idea of interaction [phase 1]

observing shrinking cities


artist mark lombardi


networks inhabit media space


observation instead of interaction.
revelation instead of planning.
scanning instead of projecting.

yes, in shrinking cities, the population is decreasing. but is physical population the only parameter that should be considered? a lot of processes are generated by the decrease of population. are those increasing virtual processes maybe as important? can cities develop stronger identities if they allow themselves to create their own success formulas? is the uniformity of world success-cities formed by the common consensus in their ambitions?

our protagonists are interest and curiosity, our resources are all sorts of public available data. our favourite local actor would be detroitsynergy.org. linking the data in new ways and making processes and relations visible by using diagrams and maps. the artist mark lombardi gathered public available data and simply relating them, seemingly independent events could be understood as dependent actions.

merging: can we tie urban processes to fields and topics it is normally not associated with? corporate structure, marketing and branding are de-territorialized fields with remarkable similar objectives and structure as cities. can the city loosen its dependency to its own location and enter new networks by picking up strategies from other disciplines?