#  Urban Intermedia: City, Archive, Narrative 

 



   ![urban_intermedia_description_image_07.23.20_final.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10471/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/hmui/files/urban_intermedia_description_image_07.23.20_final.jpg?itok=kMsL-jJG) 

 

*Urban Intermedia*\* is a multifaceted research project, begun during phase one of the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, and part of an ongoing exploration of new collaborative practices that bring together scholarship, design, and media around the study of cities. In the *Urban Intermedia* project scholars and designers work together to develop new visual and digital methods and cross-disciplinary approaches to the study of urban environ­ments, societies, and cultures.

During the first phase of the HMUI, the *Urban Intermedia* research was organized into four city-based projects in Berlin, Boston, Istanbul, and Mumbai, that served as “[portals](/portals)” into the key themes of the research. The capstone project of that phase was an exhibition, which was presented in Berlin, Istanbul, Mumbai, and Cambridge during 2018.

Exploring the disciplinary “blind spots” of urban research, *Urban Intermedia* uses a range of technologies to bring physical and digital media – archival documents, digital data sets, photography, cartography, architectural drawings, graphics, text, animation, film, and video – into dialog and registration with one another. Through these methods, the distinct languages of different media interact at the deepest structural levels. They hybridize, exchange properties and techniques, and, in the process, generate new “intermedia” languages, and with them new ways of examining complex and dynamic urban phenomena through multiple critical lenses.

In phase two of the HMUI, the *Urban Intermedia* project is carried forward in [*Recovery Through Remediation: Landscape and Economic Transformation of the GDR’s ‘Energy District’*](/recovery-through-remediation-landscape-and-economic-transformation-gdr%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cenergy-district%E2%80%9D "Recovery Through Remediation: Landscape and Economic Transformation of the GDR’S “Energy District”") \*\*\* Advancing research begun in the Berlin Portal, that project examines the transformation of the opencast lignite mining region of Lower Lusatia in eastern Germany into a lake district, and center for renewable energy production.

\* See: Blau, Eve.[ “Urban Intermedia: City, Archive, Narrative.” In Laura Kurgan and Dare Brawley, eds. Ways of Knowing Cities. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019, pp. 207-235](/news/hmui-co-director-eve-blau-publishes-%E2%80%9Curban-intermedia-city-archive-narrative%E2%80%9D-ways-knowing)

## Urban Intermedia Exhibition Credits:


### **Exhibition Curators**

[Eve Blau](/people/eve-blau)

Robert Gerard Pietrusko

### **Installation Design**

Eric Höweler

David Hamm

Caleb Hawkins

### **Exhibition Coordinator**

Gül Neşe Doğusan Alexander

### **Art Director**

Robert Gerard Pietrusko

### **Production**

Scott March Smith

### **Web Design and Development**

Nil Tuzcu

Namik Mačkić

Rob Meyerson

### **Brochure Design**

Claudia Tomateo

Scott March Smith

### **Berlin Team**

[Eve Blau](/people/eve-blau), Research Director

[Igor Ekštajn](/people/igor-ek%C5%A1tajn), Research Associate

Max Hirsh, Research Associate

Pedro Aparicio

Silvia Danielak

Mikela De Tchaves

Emma Goode

Adam Himes

Eli Keller

Michael Keller

Aleksandra Kudryashova

Namik Mačkić

Scott March Smith

Claudia Tomateo

### **Boston Team**

Stephen Gray, Research Director

Alex Krieger, Research Director

Caroline Filice Smith, Research Associate

Hannah Gaegler

Emma Goode

Jeremey Hartley

Renia Kagkou

Annie Liang

Erica Rothman

### **Istanbul Team**

Sibel Bozdoğan, Research Director

Gül Neşe Doğusan Alexander, Research Director

Nil Tuzcu, Research Associate

Marysol Rivas Brito

Ece Cömert

Adam Himes

Hazal Seval

Dana Shaikh Solaiman

### **Mumbai Team**

Rahul Mehrotra, Research Director

Kate Cahill, Research Associate

Smita Babar

Enrique Aureng Silva Estrada

Emma Goode

Mark Jongman-Sereno

Gabriel Munoz Moreno

Aditya Sawant

Esa Shaikh

Apoorva Shenvi

Scott March Smith

Clauda Tomaeto

Sonny Xu

Jessy Yang