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Multimodal narrative as an instrument for social change

This article provides a description of the emergence of the Spanish ‘Occupy’ movement, Democracia real ya. The aim is to analyse the innovative discursive features of this movement and to connect this analysis to what we consider the innovative potential of the critical sciences. The movement is the result of a spontaneous uprising that appeared on the main squares of Madrid and Barcelona on 15 May 2011 and then spread to other Spanish cities. This date gave it its name: 15M. While the struggle for democracy in Spain is certainly not new, the 15M group shows a series of innovative features. These include the emphasis on peaceful struggle and the imaginary of a new democracy or worldview, transmitted through innovative placards and slogans designed by Spanish citizens. We consider these innovative not only due to their creativity, but also because of their use as a form of civil action. Our argument is that these placards both functioned as a sign of protest and, in combination with the demonstrations and the general dynamics of 15M, helped to reframe the population’s understanding of the crisis and rearticulate the identity of the citizens from victims to agents. In order to analyse the multimodal character of this struggle, we developed an interdisciplinary methodology, which combines socio-cognitive approaches that consider ideological proposals as socio-cognitive constructs (i.e. the notion of narrative or cognitive frame), and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in the analysis of discourses related to processes of social imagination and transformation. The socio-constructivist perspective is used to consider these discourses in relation to their actors, particular contexts and actions. The use of CDA, which included a careful rhetoric analysis, helped to analyse the process of deconstruction, transformation and reconstruction that 15M uses to maintain its struggle. The narrative analysis and the discursive theoretical concept of articulation helped to methodologically show aspects of the process of change alluded to above. This change was both in terms of cognition and in the modification of identity that turned a large part of the Spanish population from victims to indignados and to the neologism indignadanos, which is a composition of indignado and ciudadano (citizen).

It's Not Always About You

In the face of a global ecological crisis, culturally dominant framings of subjective experience as separate from living ecologies are no longer sufficient. Games might offer ways to break down these divisions. Alenda Chang has proposed bringing game ecologies to life. To complement her position, in this paper, we aim to inspire game designers and researchers to explore ways in which video games can remodel the perceived player subject as a pathway to ecological entanglement. We investigate four strategies for decentering and deconstructing the subject. These are: (1) deconstructing the subject to foreground internal sources of entanglement; (2) dismantling, distorting, ignoring, and/or invading the visual perspective; (3) conceptual deconstruction and reframing of a sense of self; and (4) decentering the subject through shifting contexts. For each of these, we introduce relevant examples of narrative and gameplay design in existing video games and suggest steps for further development in each direction.

Deconstructing the cloud

They say we can’t meme, politics of idea compression

(This is part I of a series of essays on meme theory. Part II is entitled Rude Awakening: Memes as Dialectical Images). Part III is called Memes and the Reactionary Totemism of the Theft of Joy)

Capturing Urban Memory with Sentient Data, Counter Mapping and Digital Methods

This paper puts forward a conceptual proposition that ties the discourses on ‘urban memory’ (Stillman and Johanson, 2009; Ringas, Christopoulou, Stefanidakis., 2011; Loughran, Fine & Hunter, 2015), sensory ethnography (Pink 2017 ), and counter-mapping (Crampton and Krygier 2018; ) with digital methods (Rogers, Sánchez-Querubín, and Kil, 2015). As an ‘interventionist’ approach, we understand co-producing counter (dynamic) maps with local stakeholders (actors), coupled with sensory and sentient data as a way of capturing the memory of urban peripheral landscapes (through intervention and participation) and thus creating archival knowledge.Urban memory is often understood as a form of collective memory that isconstituted by individual experiences within the place itself and through its historyand social environment (Ringas et al., 2011). With rapid changes in digitaltechnologies, digital and material have become “inseparate and entangled inenvironments people move and navigate their lives through'' (Pink and Fors, 2017).Memories are “evoked with material engagement with devices” which “opens up afield of sensory and affective engagement” research (ibid). While Pink and Forspropose to follow such engagement in a mundane and everyday setting, seen as anon-representational, phenomenological approach, we put forward a mixedmethods approach that connects sensory and sentient data (as agents) with the largerenvironmental context.Urban areas are often conceptualized as sites of ‘creative destruction’, in between stability and change, space (that can be developed) and place (that is lived in), often subjected to planning, regulation, and economic forces (Batty, 2007). This is especially true for urban areas that are located outside of the ‘center’ or in the cities’ periphery. These areas have experienced an endless cycle of deconstruction and reconstruction often witnessed and captured by local inhabitants, creatives, and activists. Currently, many of the peripheral areas are emancipating, bringing forward and openly communicating their complexities, values, and engaging various stakeholders in their regeneration efforts (which happens in a broader context of many European cities repositioning themselves in more polycentric and polyphonic ways, (Scott, 2015).To be able to capture the memory of ever-changing, ‘built a new’ urban places, we put forward counter (dynamic) mapping using digital methods as complemented with sensory and sentient data generated through interactions with digital technologies. Building on Crampton’s notion of maps (Crampton and Krygier, 2018), cartography is understood as existence (becoming) rather than essence (fixed ontology). Maps are therefore taken not as ‘objects’, but as performative practices. Digital methods, on the other hand, enable us to understand dynamic place-making, through ‘tracing’ the stakeholders (actors) and their relations overtime to capture the ways the urban environment gets performed.To clarify with an example, in Spinoza Imaginaries Lab & Cafe situated inAmsterdam Southeast we have been capturing the ever changing urbanenvironment in partnership with local stakeholders (actors), mapping their evolvingrelationships (and grouping) using the IssueCrawler and sentient data co-gatheredby researchers and students, with the clear understanding that to be able to capturea place, it is important to map the vernacular knowledge of that place (imaginaries,including art, movies, unrealized plans and initiatives, etc.). We propose this mixedmethods approach as an epistemological practice geared towards archiving thedynamic state of urban peripheral landscapes.

Facultative educational exploration circular material usage Griffiersveld Apeldoorn

This report was written for the municipality of Apeldoorn as a contribution to Cityloops. It consists of designing and planning tools and provides answers for the municipality of Apeldoorn to enable them to move towards a circular construction economy.