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"If only more new media commentators had this level of historical-critical reference, engaging, good stories, and a degree of wonder at what media and windows bring to the city, to life." - John Hutnyk, Goldsmiths, University of London "Just when you thought the last word had been said about cities and media, along comes Scott McQuire to breathe new life into the debate. When revisiting existing pathways, his always ingenious eyes produce startling and original insights. When striking out into new territory, he opens up before us inspiring new vistas. I love this book." - James Donald, University of New South Wales "A book that crams into a single chapter more insights and illustrations than...
Geomedia offers critical analysis of the new possibilities and power relations emerging in the public space of contemporary cities. As ubiquitous digital networks enable embedded and mobile devices to integrate place-specific data with real-time feedback circuits, everyday experience of public space has become subject to new demands. Looking beyond debates framed by the dominance of surveillance and spectacle, McQuire asks: how might the kind of collaborative practices that have flourished in art and online cultures be translated into urban space? In the urban crisis of the 1960s, Henri Lefebvre argued that the capacity for a city’s inhabitants to actively appropriate the time and space of their surroundings was a critical dimension of modern democracy. What does it mean to speak of ‘the right to the city’ in the context of the networked city? Addressing this question through a series of case studies, this cutting-edge text highlights the tensions between citizen and consumer, communication and surveillance, participation and control, which define contemporary struggles over public space.
Visions of Modernity offers an overview of modern visual culture, exploring the relationship between technology, society and identity which underpins contemporary media culture.
As social, locative, and mobile media render the intimate public and the public intimate, this volume interrogates how this phenomenon impacts art practice and politics. Contributors bring together the worlds of art and media culture to rethink their intersections in light of participatory social media. By focusing upon the Asia-Pacific region, they seek to examine how regionalism and locality affect global circuits of culture. The book also offers a set of theoretical frameworks and methodological paradigms for thinking about contemporary art practice more generally.
A critical history of the pioneering art and technology group Mobile Image and their prescient work in communications, networking, and information systems. In The Future Is Present, Philip Glahn and Cary Levine tell the fascinating history of the visionary art group Mobile Image—founded by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz in 1977—which appropriated emerging technologies, from satellites to electronic message platforms. Based in Los Angeles, this under-studied collective worked amid urban crisis, a techno-boom, consolidating media power, and ascendant neoliberal politics. Mobile Image challenged fundamental conventions of the public sphere, democracy, communication, and political parti...
Large public screens have now become a ubiquitous part of the contemporary cityscape. Far from being simply oversized televisions, the media experts contributing to Ambient Screens and Transnational Public Spaces put forward a strong case that such screens could serve as important sites for cultural exchange. Advances in digital technology spell the possibilities of conducting mobile modes of interaction across national boundaries, and in the process expose the participants to novel sensory experiences, giving rise to a new form of public culture. Understanding this phenomenon calls for a reconceptualization of “public space” and “ambience,” as well as connecting the two concepts wit...
In Precarious Times, Anne Fuchs explores how works of German literature, film, and photography reflect on the profound temporal anxieties precipitated by contemporary experiences of atomization, displacement, and fragmentation that bring about a loss of history and of time itself and that is peculiar to our current moment. The digital age places premiums on just-in-time deliveries, continual innovation, instantaneous connectivity, and around-the-clock availability. While some celebrate this 24/7 culture, others see it as profoundly destructive to the natural rhythm of day and night—and to human happiness. Have we entered an era of a perpetual present that depletes the future and erodes our grasp of the past? Beginning its examination around 1900, when rapid modernization was accompanied by comparably intense reflection on changing temporal experience, Precarious Times provides historical depth and perspective to current debates on the "digital now." Expanding the modern discourse on time and speed, Fuchs deploys such concepts as attention, slowness and lateness to emphasize the uneven quality of time around the world.
This book maps the presence of moving images within the field of public art through encounters with passersby. It argues that far from mere distraction or spectacle, moving images can produce moments of enchantment that can renew, intensify, or challenge our everyday engagement with public space and each other. These artworks also offer frameworks for understanding how moving images operate in public space—how they move viewers and reconfigure the site of the screen. Each chapter explores a mode of address that examines how artists and curators leverage the moving image’s attentional power to engage audiences, create spaces, make place, and challenge assumptions. This book also examines the difficulties and compromises that arise when using urban screens for public art.
Shows how digital media connects people to their lived environments Every day, millions of people turn to small handheld screens to search for their destinations and to seek recommendations for places to visit. They may share texts or images of themselves and these places en route or after their journey is complete. We don’t consciously reflect on these activities and probably don’t associate these practices with constructing a sense of place. Critics have argued that digital media alienates users from space and place, but this book argues that the exact opposite is true: that we habitually use digital technologies to re-embed ourselves within urban environments. The Digital City advocat...
Presented over two volumes, Visual and Multimodal Urban Sociology part A and B explore the use and potential of visual materials and methodologies that expand the level of analysis and ways of seeing in urban sociology.