Urban Transcripts (Dec 2020)
Learning from Quarantine with David Calas
Abstract
One story per day, many questions for the days to come. For 40 days, from March 19th to April 27th 2020, David Calas, Sven Wuttej and Clemens Horvath of Studio Calas in Vienna, reflected on the changes that the pandemic forced upon the world and what they may mean for the way we live in our cities. Part news archive, part ideas diary, part sketchbook, Learning from Quarantine is a 40-day journey of reflections in response to an admirably focused selection of news items during lockdown — from drones and digital apps tracking our physical movements, social interactions and daily activities, to the new normality of ‘isolated co-working’. Amidst the news flood of COVID-19, Learning from Quarantine is not only a collection of reflections that question our ‘normal’ and map out directions for our future, but a lesson on the very process of learning: Shouldn’t we all be making more time to pause and reflect on our reality every day? We’ve had the opportunity to discuss this project with David Calas.
