Nordic Urban Design Conference
27-28 February 2008, Bergen

City lightening and new urban spaces - the third annual NUDC Conference in Bergen.

The Nordic climate, with its long dark winters, must be an essential concern for urban designers, planners and architects. City lighting can contribute significantly to social integration and urban regeneration. But, being a big user of energy, lighting is a critical issue in relation to climate change. How can we create beautiful cities while still considering climate and environmental issues in the planning process? How can cities become more enjoyable, functional, permeable and innovative, using not only hydrogen-drive vehicles, solar-powered heating and environmentally approved materials, but also new developments in city lighting?

Photo by Charlie Samuels

The Moons , a Percent For Art Project by Chris Doyle, consists of three circular LED screens suspended over a seiers of gardens in the plaza at the Sprint Arena in Kansas City. The videos depict over 600 people from Kansas City flying across the screens. They run 24 hours per day and change with the seasons.

Find here a documentary about the project Liberate Your Avatar evidencing the exciting collaboration of Lets Go Global with artist Paul Sermon, which was part of the arts and events programme for the Manchester Urban Screens Conference.

In a showcase of international Urban Screen initiatives, Our Friends Are Electric introduces the concept of urban screens to the Melbourne audience in anticipation for the next Urban Screens Event - Urban Screens Melbourne 08 from 3rd-8th October 2008.

From the subways of Paris to electronic billboards in cities such as Toronto, Berlin and Amsterdam, Our Friends Are Electric is a series of projects created specifically for public screens throughout the world. The series will include a range of video art programs in addition to individual artist initiatives created from collective, worldwide contributions.

Beginning with the launch of the Streaming Museum, the first international moving image gallery to be broadcast both in
cyberspace and public space over seven continents simultaneously, Our Friends Are Electric celebrates how today’s cities are
becoming connected through a network of urban screens.

Featured initiatives:

The Streaming Museum
Visual Foreign Correspondents
Videospread
The Vernacular Terrain
Do Billboards Dream of Electric Screens?
Upgrade! International
Best of Transmedia
At Play

This project, curated by Kerrie-Dee Johns and Mirjam Struppek, is presented by Federation Square and the International Urban Screens Association - a network of international collaborators.

www.mediaarchitecture.org/mediafacades2008

Myths and Potentials of Media Architectures and Urban Screens
Berlin, October / November 2008

The MEDIAFACADE FESTIVAL BERLIN 2008 builds on the successful international Mediaarchitecture Conference held in London in 2007. This festival will explore the integration of social media and images into façade structures as communicative element and its effect on urban space. It will be the beginning of a long-term urban screens network with the aim to coordinate a creative program for architectural digital surfaces in Berlin.

The city of Oslo is an interface, a space for social interaction and cultural diversity. The comparably small size of the city centre creates a dense urban situation in which housing and working go closely together. Large parts of the city centre seem to be finished, but with the new development of the harbour site Oslo will get a new face. Changes also happen slowly and less visible such as residential movements from one district to the other which are caused by appreciations of real estates. However Oslo offers a rather laid back urban environment with a lot of street life.

http://oslo.urban-interface.net