A research project exploring networked and socially distanced crowds as a rapidly evolving new public condition. The crowd endures as a contradictory expression of potential form, from global protests accelerating racial awareness and equality to instances of reactionary mob violence. Despite a ban under lockdown, crowds have proven their resilience, driving dialogue and reinforcing their presence as a basic unit of the social. As we push further into a digital and socially distanced condition, what futures are suggested for this form of dialogue and exchange? How does the massing of bodies translate digitally? Where are the convergences, the ruptures? The intention of the project is to form an assemblage of voices willing to address these and related questions on social, political and aesthetic fronts.
https://crowds.centreforthestudyof.net/
image: The Great Chartist Meeting on Kennington Common, April 10, 1848, photograph taken by William Kilburn.