The project produces new theorization of the effects of the technoscientific framing of urban life for the formation of diverse young people's political agency. New conceptualizations are built by probing the limits and possibilities for enchantment in their everyday encounters. Fundamentally different from the ‘wow' effect of entertainment, enchantment is an ontological re-ordering of the world by affective force through encounters of difference. Enchantment thus opens space for politics. In the project, young people, including neurodivergent youth, are understood as post-social beings who live their lives in the complex geographies of the city. Mobile phones and other interfaces are active agents in this system, which has radically changed young people's existential conditions, bodies and subjectivities. The project asks if the speed and continual quest for the novel linked to commercial interfaces allows for the ‘moment of hesitation' that lies at the heart of enchantment.

2023

2027