‘Smart Cities?’: Conference at The New School

Sun, Apr 23 - Sun, Apr 23  2017

The New School Auditorium, Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall

April 23 from 12-6PM, Het Nieuwe Instituut and Storefront for Art and Architecture host a small conference at The New School in New York. Marina Otero from Het Nieuwe Instituut and architect Matthijs Bouw will be present at the conference. 

About the conference

What does it mean to talk about smart cities? How do we measure the smartness of a city? Who measures it? For whom? What are the tools, values, and constituencies involved in measuring the built environment and the human edifices that inhabit them?

‘Smart Cities?’ is a conference of fictional and critical thoughts that seeks to debate and measure the measuring of cities and the various urban epistemological models that define urbanization and development in the 21st century.

Organized in three panels: Impossible Objects, Political Objects, and Measuring Objects, the event presents a series of performances and presentations that bring architects, scholars, artists, sociologists, and scientists together to discuss the means and methods by which we think—and dream—about cities and urbanism, from the planetary scale to the city of New York.

Participants will present New Terms, New Indexes, and New Tools, bringing alive fictional and real pieces of technology, methodology, machine processes, information systems, and critical reflection in order to better understand and develop new and old forms of intelligence that shape our contemporary cities.

From biologically engineered urban agents to new cartographies, from technosolutionist approaches to postcolonial studies, Smart Cities? will present a series of projects, reflections, and propositional values that reflect upon notions of safety, fun, health, activism, education, infrastructure, diversity, memory, and the environment. Ultimately, the conference serves as a forum to compel us to rethink the way in which various forms of knowledge are produced and reproduced within the value systems of our cities.

‘Smart Cities?’ is free and open to the public. Limited seating is available on a first come, first served basis. To RSVP see here.