Activism in urban context can take many forms from the ‘harmless’ new urbanism to masked gangs of antiglob protesters besieging hermetically closed city centres coordinating their attacks via cell phones. The physical, architectural buildup of the city is as relevant now as it was at the age of Haussmann, even if the significance of cobbles and alley-ways has diminished in favour to the access to telecommunication infrastructures. The city itself is thus one central battleground of activism even if the battle is rarely violent. Urban guerrilla communication, billboard defaces, public space appropriations are important tools of activist practice.

• How activist use the city?
• How does activism adjust to different urban models?
• What does public space mean to activists?
• How architecture and urbanism relate to the rebirth of activism?
• How to control physical space, and how to jam control mechanisms in the city?

Panel leader:
Laura Forlano (NYC Wireless):
Activist Infrastructures: The Role of Community Wireless Organizations in Authenticating the City

Confirmed panel participants:
Giles Lane (Proboscis.org): Publications to the Urban Fabric Panel
Michael Keith (Boston College)
Andrew Paterson (University of Art and Design UIAH | Helsinki -Finland)

Paper presenters:

Counter Productive Industries: New Media Artist as Urban Planner: Imagining Civic Space

Maciek Zakowski: Street art as symbolic warfare: resistance and intrusions in the cityscape

Marion Hamm: Indymedia UK: Urban Communica/action and the creation of a hybrid activist space in London

Merlyna Lim: CYBER/URBAN ACTIVISM AND THE POLITICAL CHANGE IN INDONESIA

Fuchs Peter:  Inhabitants of virtual cities