For a moving and communicating city: body, street and jamming

Abstract

This article is about the relationship between place and people. The argument develops from a case study: the Camelódromo da Praça XV market place. The Camelódromo is a huge, spontaneous fair that occupied an important space in the centre of Porto Alegre/Brasil for 40 years. Self-organized and lived mainly by the lower classes, the phenomenon came to be a melting pot, where jamming and aesthetics made the way of being and acting in the street. Camelódromo developed into a complex social system; a web of conversations, gestures, routines, technologies and history, a culture. Ironically, in the beginning of 2009, the camelôs were swept from the street, and transferred to a building. Here, we look into articulating studies of the Systems Theory, with ideas from urbanism, arts and communication. The argumentation looks into recognizing the positive human complexity of these spontaneous manifestations, so characteristic of the contemporary urban scene.