Network infrastructure as commons and the right to a hybrid city
Fourth public event of the Studies of Commons program will hold two lectures – ”Network infrastructure as commons and the right to a hybrid city/ from the community network to off-the-cloud manual” by Panayotis Antoniadis and ”Hybrid sidewalk as urban commons” by Ileana Apostol
19 Jan
Date
Thursday, 19. jan
Time
18h
Program Language
English
Location
Entrance
FREE!
About the lecture
The lecture Network infrastructure as commons and the right to a hybrid city. from the community network to off-the-cloud manual by Panayotis Antoniadiswill provide a brief introduction of the history and the different forms of DIY networking, from network communities of larger-scale such as guifi.net and freifunk.net, to mobile off-the-cloud networks such as PirateBox and Occupy.here, as well as a discussion on the theme of their potential role in terms of supporting the future struggle for the “rights to a hybrid city”.
The lecture will focus on the ICT infrastructure as commons, i.e. “right to a hybrid city” from the concept “right to the city”, which was introduced by the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre, in light of the new information space that introduces ICT into a modern urban environment. Such areas include the use of social networks, the media locator, e-participatory platform, online community neighbors, and so on. Different from the physical urban space covering, this new and fast-growing virtual space practically has no limitations in terms of capacity. However, this space is filled with inequalities in terms of access, representation, participation, and ownership. This lecture explores the role of wireless technology that allows easy development of local networks that operate outside the public Internet, as well as the role of free and open society software that allows easy development of customized local applications, allowing citizens to shape their hybrid space in the making.
Tune into the Facebook live transmission of the lecture! All interested parties who are unable to physically attend the public lectures, have the opportunity to follow them live via Nova Iskra Facebook page.
The second lecture Hybrid sidewalk as urban commons by Ileana Apostolexamines the metaphor of sidewalks in the context of the “hybrid” nature of our contemporary cities, including its role in facilitating the flow of information between citizens in an informal atmosphere, to encourage a comprehensive understanding of the possibilities to usurp urban space.
City streets and their sidewalks can be understood as an extension of the city inhabitants personal space, which play a key role in the process of localization of the social exchange, and finally the living space itself. In this sense, sidewalks are the physical manifestation of the city right of its inhabitants; their use and organization of illustrating a specific understanding of urban commons. At the same time, the magical universe of diverse and unexpected regarding the sidewalk creates a temporary sense of togetherness. The lecture will also discuss cooperative habitation understood as a political process, before it becomes a physical space in the city.
Through a series of lectures and workshops, Studies of Commons investigate topics such as alternatives to capitalism, heritage and the possibility of self-management, including implications of technological, economic and urban development that are guided by the idea of general or common good, i.e. commons.
Studies of Commons are co-presented by Nova Iskra, Ministry of Space andRegional Science Research Centre of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, and are realized with the support of the Heinrich Boell Foundation.
Lecturers
Panayotis Antoniadis
Interdisciplinary researcher
Panayotis Antoniadis is co-founder of non for profit organizations nethood.org. His professional experience includes a combination of design and development of distributed systems (Computer Science Department, University of Crete), as well as a Ph.D on the subject of economics peer-to-peer networks (Athens University of Economics and Business), and post-doc on the subject of politics for the federalisation of shared virtual infrastructure (UPMC Sorbonne Universites), and interdisciplinary research of the IC + technologies role in bridging the virtual and physical spaces in cities (ETH Zurich). Currently he is active in organization of various interdisciplinary event which aims to bring together researchers, practitioners and activists from various fields over the participatory design issue of hybrid urban spaces with a focus on wireless and peer-to-peer technology.
Ileana Apostol
Researcher
Ileana Apostol (PhD in Urban Planning, University of Southern California) is a spacious production researcher in the information age, and co-founder of the non-profit organization nethood.org based in Zurich. With the aim to give citizens the right of a hybrid city, she collaborates with interdisciplinary teams, proposing different forms of urban research and design pedagogy inspired by the spatial production theory of Lefebvre. Before fully dedicating to research, Ileana has taught urban planning and design at the Polytechnic University in California, the University of Southern California and the University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest.