The City as Performative Object
An essay on our research on The City as Performative Object has been published in the 2020 Routledge Companion to Mobile Media Art; edited by Larissa Hjorth, Adriana de Souza e Silva, and Klare Lanson. The article can be downloaded here. (For a short version of the tekst in Dutch; download .pdf)
“This book is the definitive publication for researchers, artists and students interested in comprehending all the various aspects of mobile media art, covering digital media and culture, internet studies, games studies, anthropology, sociology, geography, media and communication, cultural studies and design.” Quote
Introduction:
As artistic duo PolakVanBekkum, we have worked with the artistic potential of digital recordings routes since 2002, shortly after the Global Positioning System (GPS) became available for private use. We approach the technology as a new way of capturing reality, comparable with photography, film, or audio recording. In our work, we focus on different impacts: how does technology influ- ence perception of space once the relocation of bodies becomes recordable and represented? What meanings do people give to their own and others’ routes? How does that change their language? How are identities constructed around routes?
