Rethinking Density Art, Culture, and Urban Practices

Publication Series of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna VOLUME 20 Rethinking Density Art, Culture, and Urban Practices Anamarija Batista Szilvia Kovács Carina Lesky (Eds.) Rethinking Density Art, Culture, and Urban Practices Rethinking Density Art, Culture, and Urban Practices Anamarija Batista Szilvia Kovács Carina Lesky (Eds.) Publication Series of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Eva Blimlinger, Andrea B. Braidt, Karin Riegler (Series Eds.) VOLUME 20 On the Publication Series We are pleased to present the latest volume in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna’s publication series. The series, published in cooperation with our highly committed partner Sternberg Press, is devoted to central themes of contemporary thought about art practices and theories. The volumes comprise contributions on subjects that form the focus of discourse in terms of art theory, cultural studies, art history, and research at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and represent the quintessence of international study and discussion taking place in the respective �ields. Each volume is published in the form of an anthol- ogy, edited by staff members of the academy. Authors of high international repute are invited to write contributions that deal with the respective areas of emphasis. Research activities such as international conferences, lecture series, institute-speci�ic research focuses, or research projects serve as points of departure for the individual volumes. Starting with this edition, all books in the series will undergo a single blind peer review. International reviewers, whose identity is not disclosed to the editors of the volumes, give an in-depth analysis and evaluation for each essay. The editors then rework the texts, taking into consideration the suggestions and feedback of the reviewers who, in a second step, comment on the revised essay again. The editors—and authors—thus receive what is so rare in academia and also at art universities: committed, informed, and hopefully impartial critical feedback that can be used for �inishing the work. We thank the editors of this volume, Anamarija Batista, Szilvia Kovács, and Carina Lesky, for proposing this volume on revisiting—and reconceptualizing— the notion of “density.” Discussion of built environments has, for many years, meant a re�lection on the concept of density, and rightly so. To look at recent but also historical examples of this subject, bringing together many diff erent authors with a wide range of expertise, has been challenge the editors have met with great success. We thank them for their impeccable editorial work. And we thank—as always—all the partners contributing to the book, especially Sternberg Press. The Rectorate of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Eva Blimlinger, Andrea B. Braidt, Karin Riegler Contents Introduction Anamarija Batista, Szilvia Kovács, and Carina Lesky 10 Editors: Anamarija Batista, Szilvia Kovács, Carina Lesky Editorial Coordinator: Martina Huber Proofreader: Niamh Dunphy Design: Tom Richter, Surface, Frankfurt am Main/Berlin Relational Perspectives on Density Printing: Holzhausen Druck GmbH, Wolkersdorf Binding: Buchbinderei Papyrus, Vienna Planning for Dense Containers? Challenging Amsterdam’s and Vienna’s Strategic Urban Planning from a Relational Cover: Agnes Prammer, Arakawa Gardens, Tokyo, 2016. Photographs. Perspective Courtesy of the artist. Johannes Suitner 22 The editors of this volume were recipients of a DOC-team Fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences at the Institute for Art and Architecture at Unframing Urban Density: The Somaesthetic Cartography the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for History of Intensities and Society, and the Vienna University of Technology. This publication is Marc Boumeester 38 a result of their research project “The Artist as Urban Planner” (2012–16). This publication is peer-reviewed. We thank the anonymous reviewers for Atlas of Invisible Spaces: Mapping the Interface between their in-depth comments and advice. School and City in Vienna’s 15th District Antje Lehn 50 ISBN 978-3-95679-362-2 © 2017 Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Sternberg Press All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part Returning from the Future: OMA’s Concept of Retroactivity in any form. Angelika Schnell 56 Sternberg Press Caroline Schneider Density of Sound, Sounds of Density: An Experimental Karl-Marx-Allee 78 Approach D-10243 Berlin Jürgen Schöpf, Nicolas Remy 66 www.sternberg-press.com Politics of Density and Its Consequences Arakawa Gardens: A Photographic Exploration of Tokyo on the Human Condition Agnes Prammer 178 The Strangely Overheard: Overhearing and the Condition of the Global Subject Peripheral Locations in Budapest: Where Inherent Emptiness Brandon LaBelle 80 Turns into More-Than-Representative Density Formations Szilvia Kovács 180 Urbanity Is Density (and Yet More): The Case of Vienna´s Planning Politics Gabu Heindl 92 Contested Spaces and Power Structures STREET CARPET Occupying Time: A Critical Perspective on the Temporal Anna Artaker, Meike S. Gleim 192 Density in the Urban Condition Elke Krasny 104 Lethal Density: The Research Field of Crowding in the 1960s and ’70s Post-mass Housing: Revitalization of High-Density Nikolai Roskamm 200 Residential Urban Areas—A Case Study in Valencia Improvistos (María Tula García Méndez, Gonzalo Navarrete Mancebo, Alba Navarrete Rodríguez) 114 Crowds, Cordons, and Computers: Rethinking Density through London’s Grime Scene Christabel Stirling 212 Dilemmas around Urban Growth and Density: A Focus on Vienna’s Aspern Seestadt Iván Tosics 120 Le Chiffonnie r, la Glaneuse, and the Rest of Us: Collecting, Gleaning, and Filming Future Memories Nicolai Gütermann, Carina Lesky 232 Public Space as a Key Arena of Density Everyday Densities in Public Space: Lived Practices of Appendix the Spatial Present Sabine Knierbein 136 Image Credits 256 Biographies 260 Density Caused by Shortages: The Role of Public Transportation in Vienna and Budapest in 1918 Marie-Noëlle Yazdanpanah, Katalin Teller 148 Cafés as Designed Settings for Social Performativity Anamarija Batista, Ivana Volić 160 Anamarija Batista, Szilvia Kovács, and Carina Lesky 12 Rethinking Density: Art, Culture, and Urban Practices revisits the topic of urban density, which has for a long time been part of planning debates and is now Introduction regaining interest from diff erent disciplines including cultural studies and artistic research. Dealing with this well-studied and very current issue, the publication aims to open up novel perspectives and discussions related to urban density. Anamarija Batista, Szilvia Kovács, and Carina Lesky The idea for this book emerged from our research project “The Artist as Urban Planner: A Glance at the Cooperation of Artistic and Urban Practices”1 over the course of which we entered a �ield crystallized by diff erent disciplines and methodological approaches all engaging with questions of how cities could be thought about and planned. While architecture, cultural studies, artistic research, and also other contexts such as musicology and cinematic practices discuss similar issues, their models and results are rarely brought to inter- play.2 The category of density is a phenomenon pertaining diverse disciplines as a measure of quantity. Depending on points of view and interests, units are put into the center of measurement thus generating diff erent, sometimes contradictory, qualities and, in turn, associated positions. Its unities vary according to the scales, situations, and involved parties. Instead of a linear relationship, density, especially connected to the city, could be imagined as a collage consisting of fragments from diff erent origins that come together to build a new pattern. The distinctiveness of density as a category is precisely in its elas ticity and de�iance: depending on speci�ic circumstances it can be construed and thought about in various ways, bringing out diff erent meanings. Together with related debates, these ambivalences piqued our curiosity. The use of density as an urban instrument of analysis and diagnosis goes back to the nineteenth century and the rapid growth of cities during the industrial revolution. High housing density resulted in social grievances and substandard hygiene. The phenomenon of the “bed lodgers,” who rented beds in private houses, accounts for contemporary living conditions and de�iciencies. They could not aff ord their own place and would sleep in rented rooms for a few hours before they returned to the streets and factories of the city. From the 1920s onward and especially after the Second World War, density was converted from an ideological instrument of diagnosis into one of intervention. As way to control previous bursts of growth in cities, building planners and city o� icials 1 This research project, originally titled the same time the engine of merging. “KünstlerIn als RaumplanerIn,” was funded Michel Serres, Der Parasit, trans. Michael by the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Bischoff (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 1987), 333. 2012. The view of the “nodes” of relations and 2 The French philosopher of science Michel transitions, as well as the concentration Serres argues that the mutual interference on circulation, is more generative than of developing knowledge within the a focus on boundaries. Michel Serres, disciplines and their constant reference Hermès II, L’interférence, trans. Michael herein to the lived realities highlights Bischoff (Berlin: Merve, 1992), 10–13. the uncertainty, again and again, and

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