Urban utopics and the new digital view

Perin, GJ; Matthews, LM

Urban utopics and the new digital view

Perin, GJ

Matthews, LM

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Publisher:: A JOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY
Publication Type:: Conference Proceeding
Citation:: The Mediated City Conference, 2014, pp. ? - ? (n.p.)
Issue Date:: 2014-10-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Perin, GJ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2943-4094	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Matthews, LM https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2804-940X	en_US
dc.date	2014-10-01	en_US
dc.date.issued	2014-10-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	The Mediated City Conference, 2014, pp. ? - ? (n.p.)	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/35546
dc.description.abstract	Internet Webcam technology is a crucial nodal imaging device that delivers a plethora of new vantage points by which the visual experience of the city is now constructed. Delivered directly to the desktop, this distributed network extends the individual viewer beyond their physical limits.However, it also, remains a regulated system. Unlike sites like Flikr the representation of urban form and life is authored and thus locates the various promotional and proprietorial interests of those who own the view. More importantly, the figurative potency of the webcam image relies on its emblematic, descriptive form. Louis Marin, in ‘Utopics’ and ‘On Representation’ identifies how the use of narrative and descriptive image forms in early city maps constructed differences in the representation of sovereign power. Referring to Gomboust’s 1647 Map of Paris, Marin argues that the image, as a representational vehicle for the mediation of power, inevitably, constructs a gap or interval within any figurative continuity. Here the presence of competing intermediating referents undoes the map’s figurative consistency. In this sense, representations of this kind rupture their own ambition for semantic coherence.Referencing Marin’s observation that the representation of power establishes the basis of its own inevitable rupture, this paper will explore how the Internet webcam, simultaneously reveals the immanence of urban powerbrokers and delineates the mechanism by which this power is disrupted. The paper will examine how pixel-based geometry and image as ‘data’ unravels the narrative of linear perspective representation by supplanting its Cartesian coordinates and instead privileging experiential conditions of colour and luminosity. In rejecting the delineation of form through the line, the city’s image becomes a more affective, qualitative condition. Moreover, the ease by which this content can be repackaged and reassembled institutes a profound political shift in the image’s agency and the viewer’s visual engagement with urban space.	en_US
dc.publisher	A JOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURE_MEDIA_POLITICS_SOCIETY	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	The Mediated City Conference	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	THE MEDIATED CITY Part 2 LOS ANGELES	en_US
dc.title	Urban utopics and the new digital view	en_US
dc.type	Conference Proceeding
utslib.location.activity	Burbank, Los Angeles, California	en_US
utslib.for	1201 Architecture	en_US
dc.location.activity	Burbank, Los Angeles, California
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building/School of Architecture
utslib.copyright.status	open_access
pubs.consider-herdc	true	en_US
pubs.finish-date	2014-10-04	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.start-date	2014-10-01	en_US

Abstract:

Internet Webcam technology is a crucial nodal imaging device that delivers a plethora of new vantage points by which the visual experience of the city is now constructed. Delivered directly to the desktop, this distributed network extends the individual viewer beyond their physical limits.However, it also, remains a regulated system. Unlike sites like Flikr the representation of urban form and life is authored and thus locates the various promotional and proprietorial interests of those who own the view. More importantly, the figurative potency of the webcam image relies on its emblematic, descriptive form. Louis Marin, in ‘Utopics’ and ‘On Representation’ identifies how the use of narrative and descriptive image forms in early city maps constructed differences in the representation of sovereign power. Referring to Gomboust’s 1647 Map of Paris, Marin argues that the image, as a representational vehicle for the mediation of power, inevitably, constructs a gap or interval within any figurative continuity. Here the presence of competing intermediating referents undoes the map’s figurative consistency. In this sense, representations of this kind rupture their own ambition for semantic coherence.Referencing Marin’s observation that the representation of power establishes the basis of its own inevitable rupture, this paper will explore how the Internet webcam, simultaneously reveals the immanence of urban powerbrokers and delineates the mechanism by which this power is disrupted. The paper will examine how pixel-based geometry and image as ‘data’ unravels the narrative of linear perspective representation by supplanting its Cartesian coordinates and instead privileging experiential conditions of colour and luminosity. In rejecting the delineation of form through the line, the city’s image becomes a more affective, qualitative condition. Moreover, the ease by which this content can be repackaged and reassembled institutes a profound political shift in the image’s agency and the viewer’s visual engagement with urban space.

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