08 Dec 2008

SKOR present Publication Open issue #15, Cahier for Art and the Public Domain

Open, cahier for art and the public domain issue # 15

Social Engineering
Can Society Be Engineered in the Twenty-First Century?

Is social engineering now a hollow ideal, or does it offer urgent perspectives once more? In current discussions about urban politics and social systems, theorists and designers are once again asking whether social engineering is not a pre-requisite of the human desire for organizational forms and interventions that guarantee a pleasant communal existence.

This Open reflects on old and new forms of social engineering in relation to the urban and social space as well as to (communal) life within it. Is social engineering now a hollow ideal, or does it offer new, urgent perspectives?

Open issue #15 contributors:

- René Boomkens argues for a phenomenology of the urban experience that does justice to the everyday.

- According to Gijs van Oenen, today's public space can learn from Constant's New Babylon.

- Marc Schuilenburg calls for a different look at the issue of security.

- Wouter Vanstiphout shows how the identification of urban design with a political social system turns on itself.

- Republication of Giorgio Agamben's 'Beyond Human Rights', with an introduction by Marc Schuilenburg.

- Pascal Gielen in conversation with Michiel Dehaene, Lieven De Cauter and Rudi Laermans about the 'engineerability' of city and society.

- Charles Esche makes an initial assessment of the meaning of 'Be(com)ing Dutch'.

- Artistic contribution by Nicoline van Harskamp

- Arjen Oosterman has written an introduction to the contributions of Flexmens, BAVO, Partizan Publik, ZUS and Jeanne van Heeswijk/Dennis Kaspori.


About Open, cahier for art and the public domain

Open is a cahier that reflects upon contemporary public space from a cultural perspective. Through a thematic investigation into the changing conditions of public space and through new ideas relating to this space, Open aims to make a structural contribution to the development of theories about these subjects and to function as a platform for reflection on socio-cultural and artistic practices.

For more information about Open and previous issues: http://www.skor.nl/set-635-nl.html?lang=en

To subscribe to Open: http://www.naipublishers.nl/open_e/subscribe_e.html