Mediapolis Now

Voices 03: Amy Y. Zhang, Asa Roast and Carwyn Morris on Wanghong Urbanism

In this episode of the Mediapolis Now Voices series, we speak with Amy Zhang, Asa Roast and Carwyn Morris. Amy Zhang is based at a The University of Manchester, in the UK, where she is Lecturer in Urban Planning. Her research focuses on urban politics and governance, urban knowledge and policy mobilities, postcolonial urban theory, and state-society relations in China. Asa Roast is based at the University of Leeds, UK, where he is Lecturer in Urban Geography. His work focuses on urban transformations in China, with an emphasis on housing, informality, verticality and urban agriculture in the city of Chongqing. Carwyn Morris is based at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where he is University Lecturer of Digital China. His research examines the spatialization of digital relations, including digital displacement, digital territorialization projects, digital mobilities, and internet celebrity urbanisms.

The host (Scott Rodgers) first came across this episode’s guests a couple of years back, reading a substack discussion among them, playfully titled ‘We Built This City on a Camera Roll’. He soon found himself introduced to a new notion of ‘wanghong’, and wanghong urbanism. Focused on developments in the Chinese urban context, the discussion was asking: what happens when places achieve celebrity status online?

Late last year, in issue 4 of Mediapolis Volume 7, Amy, Asa and Carwyn co-authored a Deep Dive essay fleshing out some of these ideas, which was then followed earlier this year, in issue 1 of Mediapolis Volume 8, in a Dossier (or collection of essays) exploring the broader notion of an urban-digital spectacle. Our discussion in the episode ranges from how they first encountered the phenomena of wanghong in Chinese urban contexts, how the notion might be defined, and what it might tell us about the emerging relations of social media and cities around the world.

This interview, which was recorded on 27 April 2023, is Episode 3 within the Voices podcast series for Mediapolis Now, the podcast channel of Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture. In the Voices series, we interview thinkers and practitioners about their work at the junction of cities, culture and media.

Opening and closing music: ‘Mediapolis Now Theme’ by Scott Rodgers License: CC BY-NC (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Events 02: Media, Cities and Space at ECREA 2022 in Aarhus

This episode includes excerpts from four interviews from the 9^th European Communication Conference, held in Aarhus, Denmark, 19^th-22^nd October 2022. The ECC is the biennial conference of the European Communication Research and Education Association, and in 2022, the conference theme was ‘Rethink Impact’, exploring how communication studies (broadly defined) interacts with, impacts on, and reflects society. The four interviews here are with scholars who presented at the conference, in one of the sessions organised through ECREA’s Section on Media, Cities and Space.

Each of the interviews were recorded in a compact, mobile podcast van - a collaboration between the Aarhus public library Dokk1 and the newspaper Jyllandsposten. During the conference, the van was parked outside one of the main conference buildings on the Aarhus University campus.

All four interviews were facilitated by Christoph Raetzsch, executive produced by Jay-vee Marasigan Pangan, with Chance Dorland as audio engineer and trainer. The interviews themselves were hosted by the Erasmus Mundus Journalism students from Aarhus University. The hosts are credited below, alongside the guests, producer and support staff.

Lisa Schulze

The first interview is with Lisa Shulze, who spoke with Martina Hrgović. The producer was Saskia Reimann, with Nariman Moustafa on staff. Lisa is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Salzburg, in Austria. We jump in here with Martina briefly asking Lisa about her background, before turning to the research she presented at the conference, exploring how wheelchair users in five German cities navigate their movements with the help of digital and other media.

Karin Larsson

In the second interview, Karin Larsson speaks with Marcela Sánchez. The producer was Abhishek Kumar, with Ramisha Ali on staff. Karin is a doctoral candidate in Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University, in Stockholm, Sweden. We join Marcela asking Karin about her background, before turning to the research she presented at the conference, around VDNKh, a Stalinist exhibition area in Moscow. They discuss how Karin came to study this site, and what it reveals about urban mediations of authoritarian and national-conservative tendencies in Russia today.

Mortiz Schweiger

In our third interview, you will hear Moritz Schweiger speaking with Malene Solheim. The producer was Andy Peñafuerte III, with Abhishek Kumar on staff. Moritz is a doctoral candidate in the Department for Media, Knowledge and Communication at Augsburg University in Germany. We come in with Malene asking Moritz about his main object of research, augmented reality. They go on to discuss the many possibilities and problems of these technologies for urban life, and even societies in general.

Derya Özkan

Finally, we join Derya Özkan being interviewed by Radha Puranik, with Saskia Reimann producing and Nariman Moustafa on staff. Derya is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Communication at Izmir University of Economics in Turkey. We pick up here with Radha turning to the feedback Derya received at the conference, before they move on to exploring her research project, which created an ambitious, publicly accessible digital map of former movie theaters, presenting them as cultural heritage sites in İzmir, Turkey.

This is an episode within the Events podcast series for Mediapolis Now, the podcast channel of Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture. In the Voices series, we feature recordings of recent talks and symposia at the junction of cities, culture and media. Host: Scott Rodgers.

Opening and closing music: ‘Mediapolis Now Theme’ by Scott Rodgers License: CC BY-NC (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Voices 02: Christian Olesen on Film Sound, Soundscapes and the ‘Listener’s Rights’

In this episode of the Mediapolis Now Voices series, we speak with Christian Olesen. Christian is based at the University of Amsterdam, in The Netherlands, where he is Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Cultural Heritage. His work has focused on archiving theory and history, film and media historiography, digital methods, found footage, remixing and practice-based research. We discuss with Christian various was of thinking about the film sound and soundscapes, extending from the experimental ends of film theory and cinephilia (e.g. Michel Chion, Rachel McBrinn, Robin Rimbaud, Noël Akchoté) to the creative appropriations of sonic film material in hip hop music (e.g. MF DOOM, Wu-Tang Clan and The Prodigy). Throughout, we pay a lot of attention to kinds of environments and atmospheres sound creates and makes possible in and through film, and the practice, politics, and ethics of sonic appropriation.

Throughout the interview, we discuss and play short sections of recorded material, for which we do not own the copyright. The use of this material is strictly for the purposes of criticism, commentary, teaching, scholarship and research, and hence covered under the legal provisions for ‘fair use’ or ‘fair dealing’. All credits go directly to the rightful owners, and no copyright infringement is intended.

This interview, which was recorded on 17 June 2022, is Episode 2 within the Voices podcast series for Mediapolis Now, the podcast channel of Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture. In the Voices series, we interview thinkers and practitioners about their work at the junction of cities, culture and media.

Opening and closing music: ‘Mediapolis Now Theme’ by Scott Rodgers License: CC BY-NC (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Events 01: Predictive Cities with Manu Luksch, Melissa Butcher, Sarah Keenan and Joel McKim

This episode is an edited version of the Predictive Cities colloquium, held online on July 1st 2021. The colloquium involved a roundtable discussion of the Predictive Cities exhibition, sponsored by the Urban Intersections Working Group of Birkbeck’s Institute for Social Research. 

Especially for Mediapolis listeners and readers, the exhibition's run has been extended until the end of 2021, so that you can take it in before, after or even while you listen to the roundtable. 

Access the exhibition: http://www.manuluksch.com/project/augmented-reality-virtual-reality-cryptart/predictivecities/ 

The Predictive Cities exhibition is situated in the virtual space of a Mozilla Hubs VR chatroom. It contains two kinds of objects. First, memes that spawn a selection of artworks by Manu Luksch, which interrogate networked urbanism and citizen agency. Second, the exhibition includes a series of spherical photographs of Songdo, South Korea, internationally famous as a case study of greenfield smart cities. The series Songdo is custom-made for VR (if you have access to a VR headset do use it!).

At the roundtable even, we were very fortunate to be joined by the creator of the exhibition, Manu Luksch. Manu is an artist and filmmaker who researches the effects of emerging technologies on daily life, social relations, urban space, and political structures. Her current work focuses on corporate-governmental relationships and the social effects of predictive analytics in the algorithmic city.  Her work is included in the Collection de Centre Pompidou, the BFI National Archive, and the Core Collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. 

In the roundtable, Manu is in conversation with a panel, all people based at Birkbeck, University of London. including:

• Professor Melissa Butcher, who is a social and cultural geographer that uses ethnographic, visual and participatory methodologies to examine questions of identity and belonging within contexts of cultural change and contested urban space. 
• Dr Sarah Keenan, who works at the intersection of legal and political thought, geography, feminist theory and postcolonial studies - and has a particular interest in the expansive and politically potent concept of property, and the ways in which it might be rethought.
• Dr Joel McKim, whose inter-disciplinary research draws together architectural and urban studies, digital media theory, memory studies, philosophy of aesthetics and communication theory – and who is currently studying digital images, animation, and machine vision.

The original recording has been edited, for length and clarity, but also to remove some of the host's (Scott Rodgers') interjections and housekeeping notes for the audience of the live event. Also added in are some sound clips from artworks mentioned in the discussion.

This is an episode within the Events podcast series for Mediapolis Now, the podcast channel of Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture. In the Voices series, we feature recordings of recent talks and symposia at the junction of cities, culture and media.

Opening and closing music: ‘Mediapolis Now Theme’ by Scott Rodgers License: CC BY-NC (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Shannon Mattern on '5000 Years of Urban Media'

This is a repost of Mack Hagood’s conversation with Shannon Mattern in 2017 on her book Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: Five Thousand Years of Urban Media. When it was first published, it was the first audio interview to appear on Mediapolis. It was also a preview of the podcast Phantom Power: Sounds about Sound, co-hosted by Hagood with poet and media artist cris cheek in 2018. This episode was written, edited and musically scored by Hagood. Special thanks to Orfeas Skutelis at the New School for his production assistance. [Disclosure: Mattern served at the time on the Mediapolis advisory board]

Interview summary:

Media archeology is a field that attempts to understand new and emerging media by examining old and often dead media technologies. Shannon Mattern takes inspiration from the field but notes that most of its “digging in the past” is metaphorical. “What if we took media archeology literally,” she writes, “and borrowed a few tricks from archeologists of the stones-and-bones variety?” Her book Code and Clay, Data and Dirt, released in November 2017 by University of Minnesota Press, pushes us in that direction.

Each chapter moves us farther back in time in an examination of old urban media infrastructures, starting with the sonic technologies of the telegraph and radio, then moving to the urban emplacement of the printing press, followed by an examination of the earliest surfaces for writing—clay and stone—and finally, perhaps the oldest medium of them all, the human voice. Each of these media reorganized the city around itself and each of them is still with us today, as past and future media co-mingle in the present. – Mack Hagood, www.phantompod.org

Voices 01: Zlatan Krajina and Deborah Stevenson on the Histories and Futures of Urban Media and Communication

In this episode of the Mediapolis Now Voices series, we speak with Zlatan Krajina and Deborah Stevenson. Zlatan is based at the University of Zagreb, in Croatia, where he is Assistant Professor of Media Studies. His work has focused on urban screens, media and everyday life and qualitative methodologies. Deborah is based at Western Sydney University, in Australia, where she is Professor of Sociology and Urban Cultural Research. Her work has centred on cities and urban life, arts and cultural policy, and gender in relation to cultural production and consumption.

Together, Zlatan and Deborah are co-editors of the Routledge Companion to Urban Media and Communication. Published in 2019, it is a book that was the result of a multi-year process. Its resulting 44 chapters are notably wide ranging, taking in the urban-mediated dimensions of everything from architecture, infrastructure, digitalisation and regeneration to globalisation, identity, consumption and branding.

Our discussion not only centred on the Companion itself, but the lens it provides onto the processes and tensions of academic knowledge production in a fast-changing and interdisciplinary research area. Throughout, Zlatan and Deborah stress the importance of properly historicised perspectives on urban media and communication, and the value of the field as a genuinely transdisciplinary set of dialogues.

This is an episode within the Voices podcast series for Mediapolis Now, the podcast channel of Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture. In the Voices series, we interview thinkers and practitioners about their work at the junction of cities, culture and media.

Opening and closing music: ‘Mediapolis Now Theme’ by Scott Rodgers License: CC BY-NC (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Mediapolis Live: London - Gateway to Cinema and Media Studies Symposium

This episode is a recording of a discussion held at the July 2019 London: Gateway to Cinema and Media Studies symposium. Hosted by Pamela Wojcik, the event features panelists Kulraj Phullar, Malini Guha, and Charlotte Brunsdon. It was produced by Brendan Kredell. 

This episode is from the archives of Mediapolis Live, precursor podcast to Mediapolis Now.

Mediapolis Live: Dora Apel on “Beautiful Terrible Ruins: Detroit and the Anxiety of Decline”

This episode is an interview with Dora Apel, author of "Beautiful Terrible Ruins: Detroit and the Anxiety of Decline." Speaking with founding Mediapolis co-editor Brendan Kredell, Apel discusses her notion of the "deindustrial sublime" and the nomenclature of ruin photography.

This episode is from the archives of Mediapolis Live, precursor podcast to Mediapolis Now.

Mediapolis Live: Joseph Clement at Film, Media, and Toronto’s Built Environment

This is a part recording of the March 2018 event "Film, Media, and Toronto’s Built Environment" presented at the University of Toronto during that year’s Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference and organized by Mediapolis‘ own Stanley Corkin. In this episode, you hear the most utopian presentation of the night, from the second panellist, filmmaker and landscape architect Joseph Clement. Clement directed the 2016 documentary Integral Man, about Integral House and its original owner, James Stewart. Clement’s approach to the evening was to share a collection of his own personal photographs, a quietly stunning series of views taken amid his daily life in the city that showed it under the influence of plays of light, shadows and reflections. Several offered visions of the city’s pervasive concrete – a legacy particularly of development from the 1950s through 1970s – touched by fleeting ephemeral transformations. ¹ A sidewalk encased in construction scaffolding is marvellously changed by shadows created by its zigzag fencing. A watery reflection from opposite windows creates a patch of seeming transparency on the imposing and impenetrable limestone fin walls of the city’s courthouse. And in perhaps the most utopian of the collection, a photo taken of Toronto from beyond one of its harbour islands gives the impression that the city’s waterfront boasts a thick greenbelt and a natural sand beach. Clement’s poetic documentation of these imaginary realities amid the city’s built form inspired both a dreaminess about other possibilities and new appreciation for the latent merits of what already exists. (summary by Kate Lawrie Van de Ven)

This episode is from the archives of Mediapolis Live, precursor podcast to Mediapolis Now.

Mediapolis Live: Jane Corkin at Film, Media, and Toronto’s Built Environment

This is a part recording of the March 2018 event "Film, Media, and Toronto’s Built Environment" presented at the University of Toronto during that year’s Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference and organized by Mediapolis‘ own Stanley Corkin. In this episode, you hear the first participant, Jane Corkin, founder of Toronto’s Corkin Gallery, which pioneered valuing photography in gallery settings. Corkin introduced a series of photos, most of which were the large-format work of photographer Thaddeus Holownia, depicting primarily the city’s Queen West neighbourhood in the 1970s through 1990s. Corkin describes Holownia as “a documentarian… interested in how a place changes and how time changes a place.” Corkin’s manifest nostalgia for a pre-globalization Toronto – and pre-gentrification Queen West – evident in her comments about the photos would possibly have been lost on non-locals or even younger Torontonians who may struggle to see the loss of a chicken market (in a neighbourhood now known for its 21st century cool) as any kind of loss at all, but it was certainly an attitude shared by several on the panel. This nostalgia for something authentic and dissatisfaction with generic non-places installed by global neoliberalism and franchise commerce is not unique to Toronto. What perhaps is unique about it in a Toronto setting is the city’s much longer-standing obsession with its own insecurity and fabled neurosis about ascending to the ranks of “world-class city.” (summary by Kate Lawrie Van de Ven)

This episode is from the archives of Mediapolis Live, precursor podcast to Mediapolis Now.