How to research and generate an imagined city
Armando Silva
Colombia
Studying urban imaginaries corresponds to a theory of social perceptions, which follows the studies born in philosophical, semiotic, psychoanalytic and public art fields, but establishes a new look based on what we call "citizen urbanism", not that of architects but that of citizens, in their daily lives. With this it is inferred that our studies do not aim at the physical city but at the imagined one. Seeing, smelling, hearing, walking, stopping, remembering, representing are attributes that must be studied in every city. The workshop will seek to provide the keys to detect and build an imagined city, according to the experience of its proponent, under a principle: The imagined city precedes the physical city in the ways of inhabiting it. Researching the imagined city from this methodology involves three parts that are developed gradually and in the progressive order described, but all intertwined with each other:
- Numerical part: statistics of imagined perception are made.
- Construction of urban archives: we go out to the city to produce visual and audio archives; or we go to WEB and networks for digital archives and links.
- Creative part: the teams produce "one minute" videos, a virtual expo of their imagined city and a book with results, within the perspective of modal or transmedia publishing.
The workshop will follow the project " Ciudades y comunidades latinas imaginadas en el mundo" (CyCli), which is currently underway.
Where is this methodology found?
In the book Metodología de investigación en imaginarios urbanos, Google free access; books of the collection "imagined cities" that followed the methodology of Armando Silva and edited by himself (Alfaguara); links of theory of urban imaginaries: essays, interviews, virtual exhibition, videos of imagined cities, as a methodological reference; Videos of imagined cities, in Google; Facebook and networks.
Watch Flacso Paula Maccias interview with Armando Silva
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