European Urban Media Network for Connecting Cities

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Connecting cities is a European project coordinate by Public Art Lab an co-organize by Ars Electronica GmbH (Linz), iMAL (Brussels), FACT (Liverpool), m-cult (Helsinki), Medialab-Prado (Madrid), Media Architecture Institute (Vienna), Riga 2014, Videospread (Marseille), BIS Body Process Arts Association (Istanbul) and The Museum of Contemporary Art (Zagreb). MUTEK (Montreal), Marseille Provence 2013 (Marseille) and Aarhus University (Aarhus) are associated partners.

Mediafacades and urban screens are changing the landscape we live in and spreading in the cities, but the uses of these devices are complex, since they are not connected and most part of their contents are business oriented. Through modern Information and communication technologies (ICT), they are membranes between the digital and the urban spaces. All over the world we can evidence an increase of urban screens, media facades, media technologies like mobile phones and interent access. What is the potential of urban media besides the commercial usage for advertisement? How can they catalyse communication and awareness of our environments and contribute to a lively society? How can we create an exchange between local scenes and neighbourhoods thus giving a voice to the public audience? Which impact will they have for our global communities?

Conecting Cities aims to open up these new urban media as a communication platform connected to the presentation of cultural and social contents, as well as to generate an exchange between different local scenes.

From July 2012 to 2016 this project will create and test the network through events, debates, workshops and artist programmes around three main research topics: Networked City, Participatory City and Visible City.