The 8th Urban and Landscape Days: INCIDENTAL URBANISM

“Incidental Urbanism” explores the potential of artistic techniques as a tool of urban research, alternative interventions and fresh designs. We speculate that while literature, music and film represent cities and draw inspiration from urban life, urban scholarship, planning and design could benefit from a more methodical interest in artistic techniques. Narration, montage, polyrhytmicity and performativity are concepts that have meaning in many artistic fields. Rhythmanalysis, proposed by Henri Lefebvre at a late stage of his long career, and study of atmospheres, promoted by Gernot Böhme, are still underused approaches in research.

The notion of “incidental urbanism” aims to capture some of the potential of surprising juxtapositions of various elements and layers of urban space. Simultaneously, it is a metaphor of the creative and open-ended setting of the 8th Urban and Landscape Days. Gathering researchers, architects and artists from Europe and North America, the conference consists of invited lectures, thematic roundtables and workshops, including e.g. a PhD workshop on creative writing. The weekend right after the conference is devoted to tactical excursions to interesting sites in the Tallinn
region.

Organisers’ aim is to create a relaxed setting for discussion and concrete exploratory projects. Main venue is the Kanuti Guild Hall in Tallinn’s Old Town. We have also reserved the independent cultural space März for exhibition and side events (see http://marzprojekt.wordpress.com/about/)

The conference is organised by the Faculty of Architecture, chairs of Urban Studies and Urban Landscapes, in collaboration with Linnalabor, a local NGO, and project room März.

We warmly invite you to Tallinn, the European Cultural Capital 2011!

The organising team:

Katrin Koov
Panu Lehtovuori
Lilia del Rio

Contact:
Chairs for Urban Studies and Urban Landscapes
Faculty of Architecture, Estonian Academy of Arts
Pikk tn 20, 10133, Tallinn, Estonia
+372 6420071
urban@artun.ee
urbanistika.ee / urbanistika.eu