Invisible Cities

Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, 1972

Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities is the cornerstone of much modern speculation about urban living and architecture. This session draws together four transmediale projects that use wireless technologies, augmented realities and mapping tools to reveal the undisclosed topologies of Berlin.

Invisible Cities will be moderated by Verena Kuni, professor for Visual Culture at Goethe University, who like Martin Howse and his colleagues also took part in the Topology Of A Future City workshop. The Salon also features three presentations by artists whose work features in the transmediale.10 Exhibition. Bengt Sjölén will give an overview of the hands-on Wifi Camera workshop and the research behind the Panoramic Wifi Camera. Julian Oliver and his colleagues will discuss The Artvertiser, a project which has positioned augmented reality "artverts" in public spaces in central Berlin. Julius von Bismark will show how his artistic imaging devices can create new visual layers onto the fabric of the city.

Moderator: Verena Kuni (de)
Participants: Julian Oliver (nz), Martin Howse (uk), Oswald Berthold (de), Danja Vasiliev (de/ru), Bengt Sjölén (se), Julius von Bismarck (de)