I+C+i: P U B L I C September 18, 2007

With the participation of: Marleen Stikker, from The Waag Society (Amsterdam); Friederich Von Borries, from the Shrinking Cities project (Berlin); Joan Roca i Albert, from Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona); Rosa Pera, free lance curator (Barcelona)
How do we design and apply interdisciplinary working methodologies that activate the development of cultural production from within and for the benefit of the public realm?

We will begin with research projects concerning the public realm built around different collective phenomena and fields of knowledge, with reciprocity between producers and users as a structuring force. Taking civil society as an active and recurring element, we will treat its participation from different perspectives: on the basis of investigative structures and from the standpoint of production, in practices with social implications. Taking the projects as case studies, we will contrast them with the context nearest at hand: Barcelona
What does working from a cultural standpoint in the public realm entail?
How is public space construed?
Which agents come into play?
Which methodologies can be employed?

The core of this I+C+i session is the treatment of the notion of the “public” in different designations, such as public space or an audience: “the public domain” and “the public”. With respects to this notion, the exploration of which research projects and which practices emerge from the application of culture as praxis, using models which include collaboration and participation as integral parts of the working process.