Constellations of identity: place-ma(r)king beyond heritage

This paper will critically consider the different ways in which history and belonging have been treated in artworks situated in the Citadel development in Ayr on the West coast of Scotland. It will focus upon one artwork, Constellation by Stephen Hurrel, as an alternative to the more conventional landscapes of heritage which are adjacent, to examine the relationship between personal history and place history and argue the primacy of participatory process in the creation of place and any artwork therein. Through his artwork, Hurrel has attempted to adopt a material process through which place can be created performatively but, in part due to its non-representational form, proves problematic, aesthetically and longitudinally, in wholly engaging the community. The paper will suggest that through variants of ‘new genre public art’ such as this, personal and place histories can be actively re-created through the redevelopment of contemporary urban landscapes but also highlight the complexities and indeterminacies involved in the relationship between artwork, people and place

Shanty towns around the Global Village?: Reducing distance, but widening gaps with ICT

For at least 25 years, prophecies and predictions have been made about the power of communications technologies to reduce the effects of geographical distance. Advances in satellite communications and supranational broadcasting, together with the dramatic growth in the availability and capability of information and communication technologies (ICTs), have revolutionised both the speed and the nature of global communications. However, technological determinist predictions have failed to take account of the pre-existing social contexts and relationships that shape the uptake and use of new technologies at both national and international levels. In Western countries, the impact of ICT upon different groups in society has been varied, tending to reinforce rather than ameliorate existing inequalities. On an international scale, the Internet has now reached most parts of the world, but anglophone countries have dominated information sources and services. Inequalities exist not only in access to the technological means of communication, but also in respect of what is conveyed by those means