Digital Design and Its Socio-Political Conditions: Visual Diversity in Urbanscapes (original) (raw)
Related papers
2010
This proposal suggests an interdisciplinary approach encompassing the combination of urban sociological research and artistic intervention in urban settings. We will consider the integration of digital artworks in public spaces, chosen for their ability to generate engaging and innovative experiences as well as extending a virtual layer of meaning over real spaces. It is our premise that the aptitude for critical analysis and research of objects and tendencies within daily experience normally invisible through habitual perceptions that certain artistic interventions carry, might contribute to the development of an enriched relationship between art and the questioning processes typical of sociology, more specifically concerning its objective of deconstructing reality for analytical purposes. We will thus seek to demonstrate that such a critical analysis of daily existence, which can be found both on the artistic and sociological productions, might become a fertile ground for an emerg...
Sobre la base del planteamiento teórico propuesto como modelos culturales e interferencias icónicas vinculados a una definición de cultura, se plantea el modelo prototípico de los avisos publicitarios en el casco histórico de la ciudad de Mérida, Venezuela, como contexto para la observación de patrones en relación con los principios de interacción cultural. Dicha estructura corresponde a la propuesta semiótica presentada por Mangieri (2007), y consiste en la comprensión de las imágenes como puentes simbólicos u operadores semiopragmáticos y performativos entre culturas disímiles, planteados a partir de la coincidencia espacio-temporal de modelos culturales diversos entre los cuales se generan procesos de cruce e interferencia. Este postulado parte de un esquema teórico y operativo que relaciona dos entornos culturales, uno definido como cultura emisora y el otro como cultura receptora, las cuales se relacionan mediante ciertos principios contractuales que permiten su integración, a saber: principio polémico, principio contractual, principio seductivo y principio accional. (Based on the theoretical proposal of cultural model and iconic interference associated with a definition of culture, a prototypical model is proposed for publicity signs in the historic part of the city of Merida, Venezuela, as a context for the observation of patterns in relation to the principles of cultural interaction. This structure corresponds to the semiotics proposal submitted by Mangieri (2007), and consists in understanding images as symbolic bridges or semiopragmatic and performative operators between different cultures, proposed from the spatial-temporal coincidence of diverse cultural models, which generate crossinterference processes. This postulate starts off from a theoretical and operational framework that links two cultural contexts, one defined as a culture transmitter, and the other as a receiving culture, which are related by certain contractual principles that enable their integration, namely the controversial principal, contractual principle, seductive principle and action principle).
Cite as: Souliotou, A.Z. (2015) ICTs and Contemporary Art: a platform for the urban well-being, Proceedings of the 3rd International Biennial Conference Hybrid City 2015, Theona, I., and Charitos, D. (eds), University of Athens, pp. 339-344 Abstract. The objective of the present article is to show how ICTs can inspire or facilitate artistic creation and how art (inspired by ICTs or using ICTs) can contribute to the urban well-being. With the advent of the ICTs the boundaries between the makers and the users have considerably blurred in a way that the latter not only do they possess, but they also shape data. The users, thus, have become active participators and creators, so both technicians and users co-create and share information in virtual environments which can in turn influence the structure of urban physical space. This turn has led to a “Data to the people” tendency which empowers individuals and enables them to take initiatives in sharing information and in engaging with active citizenship. This new role of the user-creator has been already taken by artists who use ICTs in their artworks. All artists presented in this article have access and therefore use the ICTs within their cutting-edge art-and-technology practices which constitute a product of the information age in current post-industrial society. Whether they are telematic artists, Internet or post-Internet artists, GPS artists, GST artists or even artists making public art, their approaches show how the ICTs blaze new trails in contemporary art through a variety of projects and exhibitions using a lot of different media. As far as the telematic artists are concerned, their projects present a remarkable evolution thanks to new advances in data visualization and info-graphics which give them the opportunity to present the (flow of) telecommunications through images and maps by precisely locating and dating the communication processes. These new possibilities, thus, enable the visualization of the telecommunication networks which emerge from these processes, going beyond traditional telecommunication projects which just use telecommunication networks in installations or in collaborative projects without visualizing or mapping them. The Internet has given an unprecedented boost in communications and has notably given rise to Net Art (or Internet Art) which comprises a lot of Internet-based artistic projects presenting a high degree of heterogeneity. Especially the Web 2.0 social network platforms have led to an exponential increase of Internet Art projects. Post-Internet art has subsequently expanded the production of artworks inspired by the Internet by taking on-line data and translating them to material creations. GPS enables artists to draw by taking up physical activities like walking in cities or travelling between cities. GSTs are a considerable source of inspiration for contemporary artists, since they permit them to have a satisfactory –if not a complete– image of urban places and engage themselves with cyber-flânerie, ceaseless exploration of the urban space and interrogation about privacy and other social issues. As far as public art is concerned, ICTs can be integrated in urban public space or even translate existing public art installations from material to electronic, providing thus the participators with a new kind of experience. The material and the electronic, the physical and the virtual, intermingle forming thus hybrid urban environments and altering the urban physical context. Furthermore ICTs provide us with a clear urbi et orbi image of the world, since a lot of (collaborative) art projects which use ICTs extend not only in the urban, but also in the global scale. Thus, they give a comprehensive image of the 21st century global village which is characterized by the rapid growth of the urban phenomenon and the shift from the city to the metropolis and thereafter to the megapolis. (Perrault, 2011) Another important recent phenomenon, which relates to the ICTs use, is that although a lot of projects are a priori considered as technological or commercial, they also turn out to be artistic and we can particularly find them implanted in physical urban space. ICTs thus instigate an inquiry with regards to the (re)definition of the ‘artistic’ and render urban physical contexts platforms for the fusion of the technological, the commercial and the artistic. All the above approaches reflect different points of view with regards to ICTs and show that art (inspired by ICTs or using ICTs) can contribute to the urban well-being by: addressing current problems of the urban living, such as earthquakes, riots, social inequality; raising questions about privacy and voyeurism; proposing alternative ways for mapping or visualizing information, as well as for establishing communication and collaborations in urban, inter-urban and even global scale; bringing together people living in urban environments. In all the above ways art can give a more comprehensive image of the contemporary urban condition and (re)define the role of ICTs in society and human history by providing new insights into their potential uses.
New Urban Landscapes between material structures and digital representation
The very idea of landscape is "ambivalent" because traditionally in the word there is a material component and an "immaterial" one, an expression of values "tangible" and "intangible". As well as the ambivalent term was considered ambiguous, "bat-concept" which means at the same time the thing and its representation. Just as Alain Roger has shown in two broad categories "in situ" and "in visu", the mutual relations of these different forms of the landscape. Another term of ambivalence lies in the distinction between urban and not-urban landscape, has this difference today sense? Or do the most interesting dimensions of the landscape instead reside in the lack of clear boundaries between the landscape and its urbanization. The problem is obviously not only semantic, but rather involves the physical facilities, housing and land, and the ways of using, the practices of use of the spaces. The spatial and social mixité...
The socio-political context of a country assumes a fundamental role in the advancement of its populace and academic disciplines. Simultaneously, the collective imaginary, shaped by centuries of conflict and transformation, wields an inherent influence over how a population perceives its identity and recurring phenomena. Both the socio-political context and the collective imaginary possess the capacity to determine the approaches taken by artists and designers in addressing social issues and framing their work. Subsequently, when their creations get published and distributed, they have the potential to shape the consumers' perception of their own context. It is implicit that graphic design operates within the realm of a social setting. Designers must draw upon their knowledge of culture, way of life, economy, and environmental context, as these factors are perpetually intertwined when considering design as a means of problem-solving. In addition, as cinematographic language is, in essence, the composition of other graphic and audiovisual languages, a chain of arts building up and affecting one another manifests. Consequently, film builds a fictional world that relates to real life through the incorporation of the experience of the spectator, modeling and reinforcing their social consciousness, therefore, feeding the collective imaginary.
The very idea of landscape is "ambivalent" because traditionally in the word there is a material component and an "immaterial" one, an expression of values "tangible" and "intangible". As well as the ambivalent term was considered ambiguous, "bat-concept" which means at the same time the thing and its representation. Just as Alain Roger has shown in two broad categories "in situ" and "in visu", the mutual relations of these different forms of the landscape.
The number 1, addresses Center and Periphery issues of practical nature, texts directly related with authors and pieces, including distinct cities, and supports of creation such as photo and video, and also about research ethics. The number 2, is devoted to Theoretical approaches to Center, Periphery. Addressing world geographies like Uruguay and Brazil, methodological geographies centered in values, also about digital geographies, including also for Contributions for this issue were selected from the received full papers blind peer review process developed by the of three formats:-book or exhibition reviews.
The Fear of the Digital from the Elusion of Typology
2008
It might seem that architecture has been forced to choose, once again, between two worlds of existence. One of them might be the construction of the tangible, the other, a “formal fantasy” that will never reach a legitimate status among the “tectonic” or the “structural”. This vague spectrum has confirmed the fear of loosing typology as a proof, of loosing a foremost validation for architecture. But one could see the virtual as a possibility to generate a structure of discourses and interactive tactics to reformulate the typological. This meaning that the virtual could transcend the so called “graphic” stigma and actually produce the discourses and spatial strategies to radicalize typology and move towards a radicalization of content. The fear of the digital The digital design process had revealed a consistent distance from the typological referent. In the one hand, this “elusion” from the referent might be linked to the tendencies of many current typologies to be defined by forces ...
If we take for granted the idea of being in the so-called post-photographic era, the genre that can surely suffer its consequences and show its manifestations is that of architectural photography. Architectural photography no longer documents given that the veracity of what is represented is systematically under suspicion. It is assumed that what is photographed is, at best, an interpretation. Urban photography has lost the fascination it had at the time of the optimistic and utopian configuration of the modern city. Definitely overshadowed that enthusiasm, the exploration of the urban slides towards the transitional territories and the places in transit, where neither the city is a city nor the landscape a landscape. The non-places, the generic city or the third landscape, whatever we may name it, is where the scenery portrays a different ecosystem open to new conceptual and visual narratives that allow us to return to the consolidated city in order to discover something new, hidden behind its prejudices, their stereotypes and their history. In the bland is the substance.
Digital culture and the mediatization of urban art practices
Modernity is characterized by the use of technological devices and its influence in the relationship between individuals and its contexts, since reality is experienced through a screen or a digital surface. Deeply rooted in media and digital culture, our society contrasts with the previous ways of living, where the physical presence was enough to meet, interact, and communicate. The rise of technology and its impact in individuals also enabled the adoption of different social roles. Today, human beings are encouraged to assume profiles that match their virtual presence, towards an increase of their popularity. Considering a post-medial condition, all the factors referred will interfere and determine the behaviour, personality, and status that each individual holds and adopts in its real life. At this regard, the public space started to host all these social dynamics, moving between real and virtual contexts. The city became, at first, a politicised space, and, then, a suitable one to convey personal beliefs, collective and symbolic narratives, and multiple discourses. Therefore, the urban landscape hosts layer after layer of meaning that, together, witness the memories and the history, following the artistic, cultural, social, and political issues that individuals imprinted in the medium: the urban fabric. Artists became aware of these symbolic exchanges and of the possibility of exploring cities as experimental artistic sites. As a result, they founded avant-garde movements combining different expertise (ex. architecture and arts), to achieve innovation and enhance the process as a key towards a more participatory framework. The digital culture and its features allowed the coexistence of these narratives, both physically and virtually, reaching a wider audience of admirers and active actors in the artistic practice.