Research summary ‘URBAN FUTURE’

Primarily through the medium of photography, Hans Scholten's research project investigates the phenomenon of global urbanization. Departing from his archive of photographs depicting cities around the world, Scholten’s research reflects on the idea of ‘progress’, the values of failure and the entropic character of urban developments.

Doctoral Thesis Abstract

Central to this research is the 'Urban Future-project', which consists of a large archive of artworks made from 2002 until now. The original question underpinning this project was: what influence do chaos, entropy and fragmentation have on the viability of the rapidly developing urbanizing world? In the course of the research project, the (literature and field) explorations led to the assumption that there is a demonstrable and necessary link between the quality of life in the city and vital social cohesion on the one hand and chaos, entropy and fragmentation on the other.

In the artistic part of the research focuses on the question: is it possible to make the supposed connection between quality of urban life and chaos, entropy and fragmentation visible in artwork and, if so, how? In the written dissertation, working methods and strategies are contextualized and analyzed.

The visual part derives from an artist's position which uses non-verbal, sensorial strategies to reach new insights. It mainly focuses on the visual and aesthetic possibilities of aspects of fragmentation, chaos and entropy because Scholten considers these aspects, as productive forces, to be the core of the experience of urbanization.

SUPERVISORS
Prof. dr. Janneke Wesseling, Professor in Practice and Theory of Research in the Visual Arts, director of PhDArts, Leiden University
Prof. dr. René Boomkens, Professor in Cultural Studies, University of Amsterdam Jean Bernard Koeman, visual artist

Interview Hans Scholten, Exhibition ‘Urban Future #11’, PhDArts 2016