Connecting Cities Network Conference @ MAB 2012

November 15-17th – Aarhus, Denmark

After our kick off workshop in Helsinki during the Media Facades Festival 2012, we all met again in Aarhus for our next internal workshop which took place during the Media Architecture Biennale 2012!
The focus of the workshop was put on the pre-selection of the artists for our first project period “Networked City 2013”. The final selection will be done in December and the selected artists will be invited to our next artists’ and curators’ workshop which will take place in Marseille in the beginning of February 2013.

In this context we also organized our first public conference and workshop and discussed the launch of the Connecting Cities Network with a very mixed audience including architects, urban planners, cultural producers, artists and researchers from all over the world. Key topics were the technological infrastructure, audience development and digital urban planning. We would like to thank all the participants for their excellent input!

THE BIENNALE
The Media Architecture Biennale 2012, taking place at the Godsbanen cultural center in Aarhus, was a perfect setting for our events. Organized by our Connecting Cities partner Media Architecture Institute Vienna together with our associate partner Aarhus University – CAVI, the congress attracted an international audience in the field of media architecture and urban media installations.
Speakers included
architects Jason Bruges, Jeff Risom from Gehl Architects, Jakob Lange from Bjarke Ingels Group and Andreas Lykke-Olesen from Kollision,
media artists Alexandros Tsolakis and David Bajt from United Visual Artists, Ben Rubin and
researchers Erkki Huhtamo, Antonino Saggio from University of La Sapienza Rome and Sanxing Cao from Communication University China.

The Biennale also featured an exhibition that gave an impressive overview of media architecture projects realized all over the world in the last decades. Part of the exhibition was the on-site media installation SPINE which was created for the Biennale by Kollision, CAVI, Mads Wahlberg, Henrik Munch and TEKNE Produktion. SPINE will be displayed at Godsbanen in Aarhus until December 15th!

Another highlight of the Biennale was its award ceremony which honored architects and artists in several categories, including “Animated Architecture” and “Participatory Architecture”. You can find all the categories, nominees and winners here.

The City of Aarhus, hosting the Biennale for the first time this year, gave a warm welcome to the buzzing crowd of urban media experts through the words of Denmark’s Cultural Minister Uffe Elbæk, Aarhus’s mayor Jacob Bundsgaard and Aarhus University’s Pro-Rector Søren E. Frandsen. On occasion of the Biennale, two outdoor projects were realised in Aarhus:
The Aarhus City Hall Tower displayed a media installation which was linked to Aarhus’s public City Bug Report system.
At the congress venue Godsbanen the project I am feeling lit up the night sky by colours derived from feelings expressed by people on blogs.

SPECIAL THANKS
Our special thanks goes to Gernot Tscherteu (Media Architecture Institute Vienna, partner of the CCN) and Martin Brynskov (Aarhus University – CAVI, associate partner of the CCN). Without their incredible engagement, neither the Media Architecture Biennale nor the Connecting Cities Network activities would have been possible.