These are a collection of projects I will be pursuing over the next few years. As an Urban Studies student I am interested in the relationship between symbolic and material systems as they manifest through urban occurrences. It is my hope that through these projects I will be able to explore the roles of different forces in impacting our every day surroundings through variable discursive means.
The Marx-Engels Forum
An on-going study of the city center of Berlin. Currently I am conducting observations in-situ while developing an archive of images and texts.
Light Sociality and Urban Political Mobilization
This project is developing as a study of how cities throughout the globe contribute to the participation of various persons in the Jewish National Movement. It has begun with a vignette of Austin, Texas and its role in the global network.
As the Nation of Israel is a country literally being constructed through urbanism, this research project attempts to understand the ways in which persons throughout the globe are able to participate in this construction and are stakeholders in dynamic processes such as the physical planning/building of the nation, monetary support and the creation and continual negotiation of an Israeli identity.
Past-Utopic Community
The question of utopia is both a philosophical pursuit and a pragmatic approach to urban planning which has been extensively documented throughout the history of urban planning and design. The well known top-down renewal of Paris by Hausmann or Ebenezer Howard’s garden cities in America throughout the post-World War 2 era of staunch anti-communism and suburb development have left us with unsteady terrain upon which to address the common needs of humanity and its excessive needs.
The (im)Material
Material presence has been accorded a diverse reputation throughout the strains of philosophical thought ranging from Plato to Marx. Limits are inherent within any approach to understanding and making knowledge, but when these limits are seen as being flexible and less rigid than previously thought, new opportunities arise for creative pursuits.
For the (im)Material project I will be seeking to explicate the connections between the immaterial and the physical space that is created through its myriad instances. Specifically I will be exploring the relationship between wireless communications technology, social space and the production of urban publics. My familiarity with recent developments in design to meet the need for public gathering spaces related to communications technology is at best limited, however my desire is to pursue a train of thought establishing investment in communications infrastructure (such as wireless routers) with the production of new urban spaces.
