Media art and the urban environment: engendering public engagement with urban ecology

This illuminating text formally appraises the innovative ways new media artists engage urban ecology. Highlighting the role of artists as agents of technological change, the work reviews new modes of seeing, representing, and connecting within the urban setting. Across fourteen chapters, the book describes how state-of-the-art technology can be exploited in order to create artworks that transcend the technology’s original purpose, thus expanding the language of environmental engagement whilst also demonstrating a clear understanding of the societal issues and values being addressed. Topics and features: Explores urban ecology and its engagement, surveying a diverse range of artists, artworks and performances Assesses how data from smart cities may be used to create artworks that can recast residents’ understanding of urban space Examines dynamic transformations of urban space through the reimagining of urban information Discusses the engagement of urban residents with street art, including collaborative community art projects and public digital media installations Presents unique perspectives from practicing artists, architects, urban planners, and authoritative critical theorists Presenting the issue of urban engagement from a viewpoint at the intersection of art, science, technology, and culture, this broad-ranging volume will appeal to an equally wide audience. Researchers in human-computer interaction, visualization, and urban studies will all benefit from the collected essays and the examples they describe, as will digital artists involved in urban art. Dr. Francis T. Marchese is Professor of Computer Science at Pace University, New York, USA, where he is the founder and director of Pace’s Center for Advanced Media and the Pace Digital Gallery. His publications include the Springer title Knowledge Visualization Currents.