Переосмысление территорий

Reconfiguring Territories

Territooriumite ümber mõtestamine

Uudelleenmäärittyvät paikallisuudet

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Category: Spring School Workshop 2019

Theory, History, Poetry

Posted on by Reconfiguring Territories

Spring School 2019
→ Весенняя Школа 2019
→ Kevadkool 2019
→ Kevätkoulu 2019

In the Theory, History, Poetry Workshop led by Aiwen Yin, spring school participants walked through history in poetry, ate theory on history, and wrote poetry on theory by wandering, listening, reading, ruminating, conversing and writing together in the city.

In the Narva Urban Lab the group presented an exhibition where the participants shared their textual work as installations and performances.

Spring School Mentors
→ Весенняя Школа
→ Kevadkool
→ Kevätkoulun mentorit

Yin Aiwen

Yin Aiwen
Yin Aiwen is a practicing designer, theorist and project developer, who uses writing, speculative design and time-based art to examine the social impact of planetary communication technologies. She advocates relationship-focused design as a strategy to redesign, re-engineer and reimagine the relationship between technology and society.
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MetaNAR

Posted on by Reconfiguring Territories

Spring School 2019
→ Весенняя Школа 2019
→ Kevadkool 2019
→ Kevätkoulu 2019

MetaNAR

In the metaNAR – Narration for Digital Society Workshop led by Damiano Cerrone, five participants used digital means to explore the metamorphology of Narva, process the digital footprint and map the collective landscape of the city.

MetaMorphological research explores the speculative form of the city by examining the shape of the urban environment and its cultural landscape, emphasizing the significance of technology and the rules of media platforms for the creation of urban loci. metaNAR was an attempt to apply this framework to the border city of Narva, where we introduced a new, synthetic landscape.

We leveraged GANs and style extraction (neural style transfer without the content loss, in collaboration with Rheza Budiono) to encourage discussion and broaden speculation about the condition and future of a city, about the way in which its complexities might unravel. Through experimenting with these technologies in Narva’s post-industrial landscape, we eventually arrived at a place of hope: that computer vision, large-scale image analysis, and cartography, when coalesced, can be tools for abstracting the shapes and functions of a city, unleashing the collective imagination of groups, giving them the capacity to redefine their own environment.

We are proposing to write an article about the use of new digital media as tools for reconfiguring the imagination of contemporary cities.

Photo of the metanar.com website: The Image of Three Cities Narva, Нарва and Narwa
The Image of Three Cities: Narva, Нарва and Narwa

Spring School Mentors
→ Весенняя Школа
→ Kevadkool
→ Kevätkoulun mentorit

Damiano Cerrone

Damiano Cerrone
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Deconstructed Field Study

Posted on by Reconfiguring Territories

Spring School 2019
→ Весенняя Школа 2019
→ Kevadkool 2019
→ Kevätkoulu 2019

In the Deconstructed Field Studies -workshop lead by Polina Medvedeva, participants interacted with the city and its inhabitants documenting small stories and local knowledge about the informal economies and non-conformist communal structures of Narva.

In 2012 Narva’s old town gets a brand new building, standing next to the Town Hall. Freshly inaugurated Narva College, say Kavakava Architects, reflects the former Stock Exchange Building destroyed during the Second World War. Yet for some Narva older residents, the modern architecture comes as a challenge to their representations.

When entering the building shaped with clear wood structures, a sense of utopia invades the thoughts. A new generation is busy going in and out through the glass doors, discussing at the fancy café or leaning over Estonian and Russian books in the cosy library. Somehow, accounts of the former Kreenholm factory’s social life come to mind. Perhaps, the youth has found its new headquarters.

Among these ambitious youngsters, some have crossed the border from neighbouring Russia. The hybrid situation of Narva appears as an unforeseen opportunity for those who aspire to open the door to Europe.

And yet… just like the golden age of Kreenholm don’t include hard work, stress and health problems in the picture… is the European university utopia resisting the reality of Narva’s complexity? How is this new generation of Russian-speakers arriving in Narva going to face Estonia’s conflicted past? How are Estonians going to process the changing structure and ambitions of the Russian-speaking population? How is the identity of Narva going to be transformed?

As the medieval castle stands still on the bank of the undisturbed Narva river, it feels hard to find the clue, and so we wonder… What will be the face of the future Narva?

(Re)configuring Territories Spring School 2019 – Deconstructed Field Studies 1/2
(Re)configuring Territories Spring School 2019 – Deconstructed Field Studies 2/2

Spring School Mentors
→ Весенняя Школа
→ Kevadkool
→ Kevätkoulun mentorit

Polina Medvedeva

Polina Medvedeva
POLINA MEDVEDEVA is a Russian-Dutch filmmaker and artist based in Amsterdam. Her work researches the notion of informality, focusing on informal economies and non-conformist communal structures, their principles of which influence the aesthetics of her videos.
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