Abstract
The city is an ocean of signs. In our modern, urban society, we are surrounded by a culture of glittering signs and images: commercial and political hoardings, private messages, spontaneous markings, bombastic graffiti and penetrating advertising and rules and regulations. They seek an addressee. This chapter describes an urban youth arts project Signs of the City—Metropolis Speaking. This interdisciplinary urban experience of studying the city involved nearly 300 young participants from Berlin, Barcelona, London and Sofia. Analysis of their participation shows that the city can be an educational tool for youth as well as a remarkable research field for artists and researchers.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Signs of the City was initiated and organised by the Berlin-based urban art association urban dialogues. Cooperation partners in this European project were the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths College, University of London, Watermans Gallery in London, House of World Cultures in Berlin and Hangar in Barcelona. It took place between September 2007 and December 2008.
- 2.
- 3.
Latin infans: ‘one who does not (yet) speak’.
- 4.
The idea of the iconic turn is based on the fact that images today are more present than ever. Photography, mass media and computer technology have increased the impact of images on culture, society and science. See Mitchell (1986).
References
Babias, M., & Könneke, A. (1998). Die Kunst des Öffentlichen. Dresden: Verlag der Kunst.
Horn, S., Netzelmann, R., & Winkels, P. (Eds.). (2009). Signs of the city—Metropolis speaking (pp. 161–171). Berlin: Jovis.
Krase, A. (2001). Archive of visions—Inventory of things. In H. C. Adam (Ed.), Eugène Atget’s Paris (pp. 25–29). Cologne: Taschen.
Mitchell, W. J. T. (1986). Iconology: Image, text, ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rollig, S. (1998). Das wahre Leben. In M. Babias & A. Könneke (Eds.), Die Kunst des Öffentlichen (pp. 13–27). Dresden: Verlag der Kunst.
Rooke, A. (2009). Project evaluation. In S. Horn, R. Netzelmann, & P. Winkels (Eds.), Signs of the city—Metropolis speaking (pp. 161–171). Berlin: Jovis.
Sontag, S. (1979). On photography. London: Penguin Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Horn, S. (2018). Signs of the City: Metropolis Speaking. In: Nichols, S., Dobson, S. (eds) Learning Cities. Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education, vol 8. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8100-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8100-2_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-8098-2
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-8100-2
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)