Dr Louis Moreno
Staff details
Louis Moreno’s research, teaching and writing explores the spatial relationships and political economic forces that shape the social and cultural forms of everyday life. Specialising in urbanism and spatial theory, Louis’s academic background spans literature and philosophy, architectural history, urban geography and political theory.
Louis’s PhD research examined the urban incubation and architectural effects of financialised capitalism in post-industrial Britain. His current research examines the urban processes and cultural logic of financialised capitalism. Louis is a member of the research collective freethought, who co-curated the Bergen Assembly 2016 in Norway. One day Louis hopes to publish in the Journal of Memespace Cartography.
PhD Geography, University College London, 2016
MSc Architectural History, University College London, 2008
BA Literature and Philosophy, University of East Anglia, 1996
Teaching
Louis is the co-programme lead for the BA Art History (with Brendan Prendeville) teaching the following courses offered at BA and MA level.
BA (3rd year) VC53102A - Animating Architecture / VC53110A - Urban Revolutions
MA Introduction to Research Architecture / VC71014B - Spatial Biopolitics
Professional Projects
Louis is a member of the curatorial collective freethought alongside Irit Rogoff, Stefano Harney, Adrian Heathfield, Mao Mallona and Nora Sternfeld. Their current research interest is focused on shifting the concept of ‘infrastructure’ out of the hands of technocracy.
Louis is the lead political economy editor for the journal CITY and is a peer-reviewer for the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR).
Prior to becoming an academic Louis was a Research and Futures Advisers at the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), and before that worked on cultural and education policy at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Louis is also interested in the sonic as well as visual dimensions of culture, and runs the regular Hackney based music night ‘Stadtklang’. Established in 2013 with Andrew Harris (of UCL’s Urban Laboratory) to explore the sonic dimensions of urban experience.
Recent Work
Articles and Reviews
Moreno, L. (2017) ‘David Harvey’, in A. Latham & R. Koch (eds.) Key Thinkers on Cities. London: Sage Publishing.
Moreno, L. (2016) ‘Primitive Accumulator’, in Hannah Sawtell (ed.) ‘#ACCUMULATOR_PLUS.’ The Happy Hypocrite. London: Bookworks.
Moreno, L., (2014) The urban process under financialised capitalism. City,18(3), pp.244-268.
Moreno, L., (2014) Mob Deep: The underground current of urban revolution. Dialogues in Human Geography, 4(2), pp.238-242.
Curatorial work/Artistic projects
freethought, ‘Infrastructure’, Bergen Assembly 2016, Bergen Norway: http://bergenassembly.no/en/freethought/
Louis Moreno & Paul Purgas ‘Infrastructure of feeling’, Computer, RGB Lights, CD Player. Duration : 720 hrs, Programming : Ben Tandy (exhibited at ‘Infrastructure’ @ the Bergen Assembly 2016)
Lectures
‘Infrastructures of Resistance : Detroit and the underground desire for utopia’ : Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen, February 2015: https://vimeo.com/124920136
‘The Spatial-Cognitive Fix : the urbanisation of homo-economicus’ : Former West, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, March 2012. http://www.formerwest.org/DocumentsConstellationsProspects/Contributions/TheSpatialCognitiveFix
Events
Stadtklang : Sonic Utopias @ Somerset House, London, March 2016: https://www.flickr.com/photos/116563188@N08/25682269920/
Publications and research outputs
Book Section
Moreno, Louis. 2022. Internal Empire : The Neoclassical Architecture of Racial Capitalism. In: Kelly M. Rich; Nicola M. Rizzuto and Susan Zieger, eds. The Aesthetic Life of Infrastructure: Race, Affect, Environment. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, pp. 43-59. ISBN 9780810145504
Moreno, Louis. 2022. Always Crashing in the Same City: Immobilien, Psychisches Kapital und Planetares Begehren. In: Joerg Franzbecker; Naomi Hennig and Florian Wüst, eds. X Properties. Berliner Hefte zu Geschichte und Gegenwart der Stadt 11. Berlin: nGbK (neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst), pp. 77-103. ISBN 9783946674108
Brar, Dhanveer Singh and Moreno, Louis. 2021. Notes on Listening and Hearing. In: Jeanne van Heeswijk; Maria Hlavajova and Rachael Rakes, eds. Toward the Not-Yet: Art as Public Practice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262542500
Moreno, Louis. 2021. The Presence of the Past in the Platform, or the Cultural Logic of Absolute Rent. In: Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer, eds. Platform Urbanism and Its Discontents. Rotterdam: nai010 uitgevers, pp. 63-72. ISBN 9789462086159
Hameed, Ayesha; Eshun, Kodwo and Moreno, Louis. 2017. Sonic Utopias: The Last Angel of History. A Conversation between Ayesha Hameed, Kodwo Eshun and Louis Moreno. In: Henriette Gunkel; Ayesha Hameed and Simon D. O'Sullivan, eds. Futures and Fictions. London: Repeater, pp. 249-267. ISBN 9781910924631
Moreno, Louis. 2017. David Harvey. In: A Latham and R Kock, eds. Key Thinkers on Cities. Sage Publishing. ISBN 9781473907751
Article
Brar, Dhanveer Singh; Moreno, Louis; Harney, Stefano; Moten, Fred; Okiji, Fumi; Rekret, Paul and Rose-Antoinette, Ronald. 2020. Music and Economic Planning. South Atlantic Quarterly, 119(1), pp. 133-151. ISSN 0038-2876
Moreno, Louis. 2019. Why wasn't the rentier euthanised? A review of The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain. Antipode Online,
Moreno, Louis and Bang Shin, Hyun. 2018. The Urban Process Under Planetary Accumulation by Dispossession. CITY, 22(1), pp. 78-87. ISSN 1360-4813
Moreno, Louis. 2018. Always crashing in the same city: real estate, psychic capital and planetary desire. CITY, 22(1), pp. 152-168. ISSN 1360-4813
Moreno, Louis. 2014. Mob deep: The underground current of urban revolution. Dialogues in Human Geography, 4(2), pp. 238-242. ISSN 2043-8206
Moreno, Louis. 2014. The urban process under financialised capitalism. City, 18(3), pp. 244-268. ISSN 1360-4813
Moreno, Louis. 2012. A Review of “Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research and the Production of Theory”. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102(4), pp. 885-890. ISSN 0004-5608
Conference or Workshop Item
Moreno, Louis and Brar, Dhanveer Singh. 2022. 'Seven Theses on P-Funk'. In: eleven theses on p-funk. Nottingham Contemporary, United Kingdom 9 June 2022.
Moreno, Louis and Vishmidt, Marina. 2019. 'End-of-the-World Trade: On the Speculative Economies of Art and Extraction'. In: End-of-the-World Trade: On the Speculative Economies of Art and Extraction. Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom 21 - 22 June 2019.
Brar, Dhanveer Singh and Moreno, Louis. 2018. 'At a Greater Distance than Sound: Wynter’s ‘new hypothesis’ and the ‘culture of dread’'. In: Genres of the Human: On Sylvia Wynter. Kings College London, United Kingdom.
Eshun, Kodwo; Moreno, Louis and Hameed, Ayesha. 2016. 'In conversation with Louis Moreno and Ayesha Hameed'. In: Stadtklang, Sonic Utopias, Utopia Treasury. Somerset House, United Kingdom 20 March 2016.
Audio
Moreno, Louis. 2022. Podcast recording of walking tour of Euston, Somers Town & King's Cross (July 2022).
Show/Exhibition
Moreno, Louis. 2022. Unhoused Music. In: "Unhoused Music", BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, Netherlands, 12 - 13 November 2022.
Moreno, Louis. 2021. Music as Spectral Infrastructure. In: "Music as spectral infrastructure", BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, Netherlands, 13 - 14 November 2021.
Rogoff, Irit; Moreno, Louis; Mallona, Massomilliano; Harney, Stefano and Sternfeld, Nora. 2016. Infrastructure. In: "Infrastructure", Bergen Assembly, Norway, 1 September - 1 October 2016.
