77 research outputs found
Queerying Public Art in Digitally Networked Space
There is an increasing interest among geographers in studying social engagement with public artwork, but there remains a lack of scholarship on how such engagement operates in digitally networked space. This article examines this gap on the basis of a virtual ethnography involving (social) media analysis on encounters with Paul McCarthyâs temporary installation Tree in Place VendĂ´me, Paris, 2014. This artwork, a 24-metre inflatable resembling a giant butt plug, unleashed a heated debate over social media about the artworkâs (mis)uses of the locality and urban public sphere. From this case study, remembering/forgetting and materiality/digitality emerged as ambiguous values/appropriations of this public artwork. Accordingly, experiences navigated between, foremostly, obscene and/or misplaced (the artworkâs postmodern/âsexualâ style vs. the siteâs classical architecture and Parisâ alleged âromanticâ image), ludic, and radical (i.e. anti-normative message towards permanence and heteropatriarchy). Considering such ambiguous and sexuality-related ramifications, I engage with âqueeryingâ as method for examining online mediated public-art engagement. The study demonstrates how receptions and interactions digitally intertwined with the temporary material artwork (where the examined digital material was not an intentional part of the artwork as initiated by the artist). Specifically, the queerying analysis shows how dialectical online and offline public-art engagements with Tree negotiated (i.e. mediated) and augmented (i.e. enhanced) one another and offered alternative ways for conceptualising user agency and spatial connectivity. This study can be of use for critical geographers using online media as both sites and tools for examining the bottom-up digital co-production of public art
Critical geographical queer semiotics
This Themed Section assembles sexuality/queer, geographical and socio-linguistic scholarship to pursue â what we, a collaborating geographer and semiotician, frame as â critical geographical queer semiotics. We regard this as an on-going episteme-techne research frontier at the crossroads of language-focused geographical inquiry (see, e.g., Brown, 2002; Leap and Boellstorff, 2004; Valentine et al., 2008; Browne and Nash, 2010; Murray, 2016) and the unfolding sociolinguistic subdiscipline of linguistic landscaping (see, e.g., Shohamy and Gorter, 2009; Blommaert, 2013; Stroud and Jegels, 2014; Blackwood et al., 2016)
Public artivism: queering geographies of migration and social inclusivity
This article contributes an original critique at the nexus of public art, activism (i.e. public artivism) and migration alongside the promotion of inclusive change. It pushes at transdisciplinary boundaries by integrating geohumanities scholarship on socially engaged public art whilst adopting a queer theory approach to foreground and interrogate the socially marginalised. The focus is on Schellekens & Pelemanâs multi-site Inflatable Refugee installation, in response to the topical migration question, and the public performances and discourses that surround the migrant figure. An in-depth critical discourse analysis drawing from an interview with the collective and key documentation critically probes into the uses of public art(ivism) to raise issues particularly around the (mis)represention of this migrant figure. The case study evinces ambiguous modus operandi of public artivist practice. Although it may promote inclusive citizenship through âqueeringâ identity politics and migrant hyper-visibility, the material and socio-spatial affordances (along with limitations) of public artivism do not necessarily develop its full potential
Teaching geographies of sexualities: 20 years on
This editorial provides an introduction to the Journal of Geography in Higher Education Symposium on âTeaching geographies of sexualities: 20 years onâ. This edited collection revisits the Symposium âTeaching sexualities in geographyâ (Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Volume 23 [1999], Issue 1) and the earlier Arena Symposium essay series âTeaching sexual geographiesâ (Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Volume 21 [1997], Issue 3). The contributions to this updated anthology trace the evolvement and provide original critiques of the current state of sexualities (and, in extension, gender and intersectionality) education in geography curricula in transnational context. These interconnecting papers allow for a more in-depth understanding of the diverse possibilities and challenges facing the teaching of sexualities within geography in a contemporary international climate and identify opportunities for expanded provision. This editorial concludes with critical pointers to champion teaching-inflected sexualities scholarship that traverse disciplinary and geographical borders of pedagogical inquiry
The politics of restor(y)ing: towards a conflictual approach to art in urban public space
This paper investigates the political implications of public art using frameworks of conflict and antagonism. We introduce ârestor(y)ingâ as an analytical scaling device for examining public artâs potential to destabilise official planning processes and reclaim cities through acts of re-telling (restorying) and re-making (restoring) urban spaces. We probe how commissioned/formal and unsolicited/informal public art practices can concurrently operate as artistic activismâor âartivismâ â to subvert the status quo in urban contexts that encounter rising socio-spatial inequalities. We deploy restor(y)ing both as an epistemic and real-world commitment to challenging hegemonic powers, and thus amplify activist agendas of marginalised communities. Our argument demonstrates how such politics of restor(y)ing works as a device to unpack conflictual interrelations between âĂŚffectsâ: affects and effects that political public art can invoke simultaneously, yet potentially unevenly. The politics of ĂŚffects reveal contestations around public art in urban planning contexts and policies, public communication, and reception. They foreground intended inclusions vs. systemic exclusions (politics of effects) and the emanating impacts on urban belonging vs. alienation (politics of affects). While much public art scholarship accentuates its alleged positive benefits, we attend to the (oft-ambiguous) negative, conflict-attuned ĂŚffects of public art. Ultimately, we advocate for an intersectional approach to restor(y)ing urban justice through public artivism
Gay monuments in queer times: Amsterdamâs Homomonument and the politics of inclusive social practice
Despite growing debate about the role of monuments in diverse societies, there has been insufficient attention to contestations that have emerged involving âgayâ or âqueerâ monuments. This article examines the politics of inclusion and exclusion that can stem from the social practices that evolve around these monuments, particularly as the imperatives and priorities of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) activism evolve while monuments, created in a particular historical and geographical context, are in some sense âset in stoneâ. Drawing on an intensive, mixed-methods case study of the Homomonument in Amsterdam, the article develops a grounded critique of processes of inclusion and exclusion specifically in relation to Black, bisexual and transgender people. With a focus on dance parties organised at the Homomonument, the article calls for more research that analyses monuments as sites of practice
Public art today. How public art sheds light on the future of the theory of commons
Public art and common goods, although belonging to apparently distant realms of inquiry, share a long history and, inevitably, an evolving meaning. This chapter investigates the evolution of the practice of public art with the objective to obtain a viable understanding of how the value of public art is produced today. With a focus on the future of public art, this chapter investigates three public art cases. The results of the qualitative analysis of these public art experiences are interpreted from an institutional economics perspective. The combination of public art and the theory of commons sheds light on what seems to be the most important attributes of common goods in the current debate, that is the social practices that constitute the act of making the commons.</p
Digital geographies of public art: New global politics
Responding to geographyâs digital and political turns, this article presents an original critical synthesis of the under-examined niche of networked geographies of public-art practices in todayâs politicised digital culture. This article advances insights into digital public art as politics, and its role in politicising online public spaces with foci on: how digital technologies have instigated do-it-yourself modes for the co-creation of art content within peer-to-peer contexts; the way art is âstretchedâ and experienced in/across the digital public sphere; and how user-(co-)created content has become subject to (mis)uses, simultaneously informed by digital âartivismâ and a new global politics infused with populism
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