I’m headed to our nation’s capital for the first TEDWomen conference but am sad to miss the newest Art Technology and Culture Colloquium talk across the Bay. Rebar Art and Design Studio director Matthew Passmore will be presenting on User-Generated Urbanism at Cal to discuss ways that landscapes are publicly organized. Rebar, his SF-based “art design activism” firm, created the park bandshell and parking day installations that I’ve so enjoyed and that you may have seen at public gatherings. The plans for the event show why this Berkeley Center for New Media talk is especially worth participating in if you can:
“In recent years, the technocratic urban planning establishment has begun to recognize that small-scale, creative, temporary, tactical urban interventions are a powerful instrument for spatial research and experimentation. New collaborative strategies between artists, designers and city agencies have emerged, resulting in urban spaces that are iterative, modular, flexible and designed, in part and over time, by the people who use them. This talk explores recent developments in this trend, known as ‘user-generated urbanism,’ and examines the role of the artist and tactical designer in contributing to the quality and character of urban public spaces.”