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AbstractThis essay discusses cities as composites of small forces of energetic selves. Energetic self here is the dimension of the self that drives one to undertake activities connected to one's desires. These could include collecting strange objects, achieving mundane targets, opposing new ideas, behaving like a spy, counting every tree, tracking obscure data, occupying obscure spaces, and so on. Energetic selves also express themselves in everyday friendships and compassions. These practices go beyond the acts of routine and are considered unproductive in conceptualizing cities. They remain small and are often discarded as stray individual preoccupations, anecdotes, or subjective obsessions. While some of these are related to earnings and occupations, others are simply "useless." However, everyone seems to have a trip that one lives with and for, and which provides individuals with their energies and cities with their oneiric spaces. Such energies, expressed in absurd quests, unusual obsessions, and bizarre interests cumulatively appear to be producing the city. In many ways the city seems to be a madhouse and madness seems to be running it. The city seems to acquire its generative energy from such small forces. Urban theory and pedagogy have however seldom engaged with an understanding of these small forces or extended it for speculative or projective purposes. Spatial professionals often take up the burden of acting like and being the modern state, which has to operate through modern imperatives of empiricism, technolegality, property regimes, boundaries, and so on. But while these imperatives are limited in understanding life, they are also not completely capable of handling the complexities of the urban. The paper further discusses a variety of ideas like settling; semi-fictional stories and montages; the blur; and transactional capacities to rethink the ways in which one could articulate newer ways to engage with the city.

This edition of On-Curating.org deals with aspects of the public sphere, public space, and public art in seven different metropolises around the world. The point of departure was a competition that was held for a master plan for public art in the new Europaallee district in the centre of Zurich, the first such plan in Switzerland. The urbanist Richard Wolff presents the urban development project Europaallee, which is currently being built, and traces the around 50-year-long historical development of the project and its changing politico-economic conditions. With Europaallee, the neoliberal city of Zurich is bolstering its position as a global city that is competing with other global cities economically. What functions does public art claim to fulfil in the given economic and social context? What understanding of the public sphere underlies public art? And how does it create room for public activities? We are interested, taking the globally networked space of Europaallee as a starting point, in broadening our perspective and putting up for discussion how artists, curators, urbanists, and cultural studies experts in other cities think and act. This edition of On-Curating.org is a mosaic consisting of different perspectives of different authors from different disciplines from different big cities across the globe. It creates a picture of what the public sphere, public space, and public art can mean today against the background of regional conditions. ; + ID: 582255 + Reihentitel: OnCurating

AbstractWhat is a life worth living and how is it concretely actualized by an urban majority making often unanticipated, unformatted uses of the urban to engender livelihoods in a dynamic and open-ended process? This is the key question undertaken in this collectively written piece. This means thinking about work, paid and unpaid, in ways that highlight the everyday practices of urban inhabitants as they put together territories in which to operate, which sustain their imaginations of well-being as part of a process of being with others—in households, neighborhoods, communities, and institutions. What is it that different kinds of workers have in common; what links them; where does the household begin and end; what is the difference between productive and reproductive work?

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- PART I DEVELOPMENT -- Introduction -- 1 BUNTY SINGH BUILDER OF DREAMS -- 2 IMRAN HOUSING CONTRACTOR -- 3 DALPAT MANAGER OF SERVICES -- 4 MEHMOODBHAI TOILET OPERATOR -- 5 KAUSHAL LAND AGGLOMERATOR -- 6 JANU SISTER-SUPERVISOR OF MIGRANT CONSTRUCTION WORKERS -- PART II PROPERTY -- Introduction -- 7 DR. K MIDDLE-CLASS SOCIAL WORKER -- 8 ASHOK RAVAT SHIVAJI PARK'S SENTINEL -- 9 SHAZIA PROOF MAKER -- 10 NIRMALA KAMATHIPURA'S GATEKEEPER -- 11 FARHAD "SUE MAKER" -- PART III BUSINESS -- Introduction -- 12 RAMITA SURROGACY AGENT -- 13 MUHAMMAD REVALORIZER OF E-WASTE -- 14 DEEPAK MAKING MUMBAI (IN CHINA) -- 15 LUBAINA FRAMING "DEVELOPMENT" -- 16 SHANKAR DELIVERING AUTHENTICITY -- 17 MANAL-MUNA COOKING UP VALUE -- 18 RAMJI BUSINESS ENERGIZER -- PART IV DIFFERENCE -- Introduction -- 19 BHIMSEN GAIKWAD SINGER OF JUSTICE -- 20 SULTAN IMAGE MANAGER -- 21 RAJ CARTING COSMOPOLITANISM -- 22 LAXMI DEALER IN EMOTION -- 23 DHARAMSEY ASSEMBLER OF TRADITION -- 24 DALVI SPEAKER OF CITIES -- PART V PUBLICS -- Introduction -- 25 SHASHI DOT CONNECTOR -- 26 ANIL PRAKASH AMPLIFIER OF CINEMA-INDUSTRIAL CONNECTIONS -- 27 GAURAVPANT MISHRA CROWD MAKER -- 28 SRINIVASAN KINGMAKER -- 29 MADHU DOOR OPENER -- 30 POORNIMA DESIGNING RELATIONS -- PART VI TRUTH -- Introduction -- 31 RAJANI PANDIT DETECTOR OF "TRUTHS" -- 32 AFZAL TAXIMAN RUMOR NAVIGATOR -- 33 PAWAN PRISON MASTER -- 34 SUJIT MASTER COMMUNICATOR -- 35 CHADDA REPORT MAKER -- 36 PRAKASH DATA ENTREPRENEUR -- CONCLUSION OTHER PLACES, OTHER TIMES -- GLOSSARY -- ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS -- INDEX