 MULTIMEDIA CONTEST In order to create a database of films/photos/collages which would reflect and illustrate the new Romanian suburb we launched a call for contributions in the form of an open national contest. The goal was both the gathering of a diverse library of images and the involvement of as many unspecialized people as possible in the process. The selection was made by a specialized jury composed of Architect Dana Vais, Art Curator Mihai Pop and Photography/Media Lecturer Doru Pop. Out of 42 participants one project was declared winner and the work of 14 more participants was selected to be presented in the exhibition. The winning project, Fooooooam, has been chosen due to the complexity of the theme and the style of representation. It is an on-line project which is organized around the idea of continuous exploration of the targeted areas and which is searching for ways of exposing aspects most of the time hard to reveal and define. As the exclusive multimedia unit of the project “Superbia”, Fooooooam is developing throughout the exhibition. Marius Cătălin Moga Laura Panait How to apprehend the changing idea of the brand new Romanian suburb? The spontaneous, inventive but also chaotic, individualistic and materialist features of these urban satellites are a perfect inspiration source, but the risk is that any discourse can turn inappropriate. In direct contact with the suburban areas in Cluj, we realized that the best idea to understand this social phenomenon was to use our ”sketchbooks” as a being that emulates the suburbia itself. A meta-peripherical discourse that is constantly changing. Departing from here, we developed a virtual journey to reproduce the idea of a walk through the growing city. Based on Peter Sloterdijk’s theory, we took the foam metaphor - a matter with hermetic consistence and particular dynamics - to represent the way in which these spaces are generated. Individualized cells spilled in a spontaneous way would show the growing suburbs, just as the many specific situations we present using different blogs, posts or social networks such as Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter. Fooooooam is the web art ingredient of the Superbia project, in the Venice Architecture Biennale. Using the different web platforms, it aims to redraw a virtual map of the contemporary suburb, complemented by a second blog that acts as a periphery of our own blog. The page “I’m the center you are my periphery” is an invitation to the visitors to send pictures from their own peripheries and show how the perception of this urban phenomenon can change depending on where they are situated in the world. Alina Bradu Silviu Medeșan Carlos Carmonamedina   |