“Urban Publicness and Civic Citymaking”

In this session, we will address urbanity, political participation, temporality, technological development, and performing the civic engagement. These topics are becoming increasingly entangled as the concept of urban publicness gains more influence in the fields of design and technological development. Appropriately so, as it aids us in understanding how digital technologies can support citizen empowerment and help individuals become active agents within the public sphere.

With this, we revisit the question of what an urban public sphere entails amidst emergent frictions such as growing privatization and excessive surveillance. Another question we will address is how these frictions affect the public sphere of democratic practices, where people from different gender, class, and culture can work out cooperation and conflict.

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• The Role of Digital Screens in Urban Life: New Opportunities for Placemaking by Martin Tomitsch, Ian McArthur, M. Hank Haeusler and Marcus Foth in Citizen’s Right to the Digital City: Urban Interfaces, Activism, and Placemaking.
• New Media in Old Cities: The Emergence of the New Collective by Cristina Ampatzidou and Ania Molenda in Footprint: Delft Architecture Theory Journal, Volume 9, Number 1
• Temporary use and the onto-politics of ‘public’ space by Suzanne Vallancea, Ann Dupuisb, David Thornsc and Sarah Edward

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