Designing the local in times of geomedia
In this special installment of the Geomedia Speaker Series, we reach out to practitioners as well as academics in an effort to rethink the role of geomedia in the design of different places and in relation to different forms of local life. The event is intended to spark critical as well as creative discussions around issues like belonging, participation and authenticity.
- How can we plan and design places for social interaction and togetherness in an era when people live much of their lives online (that is, in many places at the same time)?
- How can new media technology contribute to local identities without reproducing rigid boundaries between “us” and “them”?
- When and where is it important to create places of disconnection – and, conversely, what happens to places that do not live up to the “connectivity norm”?
Geomedia refers to a new social condition where media technologies are essential to the creation of places and where media per se entail spatial functions, such as navigation, location-based services and geo-tagged communication. This condition creates new challenges to spatial planners, architects and destination designers as well as to journalists, cultural producers and other communicators who want to contribute to local life and the making of good, hospitable places. Such challenges, in turn, may look distinctly different depending on location, notably between urban centers and more provincial areas.
Date: April 15
Schedule (local time, CET)
09.00 - 09.15
Introduction (Jenny Sundén, director Geomedia & Lena Grip, coordinator Geomedia)
Hospitality by design? New perspectives on media, tourism and place making
09.15 - 09.50 Building belonging: Recovering from the past, designing for the future
Adrian Franklin, Professor of Creativity and Cultural Policy, University of South Australia
09.55 - 10.25 Designing with the local: Action research for mediated place-based experiences
Linda Ryan Bengtsson, assistant professor Media & Communication, Karlstad University
10.25 - 10.40
Break
10.45 - 11.15 Designing the local under the sign of the tourist/tourism
Mekonnen Tesfahuney, professor Human Geography, Karlstad University
11.15 - 12.45
Lunch
Who has the right to (the digital) place? Connections and disconnections in everyday life
12.45 - 13.15 Everyday Digital Placemaking and Social Media
Lee Humphreys, professor Communication, Cornell University
13.20 - 13.50 Transforming the Main Square – Public Space Use in the Wake of New Technology
Mattias Kärrholm, professor Architectural theory, Lund University
13.50 - 14.10
Break
14.10 - 14.40 Communicating exclusion and belonging in a controversial heterotopia
Emilia Ljungberg, assistant professor Media & Communication, Karlstad University
14.45 - 15.15 (Dis)connected territories in the post-digital city
Karin Fast, associate professor Media & Communication, University of Oslo
15.20 - 16.00
Panel discussion and summing up