A City Never Lies – Situational Irony and the Political Impact of Public Urban Space.
(2016)
author(s): Denise Ziegler
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
In this text, I question the concepts of urban space and public art. Experimental artistic interventions are conducted using situational irony as a method for reflecting on the impact urban public space and its user can have. Instead of interrogating people and involving them in the process, the interventions put questions directly to public infrastructure, to walls, fences, buildings and pedestrian ways. In a post-Beuysian vein, an artist workshop is extended to public space in order to work with its mechanisms and possibilities. This is considered a political act. The research aims to contribute to the redefinition of concepts regarding how we look at and develop public urban space.
A new language for cities
(last edited: 2020)
author(s): Emma Harriet Austin Creed
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
A new language for cities is an exploration into how Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and New Media (XR) can help to make art more inclusive through re-introducing it into everyday life, allowing audiences to consider the environment around them in new, playful, immersive and interactive ways.
Cities are living organisms in the sense that no matter our intentions when working with architecture and urban planning, we cannot guarantee how a certain space or environment will be used. The purpose and use of a space is dependent on the people who inhabit it, not those that create it. As such, each corner of a city has a story to tell. The daily interactions of the people who live and work there leave a mark that creates an intimate narrative around what it means to live a life.
As an artist I am interested in exploring both what has alienated people to different forms of art and also encouraged them to engage with it. I believe that XR has the possibility to play with the reality of how people will interact with a city, exploring historical and current narratives to reconnect alienated audiences with art by literally bringing it to them.