NETWORKED CULTURES · negotiating cultural difference in contested spaces

Final Activity Report Summary - NETWORKED CULTURES (Networked Cultures - Negotiating Cultural Difference in Contested Spaces)

Whether in the form of transnational political initiatives, global economies, new technologies or urban social movements, networks are the distinctive characteristic of spatial organisation in the 21st century. Networks have changed our forms of cultural coexistence and communication just as they have the way in which we produce and experience spaces. They have become one of the most prominent concepts relating to the search for new forms of social cohesion and solidarity. The question as to what forms such connectivity should take is not only theoretical in nature but above all a question that points to the self-induced multiplicity of spaces that is continually generated by connectivity's throughout the world and that in the process changes our own spaces of action and continually generates them anew. Benefiting from the fact that networks both structure and constitute an operational field for these global entanglements of people, places and interests, the research project 'Networked Cultures' has floated the possibility of a new collaborative field of cultural engagement by using representational genres such as films, catalogues, exhibitions and websites as an investigative mechanism through which artists, architects, curators and cultural producers collaborate on research into the dynamics of the European cultural landscape. A major result of this research is the book publication 'Networked Cultures: Parallel Architectures and the Politics of Space', which offers a detailed insight into the networked realities of European spatial and cultural transformation. It interrogates contested territories across Europe and beyond, examining the architecture of contestation, and proposing models for geocultural negotiation. Investigating their modus operandi, the focus then shifts to governmentality and self-government by examining the organisational matrix of black markets, informal settlements and accompanying parallel economies. Responding to these global realities, the parallel worlds of mobility and migration are discussed in relation to the current politics of connectivity and the emerging 'archipelago of peripheries'. Building on the network logic of this project and the new spatial creativity of globalised realities, the Networked Cultures project has also utilised other platforms. These include a compilation of conversations on urban interventions, public art projects and architectural experiments conducted with architects, artists, theorists and curators over a period of two years in the form of a feature-length documentary enclosed in the book as a DVD; a website comprising a database, images, texts and dialogues found at, http://www.networkedcultures.org; and not least the on-going installation of the project in the form of networked discursive platforms in art galleries, cinemas, bookstores, universities and community centres.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union