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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 amortization. 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 an artist 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 behavior. He sees the new developing “pervasive
architecture-style” of the screens covered high-rise -facades as "Electronic
Gothic" (2). Yet they are trying to manage and control our consume behavior,
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 mailing list 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, specialized 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 to
search 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 localizing
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 (6), 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.
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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