[ecrea] cfp: DIGITAL POLIS City facing digital: Stakes of a project conjugated in the future

status: CfP Call for papers
Conference
DIGITAL POLIS  City facing digital: Stakes of a project conjugated in the future
29.01.15-31.01.15
Paris

DIGITAL POLIS
City facing digital : stakes of a project conjugated in the future

Two main axis will be developed during the colloquium : on the first day, this scientific event will attempt to draw an archaeology of the concepts that are at the basis of the so called Smart City, the second day will focus on social dynamics and processes of public participation within the city when facing digital. A concluding round table including members of the scientific committee will be attended.

This colloquium will take place in Paris on the 29th, 30th and 31st of january 2015.

Proposals of communication are to be hand in on the 1st of september 2014.
They shall be sent on the following email address :(digitalpolis2015 /at/ gmail.com)

Information, news and full scientific intentions can be found on the website digitalpolis.org

Theme 1
Archaeology of the digital city : concepts and stories of a project conjugated in future

For less than a decade, the construction of the concept "digital city" has been manifested by the application of discourse fed by a unique rhetoric: innovation, digital revolution, new information technologies and communication, cyberspace, "smart city", "digital ecosystem", complexity, open data, open and social innovation, networking, collective intelligence, co-construction, e-participation?

The change of our era is marked by a group of concepts, which are crucial to be investigated. From the lexical fields being used where a common - popularized - sense is forged. Re-examining and mending ties will be necessary between these basic concepts that emerge and come together in the digital lexicon similar to the archaeological discipline.

Firstly the colloquium will open a new historic approach by sketching Foucault's genealogy of these concepts and their relationships to the project of the city at different periods. Secondly it will investigate disciplinary approach to question the relationship between the disciplines involved: from social sciences to computing, from urban design to ecology, from political sciences to biology, etc ?

Thus, how are concepts such as modernity, progress or innovation transforming when they become the echo of the contemporary city? Were these concepts, from this digital rhetoric, declined in the past, particularly in the different projections of the city, and if yes, how? Indeed, what significance does the adjective "smart" have when it is related to the city? Or was the network concept developed in its conception in the urban fabric? How urban design is declined when talking about digital, Internet and web 2.0? In return, would there be any tradition of innovation of the city? Would the city not be generating certain technological developments including digital?

The archaeology of the key concepts of "digital city" carried by the conference is open to proposals from the authors.

Theme 2
City versus digital : social dynamics and processes of public participation

The second theme of the colloquium focuses on stakeholders of the "digital city" trying to understand the social dynamics working in the panorama of the contemporary urban city. The development of digital technology, urban space and social dynamics seem to be closely related: what are the characteristics, similarities and distinctions that arise from the simultaneous existence of different stakeholders in an urban area? Thus the  interventions seek to interrogate the different scales and stakeholders.

Third-places, fablabs, "digital neighborhoods," cities and international influence of the "Smart city", all these terms refer to different spatial scales, and yet they are bearers of the construction of the "digital city". Thus, what relations and what stakes would be possible to reveal from a territorialized "digital discourse"?

> From the figure of user-resident-citizen to the figure hacker-maker-entrepreneur, from the digital "urban ecosystem" to international organizations, many digital devices are now implemented in urban areas pretending the re-examination of the assigned rules for every one. What is the nature of public participation when conducted by the application of digital devices?

In a time of the projection of a "digital city", the neutrality of technological tools and the emergence of a digital culture need to be questioned. Moreover, their output and political projects need to be formulated. Mediations tools, digital services are equipping and transforming the city, from urban co-operated platforms functioning on the interrogation mode to the co-conception devices of visionning or collaborative type.

These new claimed practices with a project for the city designed by and for digital technology contains implicit or explicit political views on the city. Citizens protests in San Francisco in late 2013, in response to the mechanisms of gentrification and privatization as a result of the growing presence of international companies in Silicon Valley, seem to demonstrate a tension between urban space and social conformation, since then, what conflicts, relationships, dialogues and deviations are initiated by a "digital strategy" for the city?

Papers may examine the social and political dynamics at work in the deployment of "digital city" from concrete case studies, from the point of view of the inhabitants, designers and public and private decision makers.


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