GATES Evening talk - Mediated spatial futures: the political mobilization of architecture in the age of social media

State-commissioned spatial futures are not altogether new, however, in the age of social media, they are afforded a distinctive momentum by the combination of audio, visual, and textual materials. This presentation shares the findings of research about the case study The Line, a futuristic urban project planned in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Despite - perhaps because of - their fantastical character, the materials of The Line can be understood as constitutive interventions in reality and ones that can have significant and material social implications in the present.

Nina Alaily-Mattar is a researcher and lecturer at the Chair of Urban Development at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). She is an architect with a Master of Science degree in Housing and Urban Regeneration from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a PhD in Planning Studies from University College London (UCL). She is recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship, which she spent at the Delft University of Technology. Her research focuses on elite architectural practices, the interplays of architecture and media, and the role of architecture in urban transformation processes. She has published numerous peer-reviewed articles, amongst others, in the Architectural Theory Review, European Planning Studies, Journal of Urban Design, and International Journal of Architectural Research. She is co-editor of the book About Star Architecture- Reflecting on Cities in Europe.

Supported by the GATES project (Grenoble ATtractiveness and ExcellenceS), funded by the French government's Programme d'Investissement Avenir and implemented by ANR France 2030