Wiring the Streets, Surfing the Square: Producing Public Space in the Mediated City (The Urban Book Series)

"This book investigates the production of public space in contemporary urban contexts as conditioned by the suffusion of urban life with digital technologies. A "social production of technology" approach is taken to frame the digitally-mediated city as a communal social and cultural project. Acknowledging the multivalent and shifting nature of public space and the heterogeneity of the urban actors who form it, the "agency" of these different actors in appropriating digital technologies takes center stage. The dynamics of negotiations between regimes of control and impulses towards freedom and experimentation, the entanglement of the spatial commons and the digital commons, changes in the notions of what constitutes membership in a public or counterpublic, and evolving relationships between the various individuals and groups who share and constitute public space, are all revealed in different actors' appropriation of digital technologies in the formation of public spaces and the conducting of public life in cities. The book is divided into two sections. Drawing on classic and contemporary scholars on public space, and on digital culture, Section I explores the implications of the convergence of these bodies of knowledge and lenses of critique and examination on the present urban condition, establishing a conceptual foundation upon which public space discourse is brought to bear on an interrogation of the "wired" or "mediated" city. Structured by the core concepts that underlie Hannah Arendt's notion of agency in the constitution of the public sphere, Section II is devoted to discussing, and demonstrating through myriad concrete examples, how different "affordances" of digital technologies are implicated in the production of public space and in the interplay between urban governance and control, urban life and citizenship, and urban commodification. The topics in this book are of broad and current international relevance, and will appeal to scholars and students in architecture, urbanism, design, sociology, and digital culture."--Publisher's website Acknowledgements Contents Introduction Chapter 1: Public Space in the Digital Era Urban Public Space and Digital Technologies The Perspective of this Book Public Space Performing Public Agency Social Construction of Technologies Public Space: What’s It For? The Digital Mediation of Public Spatial Practice Overview of the Text References Conceptualizing Public Space in the Mediated City Chapter 2: Public Space, the Public Realm and Digital Technologies Digitally Mediated Urban Public Space Public Space, Public Media and the Public Sphere Digital Technologies and the “Literature of Loss” A Space of Encounters Diversity and Irreconcilability A New Chapter in the “Tragedy”? Re-commoning Public Spaces as Spaces of Rehearsal for Urban Futures References Chapter 3: From the Individual to the Public Communities and Publics A “Society of Individuals” and the Retreat of/from Public Space... ... And into Digital Forums Hyperindividuation and the Echo Chamber Blurring the Distinction Between Public and Private Digitally Mediated Publics Together Apart References Chapter 4: Us and Others Producing Digital Public Space Technologies of Control and Technologies of Freedom The Digital Mediation of Public Space Public Space as Interface Stretching the Spatial Metaphor Universal Media The Particularity of Public Space (Space Matters) References Chapter 5: Constructing Public Space: Embodiment and Emplacement The Body in/as the World Body + Place: Bodily Coming-Together Embodiment and Worldedness Mediating Urban Space Technologies, Embodied and Emplaced The Body and Its Others: Cyborg Publics The Cyborg City Non-Human Socialities Cyborg Citizenship Compositing of Intelligence References Chapter 6: Networked Networked Society Individuals and Networked Publics Conscripting Network Against Space Network(ed) Publics Public Delinked from Local, the Spatial, the “Immediate” Real and Virtual A Planetary Public The Spatiality of Digital Networks References Producing Public Space in the Mediated City Chapter 7: The Affordances of Digital Technologies in Public Space Digital Technologies and the Making of Public Space Environment, Technologies and Affordances The Social Affordances of Digital Technologies The Interface Revisited Social Technologies and a Shift in Cognitive Styles Affording Governance Affording Extra-Governmental Governance Affording Commodification Affording Urban Citizenship References Chapter 8: Seeing-and-Being-Seen: Affordances of Sensors and Screens Being Seen Sensing as Control A New Economy of Public Space Innumerable Perspectives: The Cyborg Sensorial Array Witnessing Recording and Urban Imaginaries Telepresence Manifesting Private Screens in Public Space Public Screens The “Deepening” of Place: Interactive Installations New Visibilities Screens as Public Spaces Public Displays as Incubators for Future Publics References Chapter 9: Who and Where: Affordances of Personalization and Locativity The Individual in the World Tuning Manifesting the Individual The Personalized Web Gadgetopolis Managing Public Presence The Individual as Reporter/as Public Sensor Information Is Not a Commons Locative Technologies and Grounded Computing Detaching from Place or Deepening Interaction with Place? Location and Empowerment The Commodification of Location Layering of Significances Dissonances Digital Counterpublics Exclusions Augmented Flânerie References Chapter 10: Cyborg Modes of Agency: Affordances of Automation and Modelling Automatization of Public Action Automatic, Autonomic and Autonomous Abdication Division of Labor in Cyborg Public Space Cyborg Partnerships Persuasive Locative Games and the Automatization of Public Behavior Disruptions in Accustomed Behavior Rehearsing Roles Learning to be Public Public Space as an Automated Service Cartography Projective vs. Extractive Models The Influence of Models Trust in Data Models Maps as Public Commons References Chapter 11: The Digital Urban Fabric: Affordances of Connectivity and Datafication The Digital Urban Fabric Filtering Unequal Connectivity Networked Activism in Public Space Reciprocal Relationships Between Digital and Physical Sites of Public Action and Interaction Connective, Collective Action, the Crowd and the Cloud Data, Data, Everywhere The World as Data Data, Space and Place The Data-Citizen Data and Power The Economics of Data Data Publics and Public Data References Conclusion Chapter 12: Digital Technologies and the Future of Public Space The Impact of Digital Technologies on Public Space An Evolving Public Realm Multiple Publics Whither Public Space in the Digital Era? Public and Anti-Public Uses of Digital Technologies Public Space as Project Between Mass Consumption and Social Production Achieving Democratic Mediated Public Space Aspirations References Index