light the importance of field research, discussion and collaboration with those occupying the space as well as the space itself, highlighting the importance of spatial experience and theoretical research, which form the basis of his creative process. His projects have been presented at Ars Electronica (Linz), Biennale Némo (Paris), International Symposium for Electronic Arts (Gwangju), Solar Decathlon (Dezhou) and more. He is currently a Research Associate at Topological Media Lab, Technical Director at Obx Labs and Master’s of Design candidate at Concordia University.
Cheryl Gladu
Drawing Back to Leap Forward: Rebuilding the Village Together, the Case of Collaborative Housing
Cheryl Gladu, BIB, MBA is an Interdisciplinary PhD Candidate at Concordia University (Management and Design). Cheryl’s current research and professional interests include collaborative design and the creation of places and objects that encourage long-term sustainable behavior change such as collaborative housing communities.
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Alice Jarry with Alexandre Castonguay
Mattering Matter: Cross-disciplinary Contamination and Resilient Practices
Alice Jarry is an artist and researcher who specializes in site-specific responsive works, socio-environmental design, digital arts, tangible media, and community-oriented projects. She is faculty in the department of Design and Computation Arts (Concordia) in the area of materials, materiality, and design for socio-environmentally responsive cities. Her current works on residual matter brings concerns about sustainability, aesthetics, and politics to examine how the intersection of materials, sites, technology, infrastructures, and communities can provoke the emergence of adaptive forms and resilient relations. She is a member of Kheops - International research consortium on the governance of large infrastructure projects -, Digital Arts Collective Perte-De-Signal, Milieux Institute, and Hexagram. Her works have been presented at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Vox Centre de l’image Contemporaine (Montréal), Biennale Nemo (Paris), Leonardo Da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology (Milan), Device_Art Triennale (Zagreb), Invisible Dog Art Center (New York), Mons 2015, European Capital of Culture (Mons), International Digital Arts Biennial (Montreal), and in several exhibition locations in North America and Europe.
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Allison Moore
Mukojima Diorama
Allison Moore is a new media artist based in Montreal, Canada. She has participated in numerous exhibitions, residencies, workshops and events within Canada and internationally. Her recent projects involve thematic inspirationsof storytelling narratives in digital arts, video-mapping landscapes and architecture, site-specific public art andperformance. Moore's works reinterpret and rebuild the world as a metaphoric landscape in which sensitive beings are in synergy with their allegorical macrocosm.
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