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The purpose of this paper is to ask how forms of “performative” interventions can prompt processes of re-thinking, which can, in turn, instigate the critical production of public space. Most importantly, it also asks how this methodology can manifest within various cultural and political contexts. Today, public spaces tend to be controlled either by the state or by private corporations. Neoliberal policies promote commercial interests, which subsequently drives inequality and determines what can and cannot be accessed by the public. The public spaces that are currently present in the neoliberal cities are, in fact, “pseudo” public spaces.

In an attempt to form new understandings of this problem, the authors’ approach is rooted in feminist theories of performativity, which focus on how identities are persistently re-produced through performance. These theories consider how the “self” is always entangled within everyday life interactions and how it is shaped by both societal and bodily practices. Framing spaces as shapable, informed by the embodied dialectic relations between spaces and social relations, the study uses forms of performative methodology to create productive disruptions and “constructed situations” (Debord, 2012). This methodology consists of intervention within these spaces in order to produce alternative public space and forms of publicness. Based on research conducted at the Sheffield School of Architecture, as well as a four-day invited workshop at the Floating University Berlin, this study investigates applications of performative practice methodology in the cities of Amman and Berlin.

The paper will begin by exploring how the two cities are regulated through various political and planning policies that affect public spaces. This line of enquiry will also involve questioning physical, social and political access to public space in these contexts and analysing the various actants, performative actions and processes that were involved in producing performative interventions.

The paper will conclude by discussing the potential and limitations of applying and translating such approaches in public spaces within different cultural and political contexts. As such, the study proposes a new methodological framework for re-thinking and provoking the critical production of public space through forms of performative spatial practice.

Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Proponents of critical global studies are committed to identifying the ways in which neo-liberal ideology and an Americanized world picture rationalize the multinational exploitation of impoverished groups and their resources. The authority of this field raises untimely questions about how such a critique can itself avoid rationalization. The influence of critical global studies was manifest in the 2002 Documenta11 in Kassel, Germany, directed by Okwui Enwezor. In its aim to represent the Zeitgeist of contemporary art every five years, the Documenta is widely regarded as the most significant event in the art world. The 2002 Documenta relied predominantly on visual media to archive local instances of socio-economic inequity and persecution. The prestige of this exhibit marks the “global” Documenta11 as a crucial opportunity for studying the strategic deployment of a high cultural venue to promote critical awareness among comfortable spectators from industrialized nations. In officiating an overtly political agenda for the exhibit, the curatorial team took the risk that Documenta11 might encourage visitors to take self-affirming pleasure in their sense of “enlightened” solidarity with its aims. The exhibit was also in danger of reifying the very suffering it displayed as a means to an institutionally sanctioned end. The Frankfurt School explicitly targets the egoism of “affirmative culture” which includes the culture of critique. This case study draws on their theory of reification in order to enunciate the limits of global critique at Documenta11 while highlighting discontinuities in its format and reception that complicate a facile rejection of its archival rationale.

Examines the ninth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.