Public Life in the In-Between-City

Haifa, Israel
6-10 June, 2010 
International Conference

The aim of the conference is to critically reexamine the forms, appearance, meaning and performance of publicness in spaces of dispersed urban surroundings, the fastest growing habitat of humans on earth. Constantly growing, the earth population increasingly lives in "archipelagos of peripheries" - hybrids of villages, suburbs, city outskirts, industrial and rural areas, that have been termed In-Between-City (Zwischenstadt), Netcity (Netzstadt), Non-Place or Region-City. Some of these urbanites have moved into their current residence from other towns, regions, or continents, voluntarily or driven by conflict or disaster. Others are likely to move due to the incessantly changing neo-liberal economy, or for political or cultural reasons. Their diverse life-styles, induced by and regenerative of worlds of flow, consists of mobility and motion in the context of physical, social, cultural, economic and political networks. What are the phenomena of publicness under these conditions and emergent life-styles? Publicness as the content of urban public space is related to accessibility, democracy, encounter, togetherness, neighboring, exchange, intensity etc. It has been associated with physical incorporation in plazas, streets, commons and various built public institutions, of European and Non-European traditions. What are the patterns and qualities of public spaces in the In-Between-City? In the contemporary urban reality of fragmentation, privatization and dispersal, public space requires revisiting. The new spatial mechanisms of contemporary urban realities provide platforms for new and challenging typologies of public spaces in which public-life can and actually is re-conceived. Public spaces might work partially, temporarily, as events, random meeting places, open and enabling specific programs, and aimed to ward specific users and activities. What are the potential contributions of researchers and designers to publicness and public spaces in the In-Between-City? Through examinations of, among others, the following themes – definition of public space/place; single vs. multiple interpretation/identity; unity vs. discontinuity in space and time; abstract vs. real belonging; the planned/designated vs. the spontaneous / subversive – we would like to reexamine the appearance, meaning, performance and form of publicness in the public spaces of the dispersed urban surroundings. In the light of contemporary cultural, political, technological, environmental and social conditions, can we think of the In-between City as open to both the close/ familiar and the diferent/other? to the global and the local? a space of encounter and discourse? a space of new ways towards sustainability? of emergent new responsibilities? of new forms, activities, uses, mechanisms?

THEMES:

• History of public life in the in-between city: more than recent decades phenomena
• Types of in-between cities and inherent public life in various geographical, sociocultural and political contexts
• Nature, structure and infrastructure
• Time, space, hubs and networks
• Alternative spaces of freedom and democracy in the in-between city
• Identity, belonging and inter-cultural communication
• Appearance, event and performance of public life in the in-between city
• The real and the virtual: communication, relation and mobility of public life in the in-between city
• Embodied experience of public life in the in-between city
• Design/planning, otherness and rights to the in-between city. 


VISIT THE OFFICIAL SITE:
http://plic.ar.technion.ac.il/PLiC_-_Public_Life_in_the_In-Between-City/PLiC_-_International_Conference_6-10_June,_2010.html