Global Cities Within A Structure of Their Relations

Globalization I perceive as a social transition taking place in many locations at different speeds. This seems to call for reconsideration of the notion of global cities that in their rankings suggest that there are degrees of globality that different cities can possess or do. Rather I would attempt at approaching global cities in ontological terms that allow to determine whether a city is global or not but not to what extent. This, in other words, promises to bring more clarity to the question of strategies to project a global city image that art biennials seem to be a part of. As the number of art biennials grows to saturation, when every large city will have its own biennale, it will be more obvious that the challenge is less to become a global city than to reveal a structure of relations between global cities and to map a given city's place within it. Whether art biennials can help with this task? To the extent that I will be attempting to uncover structural underpinnings of their existence in each city the task appears to be doable since structural relations between global cities bel0ng to the same analytical level and language that art biennials can be analyzed in.

Art Biennials as Anti-Institutional Institutions

Approaching the subject of ar biennials, there is a sense of hypercomplexity of the subject that lends itself to be describe more in terms of post-structurial theory than in anything like sociological formulations that could be easily transferred to discussions taking place at governmental, NGO and international meetings about effects of globalizations, ways to react to it, and their local impact. On one hand, I perceive art biennials as anti-institutional institutions that directly grow from the developments in the field of contemporary art. In a way, they represent the state of the art of the international institutional discussion in the field on how relations between artists, institutions, and public should be organized. On the other hand, I am receptive to how global context, transformations and actors shape what happens on the urban level that art biennials also represent. This way there is a sense of merger between two levels of global and local agency that in the case of art biennials produce a rich research field that when thought of comparatively can yield important insights on institutional globalization, cities of culture and social transitions.

Breaking the Mould of Long Silences Between Blog Posts

It has been a while between this post and the one preceding it. In part, I am looking at ways in which mobile blogging can be practiced. In part, I am trying to overcome the hiatus of the daily bloghing routine I have announced earlier on. In part, it is a matter of getting used to a different, net-oriented hardware setup that feels still alienating to the fingers and hands that hover a little awkwardly over the keyboard only about 80 percent so big as it is regularly. Ergonomic rules and instructions suddenly come to mind. Typing on my lap is certainly the most attractive mode with this present condition of haviong it weighing less and taking up less space. Nevertheless, the point is to burst open the gates of what feels as a writing block of sorts, to touch on the subjects that make rounds in my reflections and to blaze a trail towards a web strategy of sorts, especially since Internet seems to be here to stay despite the rise in information intensity, complexity and diversity it causes. Thinking globally, acting locally, when restricted to the blog page seems to be a leitmotif of my trying to break the mold of seeking for my place in the larger information landscape all the while making my discursive bets.