Ground Control to Major Tom

2021 ◽  
pp. 1053-1066
Author(s):  
Aaron D. Knochel
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Art Making ◽  
Positioning Systems ◽  
Global Positioning ◽  
A Site ◽  
Intensive Course ◽  
The City

In this chapter I explore satellite seeing in the convergence of global visual culture as a human-satellite co-figuration. Satellites, Global Positioning Systems, and mobile devices are engaged as prosthetic extensions of an embodied experience that can augment the potential of place-based learning. I engage this co-figuration through Mirzoeff's (2000/2006) notion of intervisuality and diaspora, the work of contemporary artists Trevor Paglen and Jeremy Wood, and my experiences with graduate students in Helsinki, Finland in an intensive course that developed understandings of the city as a site of geographic and cultural identity while exploring ideas of public space and performative interventionist practices in art making. The relations of the human-satellite co-figuration give insight as to the convergence of the local as a scale of the global, imprinted with transcultural pathways for understanding how we are located in the world.

Ground Control to Major Tom

2017 ◽  
pp. 264-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron D. Knochel
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Art Making ◽  
Positioning Systems ◽  
Global Positioning ◽  
A Site ◽  
Intensive Course ◽  
The City

In this chapter I explore satellite seeing in the convergence of global visual culture as a human-satellite co-figuration. Satellites, Global Positioning Systems, and mobile devices are engaged as prosthetic extensions of an embodied experience that can augment the potential of place-based learning. I engage this co-figuration through Mirzoeff's (2000/2006) notion of intervisuality and diaspora, the work of contemporary artists Trevor Paglen and Jeremy Wood, and my experiences with graduate students in Helsinki, Finland in an intensive course that developed understandings of the city as a site of geographic and cultural identity while exploring ideas of public space and performative interventionist practices in art making. The relations of the human-satellite co-figuration give insight as to the convergence of the local as a scale of the global, imprinted with transcultural pathways for understanding how we are located in the world.

scholarly journals Cities of "others" : public space and everyday practices

2009 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Vaiou ◽  
A. Kalandides
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Material Space ◽  
A Site ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
The City

Abstract. This paper deals with the concept of «public space». It works with the ambiguities embedded therein, contrasting material space/s – the streets, squares, parks, public buildings of the city – with the other spaces created through the functions and institutions of the «public sphere» as a site of public deliberation. Focussing on the ambiguities of the concept allow questions of access, interaction, participation, cultural and symbolic rights of passage to be posed. Public space is approached here as constituted through the practices of everyday life: it is produced and constantly contested, reflecting – among other things – relations of power. Differences in gender, ethnicity or sexuality often lead to binary thinking, such as inside/outside, inclusion/exclusion, local/stranger. The way that such categories intertwine in everyday life, though, unsettle easy categorisations and force a questioning of strict lines of division. It is in this context that a proposal is made to discuss the city of «others», drawing from research examples which cross over such lines.

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.

Skateboard Activism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory J. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Media Campaign ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
The West ◽  
Local Politicians ◽  
Community Board ◽  
A Site ◽  
The City ◽  
Neighborhood Council

This chapter shows skaters’ efforts at lobbying local politicians to decriminalize a cherished landmark. The Courthouse in West LA had long been a skating mecca, but in the early 2000s was shut down. Skaters were given heavy fines and often chased out by police. As a result the spot became a site for indigents. Nike began an effort to “remodel” the Courthouse to use for one of their events, but the local skaters became incensed when they learned that the company and the city were intending to make skateboarding legal for only one day. Thus began a concerted effort to make a deal with the city to allow skaters to skate legally at the Courthouse. This chapter describes the efforts undertaken by Aaron Snyder and Alec Beck to lobby the West LA Neighborhood Council. This involved a concentrated social media campaign as well as attending community board meetings. In the span of just four weeks, the skaters realized their efforts. This chapter also describes skaters’ experiences skating the Courthouse legally, and being stewards of this cherished public space.

The Historical Memory Law and its role in redesigning semiotic cityscapes in Spain

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Guilat ◽  
Antonio B. Espinosa-Ramírez
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Franco Regime ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Law ◽  
The City

In its Historical Memory Law (October 2007), Spain recognized victims on both sides of its 1936–1939 Civil War and established entitlements for victims and descendants of victims of the war and the Franco regime that followed (1939–1975). The law requires authorities to remove Francoist symbols and signs from public buildings and spaces, rename streets and squares, and cleanse the public space of monuments and artifacts that glorify or commemorate the regime. By allowing exceptions on artistic, architectural, or religious grounds, however, the law triggered persistent public struggles over monuments, memorials, and outdoor sculptures. This article examines the implementation of the law in the city of Granada, via a case study relating to the removal of a sculpture honoring the founder of the Spanish Fascist movement, José Antonio Primo de Rivera. The controversy over the statue sparked a debate in Granada about the implementation of the law in the public space and raised questions about the role of text, material and visual culture in redesigning Linguistic Landscape by articulating contested memories.

Embodied Affective Citizenship

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Currans
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Reproductive Freedom ◽  
National Mall ◽  
A Site

This chapter brings together three overlapping concerns--embodiment, affect, and citizenship--by focusing on how this women-dominated group claimed a public space integrally tied to citizenship practice. We feel, emotionally and bodily, the ways that we are granted or denied citizenship. Citizenship is an emotional and embodied experience as well as a legal and political process. By marching on Washington, participants brought this complex web of experiences, what I call embodied affective citizenship, to a site central to how U.S. citizenship is imagined. Marchers representing different approaches to establishing reproductive freedom interacted, transforming the national mall into a site for negotiating how citizenship practice would be understood during and after the event.

scholarly journals Z33 Hasselt: Hortus Conclusus as a Model for an Urban Interior

Interiority ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-94
Author(s):  
Bie Plevoets ◽  
Shailja Patel
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Art Design ◽  
A Site ◽  
The City ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Hortus Conclusus

This contribution reviews the recent renovation of Z33—House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture in Hasselt, Belgium—in the light of its unique implementation of different levels of interiority. The institute is housed in the former beguinage, a site with a rich and layered history and one of the few green public spaces in the city centre. The intervention by architect Francesca Torzo builds further on and strengthens the existing qualities of the site through a creative process of copying and improving. By doing so, she changed the overall appearance of the beguinage, strengthening its quality as an enclosed public space—an intimate yet collective hortus conclusus.

The ‘business of community development’ and the right to the city: reflections on the neoliberalization processes in urban community development

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Fursova
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Hegemonic Discourse ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
The Commons ◽  
The Right ◽  
A Site ◽  
The City

Abstract The paper explores emerging contradictions in community development, a subset of non-profit sector, within the context of neoliberalization. I examine non-profit sector as a site that has a potential for articulating counter-hegemonic discourse alternative to neoliberalism. Conversely, non-profit sector itself has been subjected to neoliberal co-optation and restructuring that resulted in restricted autonomy of the sector and decreased capacity to advocate for progressive social change. Drawing on my experience as a community engagement worker in one of Toronto's neighbourhood improvement areas, I problematize community development, posing questions about the role of the non-profit agencies in the production of specific socio-economic configurations that may, albeit inadvertently, support neoliberal discourse. Through an example of local community campaign for increased access to public space and services, I highlight options to enhance counter-hegemonic potential of community development as a critical practice aimed at advancing the commons.

Reconstruction Of Urban Parks Of Culture And Rest Of The Soviet Period

2019 ◽  
pp. 61-65
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Senior Citizens ◽  
Urban Parks ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Limited Mobility ◽  
Functional Zoning ◽  
Functional Areas ◽  
The City

This article analyzes the main problems of urban public spaces, because today public spaces can determine the future of cities. It is noted that parks are multifunctional public spaces in the urban environment, as they are an important element of the citywide system of landscaping and recreation, perform health, cultural, educational, aesthetic and environmental functions. The article notes that the need for easily accessible and well-maintained urban parks remains, however, the state of parks in many cities of Russia remains unsatisfactory, requiring reconstruction. A brief historical background of the Park of Culture and Rest of the Soviet period in Omsk is expounded, the analysis of the existing territory of the Park is presented. It is revealed that the Park, being the largest public space in Omsk, does not meet the requirements of modern urbanism, although it represents a great potential for designing the space for the purpose of recreation of citizens. Performed functional zoning scheme of the territory of the Park in question, where its division into functional areas destined for active recreational users of the Park is presented, considered the interests of senior citizens, people with limited mobility, etc. Reconstruction of Parks of the Soviet period can provide the city with additional recreational opportunities, as well as increase its tourist attractiveness.

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