scholarly journals Sensing the City - Mapping the Beat. A rhythmanalysis of music-making in Wellington and Copenhagen

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Katie Rochow

<p>The idea of rhythm has figured as a key conceptual and empirical motif in current research on (urban) space, place and everyday life. Urban spaces are considered polyrhythmic fields, a compound of varied everyday life and spatial rhythms, which produce a particular, but ever-changing, complex mix of heterogeneous social interactions, mobilities, imaginaries and materialities (Edensor 2010). Music-making in the city therefore constitutes and is constituted by a plurality of urban rhythms including the movement between different locations as well as regular temporal patterns of events, activities, experiences and practices as well as energies, objects, flora and fauna which shape the music-maker’s mundane ‘pathways’ through the city. Based on current ethnographic fieldwork in the urban spaces of Wellington (Aotearoa/New Zealand), and Copenhagen (Denmark) this project proposes a way of capturing, understanding and interpreting the multi-faceted rhythmical layout of urban spaces. It will do so by introducing a rhythmanalytical methodology, which draws on interviews, participant generated photographs and mental maps as analytical tools for capturing the interwovenness of socialities, atmospheres, object, texts and images in people’s everyday lives and in this way affords opportunities for attending to the multiple rhythms underlying music-making in the city. The use of cartographic and photographic means of representing these rhythmical dimensions allows us to better attend to an affective register that is often overlooked in studies of music-making. It makes visible some of the ways in which places, from the home to the studio to the performance venue and points in-between form a connective tissue, which anchors the music-makers to the city as well as lends the city its ambience, and, more importantly, its affective charge. As such, the manner in which mood, feeling, a “sense of place,” is evoked through the visual representation of music-makers’ everyday life suggests how the scenic aspects of the city work to simultaneously frame, mediate and facilitate meaningful experiences of place. Consequently, this study documents, through a unique medley of research methods, the way in which music-making serves as a vehicle for the social production of place and the creation of an affective attachment to that place both individual and collective.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Katie Rochow

<p>The idea of rhythm has figured as a key conceptual and empirical motif in current research on (urban) space, place and everyday life. Urban spaces are considered polyrhythmic fields, a compound of varied everyday life and spatial rhythms, which produce a particular, but ever-changing, complex mix of heterogeneous social interactions, mobilities, imaginaries and materialities (Edensor 2010). Music-making in the city therefore constitutes and is constituted by a plurality of urban rhythms including the movement between different locations as well as regular temporal patterns of events, activities, experiences and practices as well as energies, objects, flora and fauna which shape the music-maker’s mundane ‘pathways’ through the city. Based on current ethnographic fieldwork in the urban spaces of Wellington (Aotearoa/New Zealand), and Copenhagen (Denmark) this project proposes a way of capturing, understanding and interpreting the multi-faceted rhythmical layout of urban spaces. It will do so by introducing a rhythmanalytical methodology, which draws on interviews, participant generated photographs and mental maps as analytical tools for capturing the interwovenness of socialities, atmospheres, object, texts and images in people’s everyday lives and in this way affords opportunities for attending to the multiple rhythms underlying music-making in the city. The use of cartographic and photographic means of representing these rhythmical dimensions allows us to better attend to an affective register that is often overlooked in studies of music-making. It makes visible some of the ways in which places, from the home to the studio to the performance venue and points in-between form a connective tissue, which anchors the music-makers to the city as well as lends the city its ambience, and, more importantly, its affective charge. As such, the manner in which mood, feeling, a “sense of place,” is evoked through the visual representation of music-makers’ everyday life suggests how the scenic aspects of the city work to simultaneously frame, mediate and facilitate meaningful experiences of place. Consequently, this study documents, through a unique medley of research methods, the way in which music-making serves as a vehicle for the social production of place and the creation of an affective attachment to that place both individual and collective.</p>


Author(s):  
Yulia Nurliani Lukito ◽  
Rumishatul Ulya

This paper aims to investigate the negotiation between the “formal” and the “informal” urban space in Jakarta through the examination of use of space of marginalized transportation of bajaj – a three-wheeled public transportation. Bajaj drivers continuously and creatively create their use of space and territory as the result of the limitation of space. Creativity in using space emerges as a way to get available space and this activity results in the appropriation of urban space. The basis of such appropriation is how to survive in urban space and such condition is characterized by negotiation, flexibility and adaptability. In high-density Jakarta city, it is necessary for bajaj drivers – who have only limited possibility in using strategic urban space – to use both the formal and the informal to sustain the city at large. An analysis of how bajaj drivers negotiated urban spaces around Manggarai Station reveals the appropriation of urban space that relies on temporality, tactics and negotiation of rules of access among users. In this paper, we analyze how urban informality as an ‘organizing logic’ results in a specific mode of the production of space. The analysis of negotiations of space around Manggarai Station is intended to contribute to an understanding of how informal and negotiated spaces, which shape everyday life in the city, are inseparable parts of formal and designed spaces in the city of Jakarta.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 95-99
Author(s):  
Ana Rusta

AbstractIn this essay will be given a great importance to the traditional and contemporary conception and perception of urban space as elements referred to the city. Throughout the analysis, in the level of the contemporary perception of the city, will be presented the theory that insists on the conception and construction of urban space by the practices of everyday life and the so-called strategy of resistance. This refers not only to a new frame of sociology but also to a new methodological approach for the construction of the urban space. Regarding the latter, will be elaborated the thought of Henri Lefebvre and Michael De Certeau as a vector for the explanation of some problems observed in the methodological conception of urban space such as the city of Tirana. Through this approach, we will specifically disclose some problems observed about the use of certain urban spaces. Traditionally, the theory of representation emphasizes a conception of abstract and rational presentation of urban space analyzed from above, giving us an incredibly simplified bureaucratic view of the city. This theory does not analyze specifically micro-urban space and social problems facing the people in this space. Therefore, a new contemporary theory appears as a critique which aims to use a new anti-bureaucratic method that starts from the study of practices of everyday life, using instrumental analysis of the body and micro-social practices to present urban space in the most comprehensive frame.


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):  
Andrey Rezaev ◽  
Alexander Stepanov ◽  
Pavel Lisitsyn

The paper presents the outcomes of the field research oriented towards studying the usage of urban space by female labor migrants from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in Saint Petersburg in comparison with the practices that they have developed in their places of origin. The paper is based on the sociology of everyday life. The authors focus on the migrants’ transnational practices and a scope of their integration into the host society, as well as the perception of the urban space of Saint Petersburg in comparison to the migrants’ homelands. The informants for the study were 28 legal transnational labor migrants. The methods of the research are in-depth interviews in combination with mental maps. The hypothesis of the study includes two assumptions. The first is that migrant women from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have transnational practices that indicate their inclusion in the social networks of both the country of origin and the host society, while their everyday life will be characterized by a rather low degree of integration into the host society. The second assumption is that the mental maps of St. Petersburg that were drawn by the informants are detailed and diverse compared to the mental maps of the place of residence in their homelands. These assumptions were partly confirmed. Results of the inquiry raise new research questions that demand further research of migrant workers to be answered.


ILUMINURAS ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (36) ◽  
Author(s):  
Urpi Montoya Uriarte

Este trabalho se insere no que se chama hoje de antropologia da cidade, que se preocupa com a forma como os citadinos – em sua condição alternada de usuários, moradores, transeuntes ou consumidores – fazem a cidade (Agier, 2011). Nossa compreensão de cidade está marcada pela recente teoria do espaço no interior da Geografia (Massey, 2012) e nossa compreensão da produção do espaço se baseia na teoria de Henri Lefebvre, especialmente em seu La production de l´espace (1974). Com esta bagagem teórica, propomos uma antropologia dos espaços urbanos preocupada com a forma como os espaços na cidade são produzidos por pessoas comuns ou homens ordinários. Os dados empíricos analisados provêm de uma etnografia de dois micro-espaços na cidade de Salvador. As leituras teóricas destes micro-espaços nos levam a afirmar a atualidade e força dos espaços diferenciais que emergem no espaço abstrato, a significação política dos espaços apropriados e a vigência do valor de uso e as relações costumeiras na cidade contemporânea.Palavras-chave: Espaços urbanos. Produção do espaço. Espaços diferenciais. Apropriação de espaços. Valor de uso.Production of urban space by ordinary men: anthropology of two micro-spaces in the city of SalvadorAbstractThis work is part of what is today called anthropology of the city, that is concerned with how the townspeople – in their alternating condition of users, residents, bystanders or consumers – make the city (Agier, 2011). Our understanding of the city is marked by the recent theory of space inside the geography (Massey, 2012) and our understanding of the production of space is based on the theory of Henri Lefebvre, especially in its The production of the space (1974). With this theoretical background, we propose an anthropology of urban spaces concerned with how the spaces in the city are made by ordinary people or ordinary men . The data analyzed come from an ethnographic study of two micro-spaces in the city of Salvador. The theoretical interpretations of these micro-spaces lead us to affirm the relevance and strength of differential spaces that emerge in the abstract space, the political significance of the appropriate spaces and the duration of use value and customary relations in the contemporary city.Keywords: Urban spaces. Production of space. Differential spaces. Appropriation of spaces. Use value.  


Dimensions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-202
Author(s):  
Sergiy Ilchenko

Abstract This contribution elaborates upon the appropriation of urban space in spatiotemporal and procedural interventions in the example of the city of Kharkiv, as well as the impact of urban space on the process of how various groups rediscover and use various parts of the city. Being moved during collective actions - in the sense of feeling urged to move along - goes beyond routine practices by influencing the city and its perception. It seems that these general processions, celebrations, and festive activities of the residents are their contributions to the process of »urban renaissance« - the rebirth of interest in the urban way of life. Since public spaces reflect the historical inheritance of local communities, joint transformative actions such as, »appropriation «, »production«, and »governance« of urban spaces are considered. This article advocates for the practice of domestication of urban space by the local community, as well as the need for the existence of »urban lagoons« - free (unregulated) areas of the city used as resources for urban development and interaction of citizens.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-482
Author(s):  
Parvin Partovi ◽  
Kebria Sedaghat Rostami ◽  
Amir Shakibamanesh

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.


Author(s):  
Jacob Kreutzfeldt

Street cries, though rarely heard in Northern European cities today, testify to ways in which audible practices shape and structure urban spaces. Paradigmatic for what Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari call ‘the refrain’, the ritualised and stylised practice of street cries may point at the dynamics of space-making, through which the social and territorial construction of urban space is performed. The article draws on historical material, documenting and describing street cries, particularly in Copenhagen in the years 1929 to 1935. Most notably, the composer Vang Holmboe and the architect Steen Eiler Rasmussen have investigated Danish street cries as a musical and a spatial phenomenon, respectably. Such studies – from their individual perspectives – can be said to explore the aesthetics of urban environments, since street calls are developed and heard specifically in the context of the city. Investigating the different methods employed in the two studies and presenting Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the refrain as a framework for further studies in the field, this article seeks to outline a fertile area of study for sound studies: the investigation of everyday refrains and the environmental relations they express and perform. Today changed sensibilities and technologies have rendered street crying obsolete in Northern Europe, but new urban ritornells may have taken their place.


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.


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