scholarly journals The Contested Gallery: street art, ethnography and the search for urban understandings

AmeriQuests ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Street Art ◽  
Cultural Characteristics ◽  
The Road ◽  
The City

This is a paper on street art and its role as a form of artistic insurrection that challenges popular understandings of public space and urban visual culture. I would like to think of it as a field guide to urban seeing, a means of revising the way in which we view the cityscape and its imagery. It is a way of imagining the city as a canvas onto which ideas may be inscribed and reinterpreted, where resistance percolates up to those who look for it. It is here, in what Kathleen Stewart has called a “place by the side of the road” that the work of the street artist exists, slowly gurgling up through the cracks in the sidewalk and briefly illuminated by the yellow-white glow of the street lights. Street art most often takes the form of adhesive stickers, spray-painted stencils, and wheat-pasted posters, and while it shares many similar aesthetic and cultural characteristics with graffiti, street art embodies a unique ideology. Graffiti represents a territorialization of space (‘tagging’, or reclaiming urban spaces through the use of pseudonyms as territorial markings); street art represents a reterritorialization of space. Rather than taking space, street art attempts to re-purpose the existing urban environment. This paper seeks to reflect the changing dynamic of urban space through an analysis of the practice of street art. By examining the roles that street artists play in disrupting the flow of visual noise in the city, I will illuminate the cultural value and significance of this form of urban artistic resistance.

scholarly journals Exploring Successful Small Urban Spaces’ Criteria with Emphasis on Cultural Context

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-482
Author(s):  
Parvin Partovi ◽  
Kebria Sedaghat Rostami ◽  
Amir Shakibamanesh
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Model ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The City

In the crowded cities of the present age, public spaces can provide a quiet area away from the hustle and bustle of the city that citizens can interact with by incorporating utility features and meeting human needs and Relax there. Small urban spaces are among the most important and effective urban spaces to achieve this goal. Because these spaces due to their small size and lower costs (compared to larger spaces) for construction can be created in large numbers and distributed throughout the city. In this way, citizens will be able to reach a public urban space on foot in a short time. If these spaces are well designed, they can encourage people to stay in and interact with each other. It is not difficult to identify and experience high-quality successful places, but identifying the reasons for their success is difficult and even more difficult, understanding if similar spaces in other places can be considered successful. This question is important because public space with deep social content is considered a cultural product. Public space is the product of the historical and socio-cultural forces of society. Therefore, one of the most important issues that should be considered in the study of public spaces and the reasons for their success is the cultural context. In Iranian cities that have been influenced by the values and principles of Islam,recognizing Islamic principles and their role in shaping public spaces can lead us to desirable results. The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual model of successful small urban spaces with an emphasis on cultural issues, especially in Iranian-Islamic cities. In this regard, the effective criteria for the success of urban spaces in general and small urban spaces in particular in the two categories of Western countries and Iranian Islamic cities were examined and then, taking into account the criteria derived from cultural theorists, the conceptual model of research with 38 subcriteria is provided.

scholarly journals The cybercity as a medium Public living and agency in the digitally shaped urban space

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 11-19
Author(s):  
Seija Ridell
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Automatic Production ◽  
Urban Settings ◽  
Public Agency ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
The City

The digitalized urban environment is explored in the paper as a medium with several overlapping and interweaving spatial layers. The author suggests that it has grown increasingly complex in the multi-spaced and multiply scaled cybercities for people to share in public space. Moreover, the challenges of public living in contemporary urban settings emerge most intensely at the points of intersection of the invisible technostructure and the (mass) media saturated phenomenality of the city. At these intersections, one ethically and politically burning issue is how people through their ICT-related activities contribute to the ?automatic production of space‘. More specifically, critical attention should be paid to people‘s active, but not necessarily selfreflexive, participation in the consolidation of the ?technological unconscious‘ that conditions their own public agency.

scholarly journals Architecture as the art of creating human-friendly places

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 059-076
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Chęć-Małyszek
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The City

The public space of a city plays a special role in the life of every human being, as it meets basic and at the same time most important needs related to safety and comfort of life. It is a combination of an idea and a technique, which for centuries has reflected the changes taking place in people's social and cultural life. While the city is a multi-layered structure with a clearly separated private and public zone, creating mutual relations between the buildings. Camillo Sitte saw the city urban spaces as a work of art, które should be designed in such a way that the inhabitants feel safe and happy, as it is not just a show-off of technical skill, but an artistic undertaking. [1] The art of designing architecture does not exist for itself, but is created for the target audience.  It provides a harmony that satisfies human needs and guarantees survival. It is an important factor influencing the development of an individual through the organization of a social living space. Urban spaces are primarily people and their needs that change over time. The first part of the article is devoted to the role of public spaces and the idea of the city as a work of art. The second part, in turn, is an attempt to define architecture as a kind of fine arts, taking into account the role it plays in the social life of Lublin's residents.  The article is an attempts to emphasize the importance of architecture in designing a human-friendly environment as an art design that meets social expectations with the use of selected examples urban space of the city of Lublin.

FEATURES OF PERCEPTION OF URBAN SPACE IN THE HISTORICAL CENTER OF A LARGE CITY

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. 24-29
Author(s):  
Anna Zhogoleva ◽  
◽  
Tatyana Polukeeva
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Large City ◽  
Environmental Parameters ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Planning Theory ◽  
Continuous Series ◽  
Historical Center ◽  
The City

The city develops over time, creating a continuous series of unique impressions from the perception of urban spaces. Many environmental parameters affect the perception of the urban environment, form the structures of perception and its atmospheric features. Socio-cultural knowledge of the city, expanding the glossary of architectural and urban planning theory, is engaged in the study of such parameters of the urban environment as the time factor of perception, anthropological parameters, the angle and scale of visual perception, urban gaps, which allows you to expand the idea of the city as a unique phenomenon and process. An attempt has been made to investigate the structure of the perception of the urban space of the central part of Samara.

The War of Billboards: Hijab, Secularism, and Public Space in Bishkek

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emil Nasritdinov ◽  
Nurgul Esenamanova
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Gender Hierarchies ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Religious Ideals ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

In this article, we explore how religion claims its space in the city of Bishkek. The growing community of practicing Muslims asserts the right to be in the city, live according to its religious ideals, and create Islamic urban spaces. Such claims do not remain uncontested and, because religious identity has strong visual manifestation, religious claims become the subject of strong public debate. This contestation overlaps with socially constructed gender hierarchies—religious/secular claims over the urban space turn into men’s claims over women with both sides (religious and secular) claiming to know what women should wear. Yet research shows that Kyrgyz women in Bishkek do not really need fashion advice. The Islamic revivalist movement among women in the Kyrgyz capital has since the 1990s created a strong momentum that has a life of its own and is fairly independent. Muslim women wearing a hijab have become very visible and influential urban actors with their own strong claims for the city.

scholarly journals The Potential for the Transformation of Public Space in Yekaterinburg via Non-Standard Advertising Media

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Golubkova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Ambient Media ◽  
Advertising Agency ◽  
The Public ◽  
Event Marketing ◽  
Promising Tool ◽  
Gender Profile ◽  
The City

In the article, the author considers the influence of new advertising media on the establishment of public space and the transformation of the urban environment of Yekaterinburg. Though popular in Europe, the sociocultural phenomenon Ambient media remains insufficiently studied in contemporary Russia. Ambient advertising has the ability to change the usual urban space in a special way, overcoming environmental alienation and modelling the environment into a comfortable and safe one, therefore developing the public life of the city, making it attractive and creating ‘places of attraction’ for city dwellers. The author carried out an in-depth interview with representatives from the advertising community in Yekaterinburg (N = 22) to research into expert views on unconventional media, and to study expert appraisal of how the new form of advertising communication, Ambient media, impacts the urban environment of Yekaterinburg. The interviewed experts were specialists in advertising and marketing. Main occupation: advertising project management, creative strategies, outdoor ads, event-marketing, PR with a status of an advertising agency or department in the city of Yekaterinburg. Gender profile: 50% males, and 50% females; all aged between 27 and 50. Our study has revealed that advertisement experts regard Ambient media to be a very promising tool in terms of their professional practice, including in regards to the transformation of ambient urban space. Respondents note a correlation between the propagation of Ambient- objects in the city and public space formation. Non-standard media can fill the city with new meanings of freedom and creativity, helping to overcome feelings of alienation and creating new comfortable and safe spaces that people recognise as ‘their own’. Ambient-objects are moreover a source of pride for various social groups of citizens, as they contribute to the formation of a new image of Yekaterinburg: a unique, modern art centre, a city of freedom and creativity.

scholarly journals New urban spaces - their heritage and creation

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 083-092
Author(s):  
Dariusz Gawel
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Broad Concept ◽  
The World ◽  
Surrounding Space ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of

The paper presents the subject of creating and shaping new urban spaces in the era of globalisation. The analysis of these spatial phenomena covers the biggest cities in the world, i.e. places where the problems of urban development occurs most often. The term ‘urban space’ is understood as a broad concept that goes beyond the defined public space. New places created in the cities are the human creations resulting from the life necessities and the cultural needs of people. The fast-changing living environment forces users to engage in the process of searching (sometimes even creating) of new, adequate places. Spatial activities transforming the urban environment more and more often reflect the local social initiatives’ activity. New relations between a user and the surrounding space are the basis for reviewing the existing division and definition of private, group and public space.

scholarly journals VISUAL STREET ART: MESSAGES OF RIGA STENCIL GRAFFITI

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 694
Author(s):  
Normunds Kozlovs ◽  
Ilva Skulte
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Street Art ◽  
Social Semiotics ◽  
Urban Public Space ◽  
Illegal Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The City

The modern urban space is inevitably the site of different striking messages from advertisement to graffiti. The last are used as an alternative medium of subculture, even if majority of the public fails to notice it or else interprets it, contrary to culture’s ordered world of meanings, as chaotic “dirt” more closely related to nature than culture. The discourse of messages found in the public space - on the façades of surfaces forming urban space, can be interpreted in a countercultural code and is for the subculture of graffiti itself, a battle taking place for the aesthetization of the public space. This is the answer provided by the rebellious sons to the “fathers of the city”, who possess money and power with which to design urban public space using architectural means. The generation of sons, who are excluded from this real estate discourse due to a lack of means, put into play the only thing they own, i.e. their body, which they subject to the danger of imprisonment, because graffiti is an illegal activity, which in legal terms is interpreted as vandalism, a view that also prevails within the mass media. In this paper we analyze the meaning of visual messages of Riga stencil graffiti using social semiotics' methodology (Kress & Leewen, 1996; Jewitt & Oyama, 2004). We find that the utilization of the street as an alternative and independent medium in the form of civil disobedience manifested through the translation of radical political ideas, thus to a certain extent performing the work of propaganda, is an example of creative idealism. 

scholarly journals The potential of a short tourist route on the example of a single street: tourist attractiveness of urban spaces

2021 ◽  
pp. 32-43
Author(s):  
Maria Skivko
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Information Analysis ◽  
Small Cities ◽  
Efficient Planning ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The City ◽  
Empirical Framework

The subject of this research is tourist attractiveness of the walking rout of a section of a single street in Samara. The object of this research is such characteristics of the route as visual attractiveness, convenience and safety, atmosphere, and uniqueness. This article provides the analysis of urban space and environment on the example of a specific street in the city of Samara. The selected section directly connects the railway station, which is the place of daily arrival and transit tourists, and the Volga promenade – as one of the main symbols of the city and the center of attraction for locals and visitors. The goal of this research consists in the analysis of the existing conditions for the tourist route, which can be improved and extended for increasing the overall assessment of tourism infrastructure. The empirical framework of this research synthesizes the approaches towards interpretation of the psychogeography of the city and towards the analytics of individual experience in the urban environment. The field notes and information analysis allow examining the potential of a tourist route in this section, as well as making recommendations for increasing tourist attractiveness and development of tourism infrastructure of the city. Such pattern can be applied in the research of large and small cities for assessing the current situation and efficient planning of tourism infrastructure in the future. The author formulates the categories of tourist attractiveness that reflect physical, psychological and emotional characteristics of feasibility of urban environment for local tourism. The scientific novelty of this work consists in the development of categories for the analysis based on the key approaches of Paul Kidwell and Colin Ellard towards studying psychogeography of the city and architecture of the urban environment.

CONCEPT OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF A KEY PUBLIC SPACE (USING THE EXAMPLE OF «ALLEY OF ARCHITECTS», VORONEZH)

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-109
Author(s):  
С. Л. Подвальный ◽  
О. А. Сотникова ◽  
Я. А. Золотухина
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Ecological Condition ◽  
Territory Design ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Modern Technologies ◽  
Intensive Growth

Постановка задачи. В настоящее время формирование современной комфортной городской среды приобретает особое социально-экономическое значение и выдвигается в число приоритетных государственных масштабных программ. В связи с этим необходимо разработать концепцию благоустройства ключевого общественного пространства, а именно: определить основные и сопутствующие функции данной территории, создать эскизное предложение проекта благоустройства с учетом всех необходимых норм и стандартов, внедрить современные технологии. Результаты. Выполнен эскизный дизайн-проект «Аллеи архитекторов» по ул. Орджоникидзе г. Воронеж, включающий в себя основные элементы по зонированию территории, проектированию акцентных объектов и внедрению инновационных технологий «умного города», позволяющих повысить уровень комфорта горожан. Выводы. Благоустройство населенных мест приобретает особое значение в условиях дискомфорта среды. С выполнением комплекса мероприятий, направленных на благоустройство, и с внедрением современных технологий значительно улучшается экологическое состояние, внешний облик города. Оздоровление и модернизация среды, которая окружает человека в городе, благотворно влияет на психофизическое состояние, что особенно важно в период интенсивного роста городов. Statement of the problem. Currently the formation of the modern comfortable urban environment is gaining a special social and economic value and moving forward in the priorities of state large-scale programs. The purpose of development of the concept of improvement of public space is definition of the main and accompanying functions of this territory, design of the outline offer of the project of improvement considering all necessary norms and standards and implementation of modern technologies. Results. The conceptual project of “Alley of Architects” includes the basic elements of territory zoning, design of accent objects and implementation of technologies of a “smart-city”. These elements allow one to increase the level of comfort of inhabitants. Conclusions. Improvement of the inhabited places is of particular importance in the conditions of discomfort of the environment. Carrying out a complex of the actions directed to gardening and improvement, introducing modern technologies, the ecological condition, the physical appearance of the city considerably improves. Improvement and modernization of the environment which surrounds the person in the city influences a psychophysical state well that especially important during intensive growth of the cities.

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