At the locus of 2011 IAMCR Conference at Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey, are “Cities, Connectivity and Creativity.”
The city today as the noted urban sociologist Robert Park once wrote, is:
“man’s most consistent and on the whole, his most successful attempt to remake the world he lives in more after his heart’s desire. But, if the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is henceforth condemned to live. Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense of the nature of his task, in making the city man has remade himself.”
If Park is right, that the city is the world we created and are condemned to live, as well remaking ourselves in the process, we surely need to assess the outcome, the present, interrogate the processes that gave way to that present, and appraise the future(s) that lay ahead. As cityzens, what are the rights, norms and standards we desire? What does global connectivity offer to the riches and uncertainties of urban everyday? What are the aesthetics and economies of creativity in which we invest the future of the city? What are the communicative possibilities that cities afford and hinder?
As the European Capital of Culture 2010 Istanbul has been the experimental site of connectivity through creativity. As the capital of Byzantine and Ottoman Empire and the driving metropolis of the Republic of Turkey, the city, and its interlocutors, the artists, intellectuals, government officers, and activists, have attempted to overcome the historical and contemporary ruptures through acts and enactments of creativity. As in Istanbul, every corner, every stone in every city world over has the traces and bearings of ruptures in memory, identity and ways of living and imagining. The ruptures we excavate are reminders of pasts we long for, as in nostalgia, or forget, as in moving ahead towards a captivating future. The instruments we employ to communicate and connect come from the worlds of arts, whether displayed on the streets, in the historical houses of religion, the mosques, synagogues, churches, in the old abandoned industrial premise, or in the newly built monumental art houses and museums. The inventory of spectacles is seemingly without limit: biennales, film, theater and music festivals, street fests, art exhibitions, fairs and exhibitions, fashion, design and shopping weeks, sports events, as well as environment, health, and social responsibility days.
Networking, mobility and wide scale flow of goods and ideas through internet are the new and coveted phenomena of the 21st century? The creativity finds new spaces of livelihood beyond the conventions of the local and a variety of societal groups and cityzens enjoy access to a plethora of virtual worlds while conceptualizing, producing and sharing and exhibiting their (art) works, ideas and dreams. In this brave new virtual world, “everyone is an artist,” as Joseph Beuys’ suggests. Not only that: every cityzen is also expected to be entrepreneurs, knowledgeable in “what is new and trendy” and playing a role in a globalized economy. The potential and the burden of the cityzens grow as the globalized city expands spatially into virtual worlds, known or unknown.
The globalized networks of culture and creative industries, mobilization of art worlds and international collaborations are now considered the engines of cosmopolitan urban experience and transformation. Cities as far and distinct from each other like New York, London, Berlin, Beijing, Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur and Istanbul invest their futures in economies of creativity and communication. How feasible is this strategy in the face growing social, environmental and structural setbacks and handicaps related to available resources, expanding scale and increasing inequality? How sustainable is city as a place of expansive consumption and extensive spectacle? How do cityzens connect and communicate over distances of segregation, difference and inequity?
As the IAMCR conference moves from Mexico to Braga and to Istanbul, these and other questions await our scholarly responses and intellectual interventions. A wide-ranging set of issues, themes and topics confronts us for exploration and interrogation:
- Creative and culture industries in a globalized economy
- Global city, connectivity and communication
- Art, culture and transnationalism
- Cosmopolitanism as an ideal and practice
- Economies of art and creativity
- Democratization of creativity
- Hybridities, identities, creativity
- Migration as a space of connectivity and creativity
- Commercializing creativity
- Production of local in a global city
- Production of inequality in a global city
- The world of social networks, connectivity and creativity
- Digital artworlds and virtual connectivity
- Social responsibility, personhood and global city
- Rights and duties of cityzens and global order
- Membership, communities and marginalized groups
- Global economies and politics of gender
