One Day in the City

Dr Ben Campkin is Director of the UCL Urban Laboratory and Lecturer in Architectural History and Theory in the Bartlett School of Architecture. Ben is co-editor of Dirt: New Geographies of Cleanliness and Contamination (2007), an anthology exploring how beliefs about dirt have influenced the production of space. He has recently published articles in journals and collections such as The Journal of Architecture (2007), Architectural Design (2010), Urban Constellations (2011), Camera Constructs (2012), and The Politics of Making (2007). The topics of Ben's research ranges from bedbug infestations in 1930s slums, to modernist mass housing, and Google Street View. He is currently completing The Regeneration Game, a cultural history of urban change in London, due out in 2013.

Abstract: Realtime London

This project explores a contemporary vernacular portrayal of London by displaying text and images being created in and of London and uploaded to the internet as of 'right now'. These images are drawn from the most recent uploads to various public databases (e.g. Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, Google). Our aim is to frame these new types of visual and textual vernacular representation in relation to one another, examining how they produce new understandings and experiences of the city 'on the ground', and how they operate as new forms of participation in London life.