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.