Investigating the laboratories of urban experiments

Experiments have become a mode of conducting innovative projects in domains such as mobility, energy or the use of data. The term ‘experiment’ is used in policy programs and companies’ strategies. It points to testing practices conducted in the urban environment, with the objective of assessing the technical, economic and social validity of various devices. Eventually, the urban space is in many cases part of what is experimented with. What are the laboratories, be they imagined or practically realized, in which urban experiments are conducted? By analyzing the laboratory’s perimeter, the experimental subjects, and the publics to whom experiments are addressed, one can undertake a critical study of the laboratory of urban experiments, and envision ways of redefining them. The case of the olympic games is particularly relevant for this reflection It raises questions such as: how to turn a host city into a laboratory? For the sake of what long-term perspective? Today’s crisis can then provide an impetus to re-examine what urban laboratories are and should be.

= Urban Experimentation Webinar 1 =

• Extending the scientific metaphor: - Representing whom and what? - What consequences of drawing spaces of exception in the city?

• What political and economic ordering?

• Laboratories for whom?

Program of the webinar: https://oggc.hypotheses.org/experimen...

FFJ Website: http://ffj.ehess.fr/

Speaker: Brice Laurent (CSI/Mines ParisTech)

Discussant: Alexandre Faure (FFJ, EHESS)

Production/Post-production: Céline Caliaro, Fabien Michel

Fondation France-Japon de l'EHESS © 2021