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impressum |
(Text by Mirjam Struppek)
In the context of the rapidly
evolving commercial information sphere of our cities, developers have constantly
been trying to spread new digital display technology into the urban landscape.
Large daylight compatible LED screens have been installed in public space, and
high-tech plasma screens are increasingly displayed in shop windows. Trying
to make use of their economic power, their content has so far been dominated
by advertisement or news and only recently by "special cultural screenings".
Considering this already existing digital infrastructure, it is a great challenge,
first trying to broaden the use of these "moving billboards" (1),
before we overflow the urban space with new "techno-objects". Older
large screens have finally been paid off by ads and thus are not anymore under
the pressure of amortisation. Additionally in a crisis of people’s perception
of the competing advertisements, there is a growing interest in exploring the
potential of a non-commercial use, supporting the advertisement strategies of
the screens. This requires investigation of new strategies and cooperation in
content production and management.
[ STRICTLY PUBLIC ] for example is anartist group that goes with its screenings
between the standard commercials and news of large public LED screens. In 2004
they commissioned to undertake a questionnaire with the people in the streets
at their new screening venue. Talking to the potential audience passing the
large outdoor screen clearly showed how difficult it is to achieve new ways
of visual recognition and to surprise the passers-by to catch their conscious
attention. Correspondingly, instead of just infiltrating some “artcoockies”
it is expedient to look at the screens more in terms of open "screening
platforms", which give the audience the possibility to engage in content
production. Can the urban society benefit from this takeover of the visual urban
sphere and thus the production of space? What social or cultural impact could
a new collaborative content-management of these screens have, for example by
using the evolving tools of social computing?
Public space has always been a place for human interaction. Referring to the
concept of the Agora it is a unique arena for exchange of rituals and communication
in a constant process of renewal, challenging the development of our society.
The architectural dimension of the space has played changing importance in providing
a stage for this. The architecture itself has always been a story telling medium
and the occurring social interactions, the way the space is inhabited, can be
read as a participatory process of its audience. Paul Virillio refers to the
narratives of the Gothic church-windows, which always tried to influence people’s
moral behaviour. He sees the new developing “pervasive architecture-style”
of the screens covered high-rise -facades as "Eletronic Gothic" (2).
Yet they are trying to manage and control our consume behaviour, recently also
incorporating “interactive features supporting constant “short-term
stimulation” (3). The immersive effects on the audience will be as well
increased by the further incorporation of the screens in the architecture of
the urban landscape.
The vanishing role as space for social and symbolic confrontation and discourse
has been often discussed in urban sociology. For sure we cannot yearn for Habermas
romantic ideal of a public sphere emerging from inhabiting the public space.
Yet for example Sennett, Häussermann and Bott have notably pointed out
how, since modernization, the growing independence from place and time and the
individualization seem to destroy the old rhythm of the city and there fore
its social systems. We currently face a transitional period of restructuring
social networks in a globalized world. This is resulting in various experiments
with new types of relations, supported by the developing new media tools. New
virtual spaces have been continuously populated, starting with the development
of virtual cities with its chat rooms, muds and experimental spaces for production
of identity. Now we face various community experiments in the growing field
of social computing, like peer-to-peer networks, friend-of-a-friend communities
like Orkut or Friendster and recently mobile communities, a connecting service
for mobile phone users. Participatory experiments in content creation we find
in the mailinglist culture and more recently through wiki- and blogging-systems,
serving an increased need for self-expression.
On the other hand, parallel to this development an "event culture"
has evolved in the real urban space. Guy Debord already foresaw “the society
of the spectacle” in 1967. In the growing international competition among
cities often the focus lies on tourism or the citizen as consumer. City marketing
and urban management strategies are applied to create a vision of “creative
cities” that in fact are not necessarily supporting the inhabitant’s
creative use of the city or their creative contribution to a lively urban culture.
Cities are in the struggle against the "feeling of placelesness" caused
by the spread of international architecture and brand-shops. In fact, screens
as well look the same everywhere, so there is a need to consider the locality
and sitespecifity of the content, to prevent the further disconnectedness of
the perception of our urban space and the actual locality.
First attempts to broaden the content of the large digital outdoor screens become
visible. The core focus of what is just emerging is the transfer of TV-features,
slightly adjusted to the new circumstances. So soon we might have TV broadcast
stations, specialised on the urban public space and its local community. They
will coordinate the outdoor movie-screenings, the collective watching of soccer-games
and the special City-TV news channels. A citywide "networked web of spatial
narratives” (4) with the fractured character of the mass media world will
emerge. Imagine new soap operas, or big brother shows especially created for
the urban space audience!
Yet, considering the social sustainability of our cities it is necessary to
look closer at the liveability and openness of our public spaces. We need tosearch
for new supportive strategies, addressing the urban users as citizens not only
as properly behaving consumers. Accordingly, the experience, made in the new
virtual communication spheres might serve as inspiration for the social enhancement
of the emerging urban surroundings. It will be a challenge to carefully augment
the city through the use of these new content production techniques of the digital
world in connection with the urban screens. Linda Wallace sees ” the internet
as a delivery mechanism to inhabit and or change actual urban spaces.”
(5) Moreover, there is already an increasing invisible information-sphere developing
in our cities, the air seems to be full of electromagnetic flows of data exchange.
Could large outdoor displays function as experimental "visualization zone"
of this fusion of the virtual public spaces and our real world. Can we localising
the huge flows of information data through these screens and can these zones
in fact take a more active role than just being the canvas on which the digital
world is rendered? Digital screens, as a new modern mirror, reflecting the public
sphere, a medium of communication of the city with its citizens as urban players?
This finally could bind the screens more to the communal context of the space,
facilitating them to contribute to the creation of local identity.
In the URBAN SCREENS 05 conference, these questions will be addressed. We want
to launch a discussion about how digital culture could make use of the existing
and future screening infrastructure, in terms of art and social or political
practices, generating a higher value for its operators and "users".
We will address the existing commercial predetermination and explore both the
nuance between art, interventions and entertainment to stimulate a lively culture
within the urban society. Other key issues will be: mediated interaction, content
management and curation, participation of the local community, the technical
requirements, and the immersive effects of incorporating the screens in the
architecture of our urban landscape.
The conference aims at an interdisciplinary audience with the intention to exchange
experiences and start a network to initiate future collaborations. During the
conference participants will strongly be encouraged to take part in an open
discourse and exchange. Making already use of cooperative tools, preparations
of the event will include an open online discussion via a special mailinglist
and constant documentation on the conference weblog. (6) Additionally audio
recordings and other participatory online documentation during and after event
will present the content to a wider audience.
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1. MANOVICH L. „The Poetics of Augmented Space“, 2002; URL: http://
www.manovich.net/DOCS/augmented_space.doc
2. VIRILIO, P. “We may be entering an electronic gothic era”. Architectural
Design - Architects in Cyberspace II. vol.68, n. 11/12, nov-dec 1998, pp 61-65.
3. LOOTSMA, BART „Der öffentliche Raum in Bewegung“, in daidalos
Nr.67, 1998, p 119
4. WALLACE, L. „Screenworld“ in: material media, artefacts from
a digital age, 2003. URL: http://www.machinehunger.com.au/phd/pdf
5. ibidem
6. URBAN SCREENS 05 http://www.urbanscreens.org