Practices and poetics of urban media art in the shadows of the illuminated city

• Main Authors: DeBoer, Stephanie, Woods, Elliot, Kang, Kristy H. A.
• Other Authors: School of Art, Design and Media
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Visual arts and music::Media; Urban Media; Public Art
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/145923
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This panel explores a range of strategies, poetics and possibilities of media art in and of urban public space practiced not in the spotlight but adjacent to and in the shadows of the spectacle. Each paper envisions a different mode of illumination, engagement and altered perception of our urban environs, calling our attention to ways of being in and sensing spaces and places that are often unnoticed, invisible or taken for granted. From media artists’ interventions that ask us to reflect upon the politics of disenchantment with the media saturated everyday in urban China, to the ways in which public art can potentially challenge the conventions of art not as object but as acts or gestures inscribed in the city itself and embodied in the memories of its inhabitants, to the design of urban interfaces that make visible overlooked cultural histories of peoples and places in Singapore, these papers present an inquiry into the ways in which urban media art can contribute towards a re-imagining and nuanced perception of the city’s corners, cracks and shadows and our sense of nature, place, poetics and politics in public space.