“The self-referential city”

26 November, 16:00-19:00, Viale del Risorgimento 2 Bologna, Room 3.6

Abstract:

The lecture focuses on the relation between the public sphere in cities, towns or urban centres, the human beings that live in these public spaces and especially the number of signs, texts and images in the public sphere that all communicate a certain message. These special kinds of communication via the medium of architecture, urban structure and the plurality of surfaces in the public sphere will be traced using the ideas of German sociologist Hans-Paul Bahrdt and a system theory of communication. Furthermore, the ideas will be applied to the concept of ‘non-places’ by Marc Augé, a French anthropologist, in order to get an idea of which signs and communicative codes in public places are able to express the identity of the place and the people living in it.

References:

Augé, Marc ([1995] 2008): Non-Places. An Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London/New York: Verso. / Nonluoghi. Introduzione a una antropologia della surmodernità, Milano, Eleuthera, 2005.

Bahrdt, Hans-Paul ([1961] 1998): Die moderne Großstadt. Soziologische Überlegungen zum Städtebau. Wiesbaden: Springer.

Luhmann, Niklas ([1995] 2000): Art as a Social System. Stanford: Stanford University Press. / L'arte della società, ed. it. a cura di G. Corsi, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2017.

Luhmann, Niklas ([1998] 2012): Theory of Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press. / Teoria della società / Niklas Luhmann, Raffaele De Giorgi,Milano, F. Angeli, 2003.

Luhmann, Niklas ([1984] 1995): Social Systems, Stanford: Stanford University Press. / Sistemi sociali. Fondamenti di una teoria generale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2001.

Schilling, Samuel (2018): “Die selbstreferentielle Stadt. Kommunikation und die Orte urbaner Öffentlichkeit“. In: Schriften zur Kultur- und Mediensemiotik 5.

Wehrheim, Jan (2009): Der Fremde und die Ordnung der Räume. Opladen: Budrich.

Speakers:

Peter Klimczak (Priv.-Doz. Dr. phil. et Dr. rer. nat. habil.) is Deputy Head of the Department of Applied Media Studies at the Brandenburg University of Technology. His research interests are formal-logical/mathematical modelling of cultural-scientific theories and concepts, digitization in media and cultural studies, and media, cultural and film semiotics. Together with Samuel Schilling, he has recently published “Machines of communication” (Springer 2019).

Samuel Schilling (M.A.) is Ph.D. student at the Brandenburg University of Technology and works for the research-cluster “cognitive systems”. In his thesis, he describes forms of reflection and subversion of social identity in media. Specifically, he investigates public discourses in the platform Twitter and the communication strategies of protest groups based on the theory of reflection and subversion and the analysis of social media data.

“Cinema and the understanding of designed environments”

27 November, 16:00-19:00, Viale del Risorgimento 2 Bologna, Room 0.4

Abstract:

According to Elena Esposito, cinema (and especially science fiction films) can be understood as a vast repository of effective and creative attempts to deal with the challenges of the future. Indeed, sci-fi movies have created a collective consciousness of detailed imaginations of what city life might look and sound like in the future: the mostly dystopic, uninhabitable and lonely cities of the future comment on highly topical issues of urban life, like the increasing presence of complex technologies in the urban landscape or increasing segregation and gentrification – and how to deal with them through smart city planning. By means of contemporary filmic future cities the first (and longer) part of this presentation extracts implicit and explicit filmic examples of progressive and innovative city planning in the anonymous megacities of tomorrow. The second (and shorter) part deals with the fundamental differences between imagined future and real past and the scientific ways of distinguishing between fictionality and factuality by means of dystopian science fiction films.

References:

Augé, Marc ([1995] 2008): Non-Places. An Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London/New York: Verso. / Nonluoghi. Introduzione a una antropologia della surmodernità, Milano, Eleuthera, 2005.

Esposito, Elena (2008): Probabilità improbabili. La realtà della finzione nella società moderna.

Roma: Meltemi.

Klimczak, Peter (2020): “Fremde Welten – Eigene Welten. Zur kategorisierenden Rolle von Abweichungen für Fiktionalität”. In: Medienkomparatistik. Beiträge zur vergleichenden Medienwissenschaft 2. [in appearance]

Luhmann, Niklas (1991): Soziologie des Risikos. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter./ Sociologia del rischio, Milano, B. Mondadori, 1996.

Newiak, Denis (2018): “Future Cities of Loneliness: Dysfunctional Urbanities on Filmic Mars“.

In: Journal of Language and Communication 48: Cities of the Future, pp. 208–221.

Sennett, Richard ([1977] 2017): The Fall of Public Man. New York: W. W. Norton / Il declino dell'uomo pubblico / Richard Sennett, Milano, B. Mondadori, 2009.

Speakers:

Peter Klimczak (Priv.-Doz. Dr. phil. et Dr. rer. nat. habil.) is Deputy Head of the Department of Applied Media Studies at the Brandenburg University of Technology. His research interests are formal-logical/mathematical modelling of cultural-scientific theories and concepts, digitization in media and cultural studies, and media, cultural and film semiotics. Together with Samuel Schilling, he has recently published “Machines of communication” (Springer 2019).

Denis Newiak (M.A.) studied European Media Studies at the University of Potsdam, Germany, and Film Studies at the Freie Universtität Berlin. He also studied abroad at the University of Copenhagen, and conducted research at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Brandenburg University of Technology working on his thesis on concepts of loneliness and community formation in contemporary fictional television series. Together with Anke Steinborn, he is publisher of “Filmic Sci-Fi Cities as Dispositive for Urban Futures” (Springer 2020).

“Media and city”

28 November, 10:00-12:00, Viale del Risorgimento 2 Bologna, Department ex-Library room, 2nd floor

Abstract:

The first (and more theoretical) part focuses on the relation between the public sphere in cities, towns or urban centres, the human beings that live in these public spaces and especially the number of signs, texts and images in the public sphere that all communicate a certain message. These special kinds of communication via the medium of architecture, urban structure and the plurality of surfaces in the public sphere will be traced using the ideas of German sociologist Hans-Paul Bahrdt. The second (and more practical) part extracts implicit and explicit filmic examples of progressive and innovative city planning in the anonymous megacities of tomorrow by means of contemporary filmic future cities. According to Elena Esposito, cinema (and especially science fiction films) can be understood as a vast repository of effective and creative attempts to deal with the challenges of the future.

References:

Esposito, Elena (2008): Probabilità improbabili. La realtà della finzione nella società moderna.

Roma: Meltemi.

Augé, Marc ([1995] 2008): Non-Places. An Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London/New York: Verso. / Nonluoghi. Introduzione a una antropologia della surmodernità, Milano, Eleuthera, 2005.

Bahrdt, Hans-Paul ([1961] 1998): Die moderne Großstadt. Soziologische Überlegungen zum Städtebau. Wiesbaden: Springer.

Newiak, Denis (2018): “Future Cities of Loneliness: Dysfunctional Urbanities on Filmic Mars“.

In: Journal of Language and Communication 48: Cities of the Future, pp. 208–221.

Speakers:

Peter Klimczak (Priv.-Doz. Dr. phil. et Dr. rer. nat. habil.) is Deputy Head of the Department of Applied Media Studies at the Brandenburg University of Technology. His research interests are formal-logical/mathematical modelling of cultural-scientific theories and concepts, digitization in media and cultural studies, and media, cultural and film semiotics. Together with Samuel Schilling, he has recently published “Machines of communication” (Springer 2019).

Denis Newiak (M.A.) studied European Media Studies at the University of Potsdam, Germany, and Film Studies at the Freie Universtität Berlin. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Brandenburg University of Technology working on his thesis on concepts of loneliness and community formation in contemporary fictional television series. Together with Anke Steinborn, he is publisher of “Filmic Sci-Fi Cities as Dispositive for Urban Futures” (Springer 2020).

Samuel Schilling (M.A.) is Ph.D. student at the Brandenburg University of Technology and works for the research-cluster “cognitive systems”. In his thesis, he describes forms of reflection and subversion of social identity in media. Specifically, he investigates public discourses in the platform Twitter and the communication strategies of protest groups based on the theory of reflection and subversion and the analysis of social media data.