The Moving Image as Public Art: Sidewalk Spectators and Modes of Enchantment (Experimental Film and Artists’ Moving Image)

This book maps the presence of moving images within the field of public art through encounters with passersby. It argues that far from mere distraction or spectacle, moving images can produce moments of enchantment that can renew, intensify, or challenge our everyday engagement with public space and each other. These artworks also offer frameworks for understanding how moving images operate in public space―how they move viewers and reconfigure the site of the screen. Each chapter explores a mode of address that examines how artists and curators leverage the moving image’s attentional power to engage audiences, create spaces, make place, and challenge assumptions. This book also examines the difficulties and compromises that arise when using urban screens for public art. Acknowledgments Praise for The Moving Image as Public Art Contents About the Author List of Figures Chapter 1: Introduction The Moving Image as Public Art Moving Image Spectators and Audiences Art in Public Space The City and Its Ways of Seeing Situating Moving Image Artworks in Space and Place Chapter 2: Enchantment: Encountering Moving Images on Urban Surfaces Encountering Art on Mass Transit Bill Brand’s Masstransiscope (1980) and the Enchanted Subway Ride The Fleeting Animation The Resilient Installation Dreamy Encounters and Nocturnal Illuminations Doug Aitken’s SONG 1 (2012): Cinema-in-the-Round Cinematic Museum Amorous Entrancement Cinema Sculpture Chapter 3: Commercial Breaks: Intra-spectacular Public Art Times Square Programming from Spectacolor Messages to Midnight Moments Messages to the Public, 1982–1990 Video Art Initiatives from 2000 to 2010 Midnight Moment (2012–) Other Platforms The Turn Toward the Street Chapter 4: Screen Spaces: Zones of Interaction and Recognition Millennium Park as Public Art Playground Fountain Portraits The Magic Circle Big Screen Selfies Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Spontaneous Moving Image Communities Shadow Play Under Scan Sandbox Paracinematic Parallels Chapter 5: The Light Festival Phenomenon Placemaking Interfaces Between the City and the Urban Origins Projecting the Future City Turning the City into a Canvas Monumental Moving Murals Multisensory Spectatorial Paths On the Future of the Future City Chapter 6: Precarious Platforms: The Paradox of Permanent Moving Images Videowalls and Shopping Malls Outdoor Screen Networks and Precarious Partnerships An Unrealized Digital Canvas Chapter 7: Superimposition: Forms of Moving Image Site-Specificity The Other Side of the Window Moving Image Fenestration Wormholes Hauntings Apparitions Montage Monuments From Figures of Great Men to a Demand for the Right to Appear Détournements Chapter 8: Postscript: Reflections from a Summer Without Public Space Bibliography Index This book maps the presence of moving images within the field of public art through encounters with passersby. It argues that far from mere distraction or spectacle, moving images can produce moments of enchantment that can renew, intensify, or challenge our everyday engagement with public space and each other. These artworks also offer frameworks for understanding how moving images operate in public space how they move viewers and reconfigure the site of the screen. Each chapter explores a mode of address that examines how artists and curators leverage the moving images attentional power to engage audiences, create spaces, make place, and challenge assumptions. This book also examines the difficulties and compromises that arise when using urban screens for public art