N110 - Jan 19
Digital cityThe digital revolution and artificial intelligence will change life in the cities in ways we can not yet imagine. They are already changing it. But technology is not neutral. It can reinforce the concentration of power in few hands or it can extend and strengthen democracy. It depends on whether or not citizens are in control of the data they generate and of the rules we can establish between us all.
DossierDigital city
Digital cityFrom the imagined community to the practice community
Cities can adopt practices that will engage residents in communities of practice, building on making, doing, and sharing together as a base of identity that can...
Digital cityThe right to the (digital) city
Cities and citizens, not companies, ought to own the data produced in cities and should be able to use said data to improve public services and put their policies...
Digital cityRethink the smart city
The infrastructure of the city offers major new opportunities for profit and power which makes them highly desirable for private platforms like Google, Uber and Baidu...
Digital cityChallenges and opportunities of the platform economy for cities
The platform economy generates considerable challenges and opportunities. It’s necessary to to distinguish truly collaborative platforms, which must be promoted and...
Digital cityThe ecosystem of knowledge as a common asset
Urban environments are characterised by the opportunities they offer to think of a political culture where shared knowledge assets can be managed jointly by different...
Digital cityWatched democracies
In most cities there are hardly any spaces left for public cohabitation: by neglecting parks and common areas, by closing cultural spaces, by cutting budgets for...
Digital cityFrom smart city to democratic city
The adjective 'smart' is very much in vogue. It represents the idea that cities can be more intelligent and efficient thanks to technology, and the data that they and...
Digital cityBarcelona in figures: Industry 4.0
Information and communications technologies are a strategic sector in a city’s economy, not just because of the volume of investment and jobs they generate,...
Other contents
The fight for digital sovereignty
We are moving towards the digital city. Technology is often identified with progress. It depends on the use to which they are put. Data has become the main...
“I don’t believe in the politicians that say: ‘I do what the people want’”
Sergio Fajardo
Not affiliated with any of the traditional parties, he became mayor of Medellín in 2004 leading a citizen movement and completely renewed a city that had entered a...
View from the heights
It is always possible for anyone, even a "great" artist to address others or represent them visually without viewing them "from on high". This is not the case in ...
Cultural vulnerability
Cultural workers live in a lamentable state of job insecurity, as we can see from the debate that opens this Culture Folder. The arts actually help us to recognise...
Precarious employment and the generation gap in culture
The 2008 crisis was devastating for culture. Cutbacks left many projects without funding and public services had to reduce or freeze hiring. Precarious...
“The hypocrisy I’ve seen and experienced is what has driven me to challenge my society”
Joumana Haddad
The Lebanese activist Joumana Haddad (Beirut, 1970) is one of...
How to turn the creative market around block by block
Blockchain fans highlight that we may be witnessing the start of a new infrastructure which will revolutionise the relations between small and large agents,...
Charlotte
Charlotte’s story is the unique story of a girl immersed in a tragic family legacy, a lineage of suicides, a litany of inherited deaths which is abruptly...
Art as a reflection of history
Eric Hobsbawm, the British Marxist historian, coined the expression “a brief century” to refer to the period between the First World War (1914) and the collapse of...
“We may not be machos, but we’re too much”
A fascinating transgressive joy pervades the photographs gathered in this exhaustive round-up of the ‘queer’ Barcelona of the early 20th century to today. All the...
Breaking the sound barrier
Els límits del Quim Porta, a book by Josep Perals, is bound to disturb and hypnotise. The whole book breathes poetry, lyrical sonority, ideas, constant...
Coexistence, yes; mosque…, no?
The opening of an Islamic prayer hall in Carrer del Japó, in the Prosperitat neighbourhood, has been fraught with tension because of the residents’ opposition to this...
I am an adulteress, too
Her name was María Ángeles Muñoz and she was the cause of the rebellious catchphrase of solidarity a multitude of women also adopted: ‘I am an adulteress, too”. This...
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