Mediated Cities – serie

Filming the City brings together the work of filmmakers, architects, designers, video artists and media specialists to provide three distinct prisms through which to examine the medium of film in the context of the city. The book presents commentaries on particular films and their social and urban relevance, offering contemporary criticisms of both film and urbanism from conflicting perspectives, and documenting examples of how to actively use the medium of film in the design of our cities, spaces and buildings.  Bringing a diverse set of contributors to the collection, editors Edward M. Clift, Mirko Guaralda and Ari Mattes offer readers a new approach to understanding the complex, multi-layered interaction of urban design and film.

Imaging the City brings together the work of designers, artists, dancers and media specialists who cross the borders of design and artistic practices to investigate how we perceive the city; how we imagine it; how we experience it; and how we might better design it. Breaking disciplinary boundaries, editors Steve Hawley, Edward Clift and Kevin O’Brien provocatively open up the field of urban analysis and thought to the perspectives of creative professionals from non-urban disciplines. With a cast of contributors from across the globe, Imaging the City offers international insight for engaging with – and forecasting the future for – our cities.

In the contemporary city, the physical infrastructure and sensorial experiences of two millennia are now inter-woven within an invisible digital matrix. This matrix alters human perceptions of the city, informs our behaviour and increasingly influences the urban designs we ultimately inhabit. Digital Futures and the City of Today cuts through these issues to analyse the work of architects, designers, media  specialists and  a  growing number of community activists, laying out a multi-faceted view of the complex integrated phenomenon of the contemporary city. Split into three sections, the book interrogates the concept of the 'smart' city, examines innovative digital projects from around the world, documents experimental visions for the future, and describes projects that engage local communities in the design process.

Critically challenging the notion of cities as hegemonic spaces, Transformations: Art and the City explores interactions between the human subject and their urban surroundings through site-specific art and creative practices, tracing the ways in which Chapters include case-studies raging from corporate- and public-funded art in Sydney; creative exchanges in Cambodia; politically-engaged enterprise art in the USA; affordable housing models in Australia; street-art under surveillance in Melbourne; and community memorial in post-disaster New Zealand, amongst others. People live, imagine and shape their cities. Drawing on the work of artists globally, from Cambodia to Australia, New Zealand to the USA, this edited collection investigates the politics and democratization of space through an examination of art, education, justice, and the role of the citizen in the city. The writers critically and poetically engage with the temporality and genealogies of public spaces, and ask: how do we reconcile artistic practices with an urbanism driven by globalization and capital? And is there room for aesthetic practices in urban discourse? This collection explores how creative practices can work in tandem with ever-changing urban technologies and ecologies to both disrupt and shape urban public spaces, democratization of space through an examination of art, education, justice and the role of the citizen in the city.

Analysing a variety of international films and, ultimately, placing them in dialogue with video art, photographic narratives and emerging digital image-based technologies, the contributions explore the expanding range of ‘mediated’ narratives of contemporary architecture and urban culture from both a media and a sociological standpoint. Each chapter presents an interesting critical approach to the diversity of topics with clear explanation of the contextual framework and methodology, and a consistent depth of analysis. In the three sections of the book, authors underline the continual role of film and media in creating moving image narratives of the city, identifying how it creates cinematic – and ever more frequently digital – topographies of contemporary urban culture and architecture, re-presenting familiar cities, modes of seeing, cultures and social questions in unfamiliar ways. This filmic emphasis is placed into dialogue with a more diverse range of related visual media, which illustrates the overlaps between them and reveals how moving image technologies create unique visual topographies of contemporary urban culture and architecture. In making this shift from the filmic to the new age of digital image making and alternative modes of image consumption, the book not only reveals new techniques of representation, mediation and the augmentation of sensorial reality for city dwellers; its emphasis on ‘narrative’ offers insights into critical societal issues. These include cultural identity, diversity, memory and spatial politics, as they are both informed by and represented in various media.The focus for the book is on how films can produce mediation of urban life and culture by connecting the notions of identity, diversity and memory. Both the subject and the approach are gaining in popularity in recent years. This book's main feature is its dual perspective, involving both practical and theoretical stances – and it is this approach that makes it a particularly relevant and original contribution.Primary readership will be academics, scholars, undergraduate and postgraduate students and practitioners interested in architecture and media in general, film, moving images, urban studies in particular. Also of relevance to sociologists and those interested in cultural theory.   The inclusion of chapters on urban photography and art installations may also be of interest to students and designers in these areas.

This collection considers the city of the future and its relationship to its citizens. It responds to the foregrounding of digital technologies in the management of urban spaces, and addresses some of the ways in which technologies are changing the places in which we live and the way we live in them.A broad range of interdisciplinary contributors reflect on the global agenda of smart cities, the ruptures in smart discourse and the spaces where we might envisage a more user-friendly and bottom-up version of the smart future. The authors adopt an equality studies lens to assess how we might conceive of a future smart city and what fissures need to be addressed to ensure the smart future is equitable. In the project of envisaging this, they consider various approaches and arguments for equality in the imagined future city, putting people at the forefront of our discussions, rather than technologies.In the smart discourse, hard data, technological solutions, global and national policy and macro issues tend to dominate. Here, the authors include ethnographic evidence, rather than rely on the perspective of the smart technologies’ experts, so that the arena for meaningful social development of the smart future can develop.The international contributors respond purposefully to the smart imperative, to the disruptive potential of smart technologies in our cities: issues of change, design, austerity, ownership, citizenship and equality. The collection examines the pull between equality and engagement in smart futures. To date, the topic of smart cities has been approached from the perspective of digital media, human geography and information communications technology. This collection, however, presents a different angle. It seeks to open new discussions about what a smart future could do to bridge divides, to look at governmentality in the context of (in)equality in the city. The collection is an approachable discussion of the issues that surround smart digital futures and the imagined digital cities of the future. It is aspirational in that it seeks to imagine a truly egalitarian city of the future and to ponder how that might come about.Primary readership will be academics and students in social science, architecture, urban planning, government employees, and those working or studying in social justice and equality studies

Reframing Berlin is about how architecture and the built environment can reveal the memory of a city, an urban memory, through its transformation and consistency over time by means of ‘urban strategies’, which have developed throughout history as cities have adjusted to numerous political, religious, economic and societal changes. These strategies are organised on a ‘memory spectrum’, which range from demolition to memorialisation.It reveals the complicated relationship between urban strategies and their influence on memory-making in the context of Berlin since 1895, with the help of film locations. It utilises cinematic representations of locations as an audio-visual archive to provide a deeper analysis of the issues brought up by strategies and case studies in relation to memory-making.Foreword by Kathleen James-ChakrabortyA new volume in the Mediated Cities series from Intellect

Analysing a variety of international films and, ultimately, placing them in dialogue with video art, photographic narratives and emerging digital image-based technologies, the contributions explore the expanding range of ‘mediated’ narratives of contemporary architecture and urban culture from both a media and a sociological standpoint. Each chapter presents an interesting critical approach to the diversity of topics with clear explanation of the contextual framework and methodology, and a consistent depth of analysis. In the three sections of the book, authors underline the continual role of film and media in creating moving image narratives of the city, identifying how it creates cinematic – and ever more frequently digital – topographies of contemporary urban culture and architecture, re-presenting familiar cities, modes of seeing, cultures and social questions in unfamiliar ways. This filmic emphasis is placed into dialogue with a more diverse range of related visual media, which illustrates the overlaps between them and reveals how moving image technologies create unique visual topographies of contemporary urban culture and architecture. In making this shift from the filmic to the new age of digital image making and alternative modes of image consumption, the book not only reveals new techniques of representation, mediation and the augmentation of sensorial reality for city dwellers; its emphasis on ‘narrative’ offers insights into critical societal issues. These include cultural identity, diversity, memory and spatial politics, as they are both informed by and represented in various media.The focus for the book is on how films can produce mediation of urban life and culture by connecting the notions of identity, diversity and memory. Both the subject and the approach are gaining in popularity in recent years. This book's main feature is its dual perspective, involving both practical and theoretical stances – and it is this approach that makes it a particularly relevant and original contribution.Primary readership will be academics, scholars, undergraduate and postgraduate students and practitioners interested in architecture and media in general, film, moving images, urban studies in particular. Also of relevance to sociologists and those interested in cultural theory.   The inclusion of chapters on urban photography and art installations may also be of interest to students and designers in these areas.

This collection considers the city of the future and its relationship to its citizens. It responds to the foregrounding of digital technologies in the management of urban spaces, and addresses some of the ways in which technologies are changing the places in which we live and the way we live in them.A broad range of interdisciplinary contributors reflect on the global agenda of smart cities, the ruptures in smart discourse and the spaces where we might envisage a more user-friendly and bottom-up version of the smart future. The authors adopt an equality studies lens to assess how we might conceive of a future smart city and what fissures need to be addressed to ensure the smart future is equitable. In the project of envisaging this, they consider various approaches and arguments for equality in the imagined future city, putting people at the forefront of our discussions, rather than technologies.In the smart discourse, hard data, technological solutions, global and national policy and macro issues tend to dominate. Here, the authors include ethnographic evidence, rather than rely on the perspective of the smart technologies’ experts, so that the arena for meaningful social development of the smart future can develop.The international contributors respond purposefully to the smart imperative, to the disruptive potential of smart technologies in our cities: issues of change, design, austerity, ownership, citizenship and equality. The collection examines the pull between equality and engagement in smart futures. To date, the topic of smart cities has been approached from the perspective of digital media, human geography and information communications technology. This collection, however, presents a different angle. It seeks to open new discussions about what a smart future could do to bridge divides, to look at governmentality in the context of (in)equality in the city. The collection is an approachable discussion of the issues that surround smart digital futures and the imagined digital cities of the future. It is aspirational in that it seeks to imagine a truly egalitarian city of the future and to ponder how that might come about.Primary readership will be academics and students in social science, architecture, urban planning, government employees, and those working or studying in social justice and equality studies

Reframing Berlin is about how architecture and the built environment can reveal the memory of a city, an urban memory, through its transformation and consistency over time by means of ‘urban strategies’, which have developed throughout history as cities have adjusted to numerous political, religious, economic and societal changes. These strategies are organised on a ‘memory spectrum’, which range from demolition to memorialisation.It reveals the complicated relationship between urban strategies and their influence on memory-making in the context of Berlin since 1895, with the help of film locations. It utilises cinematic representations of locations as an audio-visual archive to provide a deeper analysis of the issues brought up by strategies and case studies in relation to memory-making.Foreword by Kathleen James-ChakrabortyA new volume in the Mediated Cities series from Intellect

This book, and its individual essays, examine key emerging and evolving practices, theories and methodologies that operate in the blurred boundary between spatial design disciplines, such as architecture, interior and urban design, and film and moving image studies more broadly.The collection is an exploration of the evolving interdisciplinary rhetoric connecting spatial design disciplines like architecture and urban design with film and moving image studies. It is premised on the argument that the understanding of ‘space’ in these areas continues to draw on each other’s fields of reference and that, in recent times, this has expanded further to the point in which it blurs with multiple other disciplines including media art, cultural studies and art practice, to name but three. The result of this evolving interdisciplinary understating of ‘space’ in design disciplines and moving image studies is an expanded field of haptic-visual practice and theory that can be investigated as both a material and an image-based construct.It engages with this evolving set of ideas and underlines how each of its primary discipline areas now increasingly incorporate tools and methodologies from each other’s fields. For example, architects routinely engage with cinematic practice as a means of exploring space, cultural theorists inspect filmic space as a two-dimensional surrogate of the real, media artists incorporate knowledge of spatial design in video installations, and film makers create spaces on screen that are informed by architectural theory. This all follows what can be defined as a discursive turn in our view of spatial relationships across disciplines which, by definition, is complex, eclectic, occasionally contradictory and at times characterised by surprising confluences.Conceived as a form of mapping of these confluences and contradictions, this book collects varied essays that, in their own unique ways, explore the diversity of how we today define, understand and engage with notions of the body in architectural-urban space. It does so through a triadic structure that progresses from haptic relationships of the body in architectural space, through film readings of represented space in mainstream cinema, and concludes with ‘experimental spatial’ projects inspired by film and the moving image. This tripartite structure specifically encourages a look across disciplines, broadening architectural, urbanist, media and cinematic concerns through insightful case studies that engage with their subjects by means of novel techniques, i.e. employing graphic software for an analysis of pre-digital films, deconstructing cinematography in modernist classics, or researching urban edgelands via collaging and montage etc.

The Physical and the Digital City is a unique collection of projects where researchers and designers show how the theories of technology underpinning the digital urban environment are applied in practical and spatial terms. The authors are experts in their respective fields, who pursue cutting edge solutions for city-making and consider the theoretical premise critically. It is designed to be a self-contained and interdisciplinary reference text to introduce students, designers and scholars to the idea of physical/digital and its urban application.The book will help students and designers to develop a clear understanding of the physical and digital principles underpinning urban assemblages and a solid set of references to start working within this topic with confidence. Of interest to all students and scholars interested in urban studies (geography, planning, urban design, social sciences and humanities) and human-computer interaction (media studies, computer science, social sciences, cognitive sciences, anthropology and psychology). The book will clarify the role of digital technologies within the city, along with its possible implications for people and communities.It is oriented to the academic and professional communities interested in architectural, urban and digital design from different angles. This includes those interested in computational architecture, for example, eCAADe Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe, ACADIA Association of Computer Aided Design in Architecture, CAADRIA Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia, SIGraDi Sociedad Iberoamericana de Grafica Digital, CAAD Futures Foundation as well as those interested in the human-computer interaction.

The field of digital heritage, definable in the most elementary terms as the application of digital technologies to the practices of conservation and heritage practices, has exploded in recent years.Today it is typical to see 3D modelling, augmented reality, virtual tours and mobile apps as part and parcel of the heritage sector in a whole variety of ways. This has been reflected in academia with a growing number of conferences and publications dedicated to these questions. The objective of this book is to offer an interdisciplinary examination of such practices which, it is expected, will reveal more of the nuances, interplays and a wider range of interests than is found in the current literature. To that end, the book offers chapters from international scholars in several disciplines: architectural conservation, archaeology, cultural tourism, urban studies and photography; heritage, film, game, museal studies, and scenography. Their work deals with three broad areas of activity in the digital heritage field that this book defines as the ‘digital politics of conservation’; technology as a heritage ‘storytelling’ device; and digital technologies as tools to create ‘virtual models of the past’.