South Africa’s Wider Divide in the Disaster State
Hui Jiang
Hui Jiang discusses the tension between socio-economic rights and civil rights in South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic.
vol. 5
Copying and COVID-19 in Havana, Cuba
Laura-Zoë Humphreys
In the first of our global reports on COVID-19, Laura-Zoë Humphreys shows how the disruption of person-to-person media distribution networks has affected urban sociality in Havana, Cuba.
The Mediapolis Q&A: Caitlin Bruce’s Painting Publics
Claire Sisco King
Claire King interviews Caitlin Bruce on her new book, Painting Publics: Transnational Legal Graffiti Scenes as Spaces for Encounter
From Water to Home: Permeability as Social Inclusion (and Exclusion) in Contemporary London
Anna Viola Sborgi
Anna Viola Sborgi considers how recent documentary films reconfigure porosity as permeability, and reflects on questions of social inclusion in the city under lockdown.
No Exit, or Duration in Slow Cinema: Aesthetics of Femininity, Porosity, Security
Erin Shevaugn Schlumpf
Erin Schlumpf thinks through the spatial politics of slow cinema and orders to shelter in place.
Screens in Public Space: Questions of Aesthetics and Access in a Moment of Social Distancing
Annie Dell'Aria
Annie Dell’Aria discusses screen media’s potential to make both public space and private space—during times of social distancing—more porous.
Activist Media and Distributional Aesthetics in the City
Carrie Rentschler
Carrie Rentschler explores urban porosity via a feminist infrastructural focus on key points of transfer and transit in the city that activists target for change using a range of aesthetic and political strategies
Urban Pores as Media: Questions of Aesthetics and Access
Sabine Haenni
Sabine Haenni's introduction to the second round explores pores as media, biology, and as form.
Assembling the Cosmopublic: Art Intelligence and Object-Oriented Citizenship
Hai Ren
Hai Ren rethinks the creative city away from its anthropocentricism and toward a nonhuman art intelligence
Fragmented Memory: Unearthing Film History in Kabul, Afghanistan
Ariel Nasr
Filmmaker Ariel Nasr explains the premises and production history of The Forbidden Reel, a documentary about the Afghan film archive reflecting the social-political structures of Afghanistan and its capital Kabul.
Re-functioning “Tropical Architecture”: Anti-colonial Constructions in Chinese-built Architecture in Africa, 1960s-70s
Ye LiuThe China-Africa engagement has been a heated topic of debate for the past decade, not only in academia, but also with the general public. …
Urban Art as Visual Noise in Bogotá
Caitlin Bruce
Caitlin Bruce reports on urban art and social movements in Bogotá.