For a change of pace this week, I thought I’d write about affect in relation to the urban condition. Specifically I am going to focus on Nigel Thrift’s chapters on spatialities of feeling from his book Non-representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect. Thrift begins the first chapter by characterizing cities as “maelstroms of affect,” and asserting … Continue reading City space and emotion: Affect as urban infrastructure
Tag: urbanstudies
Wound Culture and Public Space: Mark Seltzer’s concept of the pathological public sphere
Mark Seltzer: Serial Killers (II): The Pathological Public Sphere Critical Inquiry, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 122-149 Seltzer’s essay on serial killers and the pathological public sphere immediately calls J.G. Ballard to mind. Eventually Seltzer does cite Ballard, but it is in reference to Ballard’s Atrocity Exhibition, a selection that renders the author’s omission … Continue reading Wound Culture and Public Space: Mark Seltzer’s concept of the pathological public sphere
Urban Media Studies conference in Zagreb, Croatia: post-trip report
On September 24th and 25th, I was on hand for the Urban Media Studies conference, hosted at the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Political Science. The conference was organized by members of the ECREA temporary working group on media and the city. It was a thoroughly international event, with participants from across Europe and the … Continue reading Urban Media Studies conference in Zagreb, Croatia: post-trip report
Urban Comm roundup: Smart cities, hostile architecture, and placemaking
Smart Cities Writing for Forbes, Rich Karlgaard reports on the smart-city champions, i.e. the countries and companies poised to benefit from the smart city boom: I see three categories of winners. The first will be suppliers of digital technology, from high-speed telecom, cloud services and digital security to apps, for example, like Uber’s and Airbnb’s … Continue reading Urban Comm roundup: Smart cities, hostile architecture, and placemaking
Smart Cities: India’s initiative; technologized transport; democratic dilemmas and dystopian dangers
Smart cities continue to be a hot topic for urban designers and commentators, even as the very definition of the term is debated. Kieron Monks at CNN recently addressed this in an article on the next generation of smart cities: The urban planning equivalent of a Rorschach test, a "Smart City" can be taken to … Continue reading Smart Cities: India’s initiative; technologized transport; democratic dilemmas and dystopian dangers
Urban Media Ecology: light pollution, gender mainstreaming, urban marginality
When I first read Jerry Mander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television several years ago I was inclined to agree with the bulk of the thesis presented: the dangers posed by the inherent biases of the television medium, such as the centralization of control and "the walling of awareness". One of Mander's arguments that … Continue reading Urban Media Ecology: light pollution, gender mainstreaming, urban marginality
Gentrification and ‘the fucking hipster show’; hostile architercure and defensive urban design
In a post at the Jacobin blog, Anthony Galluzzo considers how the mainstream media's "fucking hipster" show mocks hipsters in the service of capital: [Marxist geographer Neil] Smith offers a dry, but emphatically structural account of this process, which he first theorized in the late eighties with Soho and the Lower East Side in mind. … Continue reading Gentrification and ‘the fucking hipster show’; hostile architercure and defensive urban design
Graeber on labor and leisure; the perils of hipster economics; and the educational value of MOOCs
Following last month's post of David Graeber's views on "bullshit jobs," this Salon interview with Graeber discusses the failed forecast of universal leisure time: Right after my original bullshit jobs piece came out, I used to think that if I wanted, I could start a whole career in job counseling – because so many people … Continue reading Graeber on labor and leisure; the perils of hipster economics; and the educational value of MOOCs