The Spectacle of Urban Consumption: the Role of Urban Art in the Reconfiguration of the Public Sphere. (original) (raw)
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Cities have always been centre for commerce, however, empowered by forces of globalization, neo liberal political regime, new age information & communication technologies etc.; commercial culture has reached new heights today and make its ever so strong presence felt in our cities. From privatization of public realm to changing spatial order, we see manifestation of this culture in various manners. One such inescapable manifestation is, in form of outdoor advertisements. Today, spaces with absolutely no advertisements are becoming fewer. As a potential and often always present element, it is important to study how advertising impacts the city. This work is an attempt into examining the changing role of outdoor advertisements in shaping our experience of urban. It looks into the extent to which advertisements have become a part and parcel of our urban experience in various forms and what are its various effects. Along with secondary literature, a series of photo walk and illustration methods are used to observe the impact. The study essentially does not talk of the content in advertisements and their effects but only focuses on the fact of their physical occupation in city. This study makes a case for their presence in the city despite of certain disadvantages which need to be checked.
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This paper contributes to an expanding concern with the urban geographies of advertising. The paper outlines the need to investigate the difference the material logics of advertising technology (hardware, software and code) make to the bodies and spaces of urban life. Through an intensified capacity to selectively open up to and interact with urban space, I argue, technological advancements in outdoor advertising launch the advertising object into a more compatible relation with urban space. I exemplify this by pulling out and detailing the recent development of image-recognition technology, anti-hacking features and thermal management systems, each of which are becoming central to the contemporary material conditions of outdoor advertising. Through the lens of Gilbert Simondon's notion of 'concretisation', these technological advancements are conceptualised as resolving particular commercial incompatibilities in the relation between advertising object and excessive environments. Taken together, they leverage the outdoor advertising object's control over its capacities to affect and be affected, that is, over its affective affordance. I suggest this has significant implications for how we engage and intervene into the politics of advertising geographies.
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Resumo: a utilização do mobiliário urbano parisience como veículo para comunicar a publicidade é analisada sob a ótica do consumerismo baudrillardiano e da concepção de Junkspace de Rem Koolhaas. Três exemplos de peças publicitárias integradas ao urbano são apresentados e analisados via-à-vis estes referenciais teóricos. Três extensões do conceito baudrillardiano de sedução são propostos: i) a sedução através do signo familial, proporcionada pelas vitrines dos Grands Magasins, ii) a sedução pela integração, alcançada pela coluna Morris, e iii) a sedução pela ambição de pertencimento a um grupo de referência, incitado por um tapume-painel. A caracterização da corporificação do Junkspace na Paris contemporânea, bem como uma reflexão sobre a sutileza da sedução espetacular do consumo através da inevitabilidade do cotidiano nesta cidade são, por fim, argüidos. Abstract: in this article, the use of Parisian urban furniture as a medium for communicating advertising is analyzed drawing from the perspectives of the Baudrillardian consumerism and the concept of Junkspace introduced by Rem Koolhaas. Three examples of advertising integrated into the city are presented and analyzed via-à-vis these theoretical frameworks. Three extensions of the Baudrillardian concept of seduction are proposed: i) the seduction through the sign of the familial, offered by the Grands Magasins' shop-windows, ii) the seduction by integration, reached by the Morris column, and iii) the seduction by the