SCOPIO & CONTRAST OPEN CALL
Exploring Contemporary Realities.
This section is the result of a new collaboration of scopio Magazine AAI with the project Contrast: Multidisciplinary network of artistic initiatives in Art, Architecture, Design and Photography through SCOPIO & CONTRAST International Conference.
This section will have as responsible Editors academics / artists coming from both scopio Magazine AAI and the Contrast project. This editorial team will ensure the necessary peer review work through the U. Porto OJS platform.
scopio Magazine AAI will be, in this way, the official publishing academic periodical for International Conference SCOPIO & CONTRAST and the submissions are both for the Conference and its 2nd volume in partnership with Contrast addressing the theme Exploring Contemporary Realities.
The most relevant (expanded – full manuscripts) contributions of International Conference SCOPIO & CONTRAST will be published in this section.
The call for this section focuses on projects and theories that research and critically explore different visual communication strategies based on the development of contemporary photography projects, focusing on how architecture and the different dynamics of urban change allow us to foresee possible futures, utopian or dystopian.
We believe that contemporary photography enhances the exploration of future views on architecture, the city and the territory, also enabling the identification of transforming paths of the spaces represented. We are, therefore, interested in studies and projects where the image is significantly present — with particular focus on photography — as an instrument of research and communication capable of crossing borders and shifting limits between different disciplinary areas. Work capable of dealing with transversal problems that affect different territories, contributing to a spatial transformation and social integration and, therefore, more positive. It is intended to welcome projects that deepen more and less speculative theoretical-practical dynamics that have as their main focus the identification of problems inscribed in the complexity of contemporary life and what comes from it.
The call for this section focuses on projects and theories that open to the field of relations between image, time and space. All mediation devices contain an intense productive force, in a complex mix between real and imaginary. To a certain extent there is, for example, no landscape without mediation, without that productive intensity of the media. We are therefore interested in how the realm of the image and the movement-image change our perceptions — real, political, or symbolic — of time and space. By extension, we are also interested in thinking about the idea of drifting and walking as forms to explore and to question the space, the landscape or the city. Based on a topological understanding of the media, this section will try to cross the field of mediation with art, cinema, landscape, performing arts and other time-based arts, as well as with landscape, urban space or architecture, not only from the point of view of contemporary experience but also from a more historical, archaeological or visionary perspective.
The call for this section focuses on findings related to the construction of digital culture in architecture, namely reviews of the best materials that took the digital design to an emerging maturity level. The imminent arrival of Artificial Intelligence in the realm of architecture and the current debate on automation, brings a sense of déjà vu. In fact, Automation and AI are not new subjects in Architecture and Urbanism. Speculation about the application of computation in Architecture started early, in the 60s and 70s, with researchers such as Nicholas Negroponte, Gordon Pask, or Yona Friedman.
We are interested in papers which focus on the way in which technological contexts, digital or pre-digital, offer us tools related to systemic design and participatory processes in the built environment, to think about actual territory of the connections between art, architecture and digital.
We call for the presentation of works that relate the past of utopia with current projects, in which witnessed to the use computational models that according to which designers may be instructed on needs felt by citizens, using the technology to reach more holistic results, fostering feedback and co-creation - projects that, addressing the notions of Utopia and visionary futures, may be implemented as collaborative projects for the transformation of our society.
The call for this section focuses on projects and theories that explore how architecture, art and image may contribute to our understanding of the very complex dimensions of the world resulting from relationships of care. The challenge is to think about how we can respond to current and urgent issues – forced displacement, disasters and adverse effects of climate change, human right violations, political, social, economic and health inequalities, disruptive globalisation influences, etc. – and tackle their impact on humans and society. Within this context, we are interested in projects that address the notions of Utopia and visionary futures towards spatial, social and political transformation.
The call for this section focuses on investigations that provide thickness and context to what, despite "not being seen", is decisive in the consolidation processes of urban life. We want to talk about the "invisible city" and the "visible city" in a utopian mode to foster reflection, questioning, debate and understanding of the processes of contemporary transformations of the "urban being". This section will thus be offered as a visual and written forum for the production of critical thinking about invisibilities and utopia.
Invisibilities have been always a face of utopia. Considering this as evidence, in the context of the connection between the different paths of our society, this is a social problematization of ideas and processes, linking arts, humanities and science. Utopia should not be an “utopia”. Utopia should be able to exist as a goal.
We must be able to develop these dreams, talk about them and, above all, discuss. To create a common public space, to create and promote communities. Trying to make visible the invisible. In this common sense, in the history of humanity, they are the real engines of the great transformation and without utopia, this invisible utopia, creation and progress wouldn’t exist.
This section focuses on the matter concerning the need to increase the semantic length for technological development in architecture and urbanism, having as a frame of reference Utopia – the focus of this first number of scopio AAI.
Digital advances in artistic fields and the architecture sector led to the exploration of innovative features based on the potentiality of new digital tools and technological processes, introducing novel effects in architectonic shapes and artistic production. Nevertheless, some advances in these areas reveal a lack of semantics, being almost merely an opportunity to exhibit “complex” spaces, volumes, and artifacts. The need to bring meaning to technological approaches in architecture, art, and image implies boosting the discussion about the substance of those approaches and their relationship to architecture and urbanism. Meaning is associated with sense, and, therefore, with content and context. As such, this section will highlight research on conscious innovation targeting inclusive participation in space appropriation and collaborative digital immersion in architecture and the built environment – by using computational processes that enable the formalization of new architectural “languages” and the consolidation of behavioral changes concerning hybrid living spaces (between its virtual and physical dimensions).
Technological engagement in architecture – supported by a behavior shift in the environment and the object/user – can promote an augmented and holistic reality, fostering feedback between buildings, people, milieu, and machines and higher co-creation performance towards the future of architecture and the built environment. Within this framework, we are interested in research and/or projects that tackle the notion of meaningful digital in dystopic tech contexts (real and/or virtual ones). We invite authors to bring us their thoughts and works on Utopian technologically embodied future environments.
This section focuses on how the notions of utopia and of a visionary future can turn into collaborative tools for the transformation of our society. We are interested in authors and works which amplify and reanalyse the Utopian thinking within the complex concept of nowadays democracies and who also believe that utopia can be both a source of inspiration and a tool to create better worlds. Utopias can be wishful images directing us towards real possibilities and helping us forge a path towards social transformation, thus we are interested in works that point out the potential of Image as a medium capable of crossing borders and dislocating boundaries between different Architectural and Artistic areas, encouraging the creation of multidisciplinary teams to address cross-cutting problems affecting Architecture, Cities and Territories.
This section focuses on projects and theories which aim to develop innovative and inclusive methodologies and theories for urban design policies and practices that empower the transformational potential of civic engagement in the planning and design process. A dynamic knowledge of the landscape that allows to rethink urban design policies able to integrate transformative practices, utopian visions, and progressive transition theories supporting civic engagement and community involvement initiatives as: community engagement, service and volunteerism and educational initiatives that promote involvement.
In this section we are interested in presenting research work coming from Architecture and Art worlds comprising either prospective theoretical readings or pilot-projects currently under development at I&D centres on art, architecture and technology, which in some way are connected to the construction of perspectives and proposals for architectural city and territorial environments that will portray a conscious innovation and inclusive participation in built environment.
In this section we are interested in exploring teaching-learning experiences within the universe of Architecture and Art, based on collaborative and dynamic environments. Pedagogical processes where interaction between teachers, researchers and students is ensured, leading to a dynamic of discovery built collectively, establishing relationships and connections between people, institutions of academia involved and society. We have a special interest in integrative pedagogical strategies capable of developing, operationalizing and refining a set of practices and teaching methods that ensure a learning process close to Schön´s "reflection in action".
Research papers, position papers, analytical or critical essays, interviews, articles, perusal or projects commissioned by one of the Section Editors or Editorial Committee: presenting unpublished research work, critique or scientific activities in the fields of architecture, art and image. The section Editors will open the section with a brief editor's note or introduction dealing with the subject of the work being published in the section.
Papers submitted the content of which does not fit in the specific subject of the issue; visual essays and/or papers considered of interest, which do not fit in one of the thematic sections of our journal.
Artists portfolios submissions should conceptually relate with the specific subject of the issue.
Critical reviews of publications, exhibitions and conferences in the field of architecture and image, written by a third person.
Cultural agenda to inform about a series of exhibitions and and curatorial projects related with the global theme and call of scopio Magazine Architecture, Art and Image publication that take place in the country or at international level.
The AAI scopio publication integrates the International Drawing and Photography Contest (DPIc) - Architecture, Art and Image – UTOPIA, which interconnects the universes of Architecture, Art and Image with the Utopian desire for a better world and for spaces that provide a better quality of life. Important ideas present in the DPIc are opening the Universities to the Civil Society through diverse submitted projects, showcasing the multifaceted richness of activities, experiences and architectures. The coordination of the contest is the responsibility of the Center for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism of the Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto (CEAU/FAUP) through its research group AAI and the Centre for English,Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies of the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto (CETAPS/FLUP), the Transdisciplinary Research Centre «Culture, Space and Memory» I&D research unit (CITCEM / FLUP), Research Institute in Art, Design and Society (I2ADS / FBAUP), Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture [ID+] and the Institute Arquitecture and Development (Arq.ID) based at University Lusófona of Porto. It also has he institutional support of U.Porto’s Rectorate and in partnership with AEFAUP, counting with the support of other Student Associations of U.Porto.
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