Trading Places Network
Riding the Creative Power of Informal Networks
Joanne Jakovich

The TP Network was the offspring of a vision to exchange cities, or trade places, in a travelling conference. Originating in Amsterdam, the Trading Places travelling conference was created by students for students with the common belief that direct experience of cities would instill knowledge that could not be found in schools of urban planning or urban design. Under the hype of globalization the belief that urbanists should be globalists likewise prevailed. The concepts of 'think globally, discuss locally' and 'local visits on global topics' drew an array of international students into the Trading Places orbit.

The format of the travelling conference was simple. Over a period of a few weeks, cities across a given region were workshopped, trekked and conferenced by the trading, travelling students. In cooperation with local urban specialists and students, knowledge and friendships bloomed. In each city the Trading Places caravan left something of value, and moved on with something new. It traded and multiplied its wealth. The great thing about trading ideas and places is the more you give the more you get.

Leaping from its Dutch cradle, the Trading Places travelling conference went to Asia and America in its second year. A fluid group of 5 to 30 students drifted through Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, New York, Toronto and Mexico City over a period of 5 weeks. The organization of the students who formed Trading Places had originally been hierarchical. But over this time the structure began to dissolve due to the sheer intensity of the travel schedule, and increasing number of transitory members. Participants were hopping in and out at cities, making new connections, moving on to new cities - indirectly the type of interactions Trading Places intended to invoke.

Collaborative Networks and Ideas

What ultimately emerged from the travelling conferences was a students' creative, collaborative network: a machine for realizing ideas, procreating new concepts, and publishing projects. A digital network, where imaginations could be spurred and new notions explored; the ideal, uninhibited conference. This reincarnation of the travelling conferences offered a new way of exploring concepts about the city, and introduced the opportunity to think about the virtual city and online societies.
In such a network the idea is the driving force of collaboration. But ideas and proposals flowed freely, without referee, and in addition the emergent network claimed 'no manifesto, no hierarchy and no obligation'. Thus the laws of survival fell into place. Not until an idea gathered a large enough momentum, did the motivation to collaborate and achieve drive the project to realization. In short, the capacity to stimulate and engage steered the success of each collaborative project.

Naked Communication

The Naked Communication project was one such example. This project drew inspiration from the Japanese custom whereby unacquainted people bathe together as a means of improving communication, known as 'hadaka no tsukiai'. It proposed that members of the Trading Places Network find a virtual parallel to 'hadaka no tsukiai' as an experiment in remote communication and collaboration.

The Naked Communication Project asked participants from 6 cities around the world: 'What is your image of my city, and what is my image of yours?' Using images, rather than words to exchange these impressions, it was proposed that language barriers could be detoured, and 'naked' communication achieved. Participants were grouped by city and created their image of five other cities, using any medium that could be transferred electronically, excepting language.

In the long term, online simultaneous parties became the central mode of naked communication of this project. It was realized that above organized exchange and good intention, play formed the basis for motivation to collaborate. The opportunity to chat, quirk at the web cam or shout a message to a friend formed greater grounds for curiosity and interest than any other instigator of communication imagined. Play stimulated creativity and encouraged spontaneous interactions, and from this project onwards, the capacity of the virtual party to ensure student participation was well understood.

Neo-Tokyo / Neo NY - Simultaneous. Loud. Connected.

Inspired by the success of the Naked Communication parties, Neo Tokyo/Neo NY was a virtual conurbation that celebrated the closing of the Trading Places Spring Conference 2002. Web-cam and Internet chat connected two parties held simultaneously in Tokyo and New York, and projectors brought those transmissions to cinematic size on walls and ceilings. Five hours, two crowds, two cities, distanced by 10,000 kilometers and 11 hours time difference - a virtual, common space was made animate. The Neo city rose from the void, flourished and since oscillates between phases of intense inhabitation and temporary suspension.

Loose Maneuvers

Thus contrary to any planned network, the Trading Places Network became an undefined, time-free spanse of flexible contracts, evolving ideas and adaptable programs - it was declared a 'loose' network. In time, the popularity and unexpected success of this loose network inspired the impractical: to record this characteristic of the Trading Places Network. A small joint publication was named the medium. And online collaboration was proposed the tool.

Thus in an online forum dubbed 'Globaled', Loose Maneuvers, a 90 page collection of the Trading Places Network, travelling conferences and projects, was conceived. Loose Maneuvers was envisioned as the prodigal planning-student's bible, an atlas for nomadic urbanists, a knowledge-bank of direct experience.

As a design task, Loose Maneuvers presented the challenge: the representation of the intangible, the undefined. Themes of travel and navigation were introduced into the design language parallel to those of disorientation and chaos. Its graphics maintain the Trading Places spirit of uninhibited, untamed expressions.

In retrospect, the simple materiality of the Loose Maneuvers publication proves the latent power for creativity and collaboration that can be harnessed in informal networks. Like an avant-garde art movement, this network of urban planning and design students was able to evolve into a boundless, spontaneous forum for collaborative learning with the aid of online communications technology. The Loose Maneuvers publication is available free to anyone, and is an invitation for your responses, critiques, participation, manifestos, plans and ideas.