Tim Edensor: Industrial Ruins, Urban Materiality and Maintenance - The Lost Infrastructures of the CityVideomitschnitt der Veranstaltung "Present in Absence - The Hidden Life of Infrastructures"
4. Mai 2016
The lecture focuses on three things: First, it discusses previous work on industrial ruins and the ways in which they suddenly became detached from networks and infrastructures – also displaying material evidence of these detachments. Secondly, by exploring building stone in several buildings in central Manchester, it focusses on how the material composition of the city testifies to its relati- onships with other places, revealing how cities are always ceaselessly recomposed out of the ma- terialities of many of these other places and speak of lost connections and infrastructures. Thirdly, it discusses maintenance and repair as infrastructural practices and as activities that sustain infra- structures. The hypothesis is that when these activities cease, infrastructures will fail.
Tim Edensor is a Reader in Human Geography at the Department of Environmental and Geogra- phy Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He has written on a wide range of research topics including urban and rural cultures, industrial ruins, mobilities and tourism, rhythmanalysis, affect, urban materiality, football and contested cultural memory. He is author of „Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality“ (Berg, 2005) and „Tourists at the Taj“ (Routledge, 1998), as well as editor of „Geographies of Rhythm“ (Ashgate, 2009). He is currently researching urban materiali- ties and landscapes of illumination.