Every year the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Architecture hosts a symposium in the series
Atmosphere.
The
Atmosphere symposia explore the intangible and overlooked dimensions of architecture and the city: those difficult to pin down, document, record with conventional instruments and methodologies.
Atmopshere 2011 will focus on MEDIATED CITIES, the image of architecture, space, and place in cinema and other media. There is a long history of "city films" which have portrayed the experience of urban life, exploring through that experience the qualities and conundrums of modern life. Today that history is updated as cinema is supplemented by new forms of media including video, internet, and portable media. These new forms of media emerge from and articulate shifts and developments in architecture, landscape and cities as well as global geographies, technologies and politics. They include imaginary as well as documentary narratives, and works that blur the two. They are also being incorporated, rapidly, into the practice of all design disciplines.
The term
Mediated Cities is intentionally polyvalent:
- - It suggests contextuality and intertextuality: Atmosphere and environment over object.
- - It implies the importance of the perception or image of the city: the urban imaginary.
- - It suggests mediation between disciplines: creating a dialogue.
- - It suggests reconciliation between citizens and social groups: finding common ground, and negotiating claims to that ground.
- - It acknowledges the nature of modern representation: always mediated.
- - It can include a variety of representations: not just film, not even just visual media.
This shared concept encourages the participation of diverse academic disciplines in the university and creative organizations and artists in the community. These include the Faculty of Architecture, the Department of English, Film and Theatre, and the Winnipeg Film Group, and other groups in the community and the academy. The program will include public viewings of film and video in the university and the inner city, presentations of research as well as works of film and media generated from it, as well as the work of international and community-based artists.
The conference will build bridges between disciplines, between research and creation, between the academy and the community – contributing to the production of a truly mediated city.