Remaking the Urban

Author(s):  
Michael Bull

This article appears in theOxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aestheticsedited by John Richardson, Claudia Gorbman, and Carol Vernallis. This chapter explores the creation of an urban sonic aesthetic through a critical analysis of Apple iPod use. Based on original ethnographic material, it chapter explores the differing audiovisual ways in which urban space is mediated through communication technologies like the Apple iPod. It divides the experience of urban space into Fordist aesthetics and hyper-post-Fordist aesthetics and strategies and situates these aesthetic “moments” within a critical analysis informed by the work of a range of urban and critical theorists. In doing so, the chapter re-evaluates the meaning of an everyday audiovisual aesthetic that challenges accepted explanations of urban aesthetic experience, such as flânerie and the cosmopolitan subject that is located in the works of Auge, Benjamin, Sennett, Simmel, and others.

Author(s):  
Galit Noga-Banai

This chapter focuses on the creation of holy sites in Rome that are comparable in their significance to those in Jerusalem—that is, touched by past sacred events and/or sacred bodies. It maps the reasons for the change of attitude toward Jerusalem in Rome, and makes the argument that once the locally connected holy sites projected into the urban space, especially the local bonding of the sites related to Peter and Paul, it was possible to include Jerusalem in the Roman decorative programs. The discussion concentrates on the dynamic involved in the commemoration of sacred spaces in Rome, from the architecture of the holy sites (Basilica Apostolorum, S. Paolo fuori le mura) to portable objects related to them.


2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-99
Author(s):  
Caragh Wells

This article suggests that over recent decades Catalan literary criticism has paid too little attention to the aesthetic attributes of Catalan literature and emphasised the social, political and cultural at the expense of discussions of narrative poetics. Through an analysis of Montserrat Roig’s metaphorical use of the city in her first novel Ramona, adéu, I put forward the view that the aesthetic features of Catalan literature need to be re-claimed. This article provides a critical analysis of the aesthetic importance of Roig’s representation of the city in her first novel and argues that she uses Barcelona as a critical tool through which to explore questions of both female emancipation and aesthetic freedom. Following a detailed discussion of Roig’s descriptions of how her female characters interact with particular urban spaces, I examine how Roig makes subtle shifts in her semantic register during these narrative accounts when her prose moves into the realm of the poetic. I conclude that this technique enables us to read her accounts of urban space as metaphors for aesthetic freedom and are inextricably linked to her wider concerns on the importance of liberating Catalan literature from the discourse of political nationalism.


Author(s):  
Rogério Barbosa da Silva ◽  
Amanda R. G. Martins ◽  
Caio Saldanha

The Tecnopoetics group has developed the concept of Poemaps, which constitutes a system for the creation of poetry within a logic of georeferencing. The intrinsic elements of the Poemaps are: (1) the critical articulation linking poetry and urban space: (2) the use of online mapping services to georeference poetry to certain spaces — fostering the desire to write about lived or imagined spatialities; (3) the topic of the labyrinth — inside a mechanism to foster imagination and questioning about existential complexities in the cities; (4) the creation of interactive poetry as enhancer of criticism — through the use of commentary-poems, fusing transtextual categories, such as metatextuality or architextuality, insofar as texts are also prone to intermedialities; (5) the concept of a web application capable of performing as an open artwork.


2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-79
Author(s):  
Dmitry N. Zamyatin ◽  
◽  

Literary texts can be considered as the most attractive research material for analyzing the key features of both the semiotics of the city as a whole and the semiotics of individual cities, to which many works of art are devoted. The urban space of Modernity as a result of the processes of powerful semiotization can be considered as both textual and intertextual. The intertextuality of Modern urban spaces presupposes sets of “floating” topological signifiers corresponding to similar sets of “floating” topological signs. In the traditional semiotics of the city, the existence of two realities is assumed — the “real” reality and the “semiotic” reality, between which clear logical correspondences and/or relations can be observed and analyzed. The appearance of non-classical/post-classical urban narratives focused on the problems of dis-communication at the beginning of the 20th century became one of the important signs of the primary formation of the post-city and post-urbanism phenomena. The post-city is not a text and can not be regarded as a text; at the same time, it can generate separate texts that are not related to each other in any way. Post-urban texts, which are the communicative results of specific co-spatialities, remain local “flashes” that do not form a single text or meta-text (super-text). Hetero-textuality is a phenomenon of post-urban reality, which is characterized by the coexistence, as a rule, of texts that do not correlate with each other, relating to certain stable urban loci. Trans-semiotics in general context is understood as the study of any texts that involve the creation of sign-symbolic breaks or “gaps” with any other potentially possible correlating texts in the process of signification. Trans-semiotics of post-cities are studies of (literary) texts that involve the creation of sign-symbolic breaks or “gaps” with any other potentially possible correlating texts related to a particular urban locus in the process of signifying any urban loci. The post-city heterostructuality can be considered as the co-spatiality of mutually exclusive texts corresponding to “non-seeing” post-city loci. Post-urban trans-semiotics in the course of their development form a kind of “dark zones” that reject or neutralize any attempt at any semiotic interpretation.


Author(s):  
Lesley S. J. Farmer

This chapter explains how case studies can be used successfully in higher education to provide an authentic, interactive way to teach ethical behavior through critical analysis and decision making while addressing ethical standards and theories. The creation and choice of case studies is key for optimum learning, and can reflect both the instructor's and learners' knowledge base. The process for using this approach is explained, and examples are provided. As a result of such practice, learners support each other as they come to a deeper, co-constructed understanding of ethical behavior, and they make more links between coursework and professional lives. The instructor reviews the students' work to determine the degree of understanding and internalization of ethical concepts/applications, and to identify areas that need further instruction.


Author(s):  
Philippa Collin

Young people are using information communication technologies (ICT) for new forms of political participation. At the same time, government and non-government organisations are looking to the internet to implement policies designed to engage young people in democracy. This raises the question of what forms of e-citizenship are being imposed on young people and are these same forms being pursued by young people themselves? Coleman (2008) has suggested that programs tend to promote autonomous or managed forms and argues for a ‘productive convergence’ that can facilitate democratic e-citizenship. Using original research, this article presents two case studies of such a ‘productive convergence’ and argues that what is particularly powerful in such e-citizenship programs is that they facilitate young people’s connection to existing networks as well as the building of new communities for action. This article presents a critical analysis of how organisations and young people in Australia and the United Kingdom view and use the internet for participation and considers the extent to which there is increased democratising potential in these e-citizenship programs.


2021 ◽  
pp. 97-116
Author(s):  
Avriel Bar-Levav

This chapter talks about Jewish rituals that are considered highly dynamic as they constantly evolve, change, and erode once they emerge. It examines the emergence and spread of Jewish rituals between the mid-seventeenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, detecting numerous changes that have undergone over time. It also cites newly emergent sensibilities, communication technologies, towering personalities, influential books and other printed materials, and the spread of new ideologies as combined factors that modify or alter the course of Jewish ritual practices. The chapter presents an unknown broadsheet that illustrates Jewish domestic table rituals as they developed in eastern Europe during the eighteenth century. This broadsheet comprises of various texts that are studied and performed at mealtimes and is considered an example of the creation of personalized rituals.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 2136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrycja Szarek-Iwaniuk ◽  
Adam Senetra

A smart city is one of the latest concepts in the development of modern cities. It has evolved from the foregoing smart cities 1.0 and 2.0 to the smart city 3.0, where members of the local community play the main role as not only the recipients of the introduced changes and modern technology, but also as the creators of urban space. One of the goals of a smart city 3.0 is to promote sustainable urban development by improving the quality of life, enhancing social participation, and involving local community members in planning and decision-making processes. This study set out to determine the role and significance of e-participation methods in the smart city concept. The results of questionnaires exploring the importance of e-participation in urban development are presented. The paper also discusses changes in the availability of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Poland. The secondary goal was to present the geo-questionnaire and Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) as modern research tools. Internet tools based on geoinformation systems have considerable potential for mobilizing social participation in spatial planning (Public Participation GIS). The present study postulates the need for modern social participation methods in shaping urban space and promoting the sustainable development of cities. The study highlights the main challenges in the research process. The cooperation between the authorities and the citizens contributes to the development of a civil society, informed decision-making, social involvement in public life, and more effective governance at the local, regional, and national level. Measures that foster cooperation between the authorities and local communities, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), and growing social awareness and social participation in managing development are the components of a modern smart city and the building blocks of an e-society. The study also revealed positive changes in access to ICT and their contribution to bridging the digital divide in Poland. Higher levels of social awareness regarding participation and e-participation promote the growth of smart cities.


Urban Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristian Silva

Urban sprawl has been discussed extensively with regard to its negative impacts. On this basis, regulations have been put in place to control sprawling suburbanization, including the establishment of restricted areas for expansion defined by administrative urban boundaries. Overall, these measures have not been at all successful, considering that city-regions continue to expand inorganically, often reinforcing urban sprawl patterns. As clear evidence of the weaknesses of planning regimes of control, these unsuccessful attempts are partly explained by a series of policy ambiguities that contradict the meaning of planning as a prescriptive discipline. This ambiguity is justified by the need to frame flexible regulations that allow adaptation to unforeseen events over time. In this paper, using the case of Auckland, New Zealand, it is demonstrated that instead of planning flexibility, there is planning “ambiguity” accompanied by weak opposition from rural regimes, which deliberately contributes to urban sprawl. This is relevant considering that the inorganic encroachment of rural lands diminishes the huge environmental potential of the peri-urban space of Auckland, its ecosystem services, and agricultural activities—all elements that encourage the creation of more environmentally sustainable peripheral landscapes as a counterpoint to traditional sprawling suburbanization.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippa Collin

Young people are using information communication technologies (ICT) for new forms of political participation. At the same time, government and non-government organisations are looking to the internet to implement policies designed to engage young people in democracy. This raises the question of what forms of e-citizenship are being imposed on young people and are these same forms being pursued by young people themselves? Coleman (2008) has suggested that programs tend to promote autonomous or managed forms and argues for a ‘productive convergence’ that can facilitate democratic e-citizenship. Using original research, this article presents two case studies of such a ‘productive convergence’ and argues that what is particularly powerful in such e-citizenship programs is that they facilitate young people’s connection to existing networks as well as the building of new communities for action. This article presents a critical analysis of how organisations and young people in Australia and the United Kingdom view and use the internet for participation and considers the extent to which there is increased democratising potential in these e-citizenship programs.


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