Christian Huebler

Knowbotic Research
Swiss-German Media Collective
Klosbachstrasse 45
8032 Zürich
phone / fax: 41-1-2616412

Reclaiming public domain as sites of constructive conflicts Possibilities for public actions are on the decrease where symbolical representation, mediated participation and the equation of consumption and democracy, have replaced a sense of active presence and involvement in public matters, and where being in public is identified with potential illegality on the one hand, and with the danger of personal harm on the other. Media technologies with all its universalising and security demanding mechanisms undermine the essence of the public domain as a zone of uncontrollability. But the instability of the public domain is the condition of its active potential. Reclaiming public domains as sites of constructive conflict and developing forms of connective agency for the instable intersections of virtual and physical public environments are therefore imperatives of the current situation.