[ISEA2010] Paper: Jonas Fritsch & Christoph Brunner – Balloons, Sweat and Technologies: Urban Interventions through Ephemeral Architectures

Abstract

Society of Molecules was orchestrated by the SenseLab as an emergent and internationally distributed micropolitical event for research-creation carried out in several countries during the first week of May, 2009. This paper reports from the Montréal-based molecule named the Lack of Information Kiosk. It aimed at bringing attention to urban mobilizations on the frontierland between a traditional working-class distcrict (Parc Extension) bordering a bourgeois neighborhood (Outrement) in the northern part of the city. Université de Montréal has bought the 56.0000 m2 space between these two districts to develop their future campus literally closing off access from Parc Extension. The quotidian appropriations of this space (by walkers, dog owners, homeless) confront the multiple layers of a space that suffers from a lack of information. The focus was on this ever-present lack of information in both governmental and everyday dialogues about the future of the physical and social spaces.

  • Jonas Fritsch (DK) is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at Aarhus University (DK) working on a multitudinous thinking-together of interaction design and affect theory in conjunction with practical interaction design experiments carried out at the Center for Digital Urban Living, Dep. of Information and Media Studies.
  • Christoph Brunner (DK) is a researcher in the department of Arts & Media at the University of Arts in Zurich and at the same time completes a Ph.D. at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture at Concordia University, Montréal, CA.

Full text (PDF) p.  265-267