Goldsmiths - University of London

Mediatizing Public Spaces

Annual Symposium & Exhibition

Leverhulme Goldsmiths Media Research Centre

27 November 2010

organized by Project five 'Tracking the Moving Image'

 Urban public spaces today are saturated by media, perhaps more than ever before. These range from highly visible large LED screens in cities like Tokyo through the cassette sermons one hears in the streets of Cairo to the invisible, inaudible satellite surveillance systems that are everywhere. They include personal media like MP3 players and mobile phones, public information systems, commercial advertising, and more. How do these media shape, interconnect, or constitute physical public space, and how do they connect to virtual public spaces? How should we understand these phenomena? Is this simply a process of ever greater degradation of the public as direct face-to-face communication is replaced by ever more mediated and commercialized forms of communication among strangers? Or are new publics, new public processes, and new public spaces being constituted? And how should we understand public communication? Is it only a matter of rational discourse, or does it also concern emotion, affect, and fleeting perceptions?

This symposium and exhibition puts a focus on the often overlooked quotidian urban experience. As media floods our everyday life, we hope to open up a better understanding of the desires, dilemmas, and disappointments of the contemporary urban subject