ecopolis

Symposium on Urban Trajectories in Cairo
January 16th -17th, 2009
Rawabet Theatre
3 Hussein Al Me’mar Pasha Street
off Mahmoud Basiouny Street
Downtown, Cairo

The Kharita symposium is the first public event of an ongoing initiative that explores multiple urban orders simultaneously at play within Cairo.
In recent years, suburban complexes and town centres have been emerging along the outskirts of the capital at an unprecedented scale. These real-estate developments are under construction in parallel to an incessant proliferation of informal settlements across the city’s districts. Meanwhile, educational institutions, multi-national corporations and government apparatuses are moving out of the centre and into those new zones.
Through a series of interviews, lectures, videos, panels and performances, we look at how the circulation of power operates within the city, while inscribing our notions of value, difference and desire. We approach the current moment of building cities as a potential site for articulating new positions vis-à-vis sentiments of nostalgia and the function of criticality. The Kharita symposium considers the impact of cities-to-be on art practices and discursive activity in Cairo.
Pericentre Projects- Nida Ghouse, Malak Helmy & Shahira Issa

Contributors:

Amr Abdel Awi, Sherif el-Azma, Hisham Bahgat, Clare Davies, Eric Denis, Marwan Fayed, Markus ElKatsha, Alaa Khaled, Aglaia Konrad, Samir el-Kordy, Akram al-Magdoob, Omar Nagati, Marion von Osten, Katja Reichard, Joseph Schechla, Peter Spillmann and Brian Kuan Wood.

The Kharita symposium is programmed by Pericentre Projects, in Collaboration with the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary art.
Symposium Program

Urban Screens Melbourne 08 is the third, ground-breaking international conference and multimedia exhibition in a series of worldwide Urban Screens events. It will mark the official launch of the International Urban Screens Association and will take place 3.-8. October at Federation Square, Melbourne.

Conference: Mobile Publics 3-5 October 2008
Outdoor Multimedia Program: 3-8 October 2008

The event will promote a lateral trans-disciplinary approach to exploring the growing appearance of moving images in urban space and the global transformation of public culture in the context of large new multi media precincts such as Federation Square and various networked forms of urban screens. It will build on the successful events held in Amsterdam in 2005 and Manchester in 2007 and will be the first Urban Screens held in the Asia-Pacific region.

Through an integrated program of keynote lectures, panel sessions, workshops, curated screenings and multimedia projects, it will bring together leading Australian and international artists and curators, architects and urban planners, screen operators and content providers, technology manufacturers, software designers and public intellectuals.
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Urban Screens is the beginning of a worldwide movement promoting the extended use of digital displays in public spaces. The Urban Screens initiative represented by the International Urban Screens Association (IUSA) will assist their networking abilities and their sustainable integration in the urban landscape. It will examine how current commercial use can be broadened with cultural and social content and thus become a new public exhibition and information format.

The Urban Screens 08 exhibition is looking for Artists, Urban Poets, Filmmakers and Multimedia and Interaction Designers to submit film and videos or multimedia, interactive or participatory screen based projects. Deadline 31th of may.