Urban Scenography

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A different approach to art in public space

MA Thesis Art History: Modern and Contemporary Art

University of Amsterdam

Marthe Koetsier 10667113

Supervisor: Jeroen Boomgaard Second reader: Eva Fotiadi

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Introduction

When we look at today’s discussions about art, we are confronted with many different perspectives on what art is and what place it takes or should take in our society. A lot of art houses in conventional exhibition spaces like museums and galleries, which are often seen as autonomous institutions that are not particularly known for their accessibility for a public who does not make part of the “art crowd.” Recently this issue is becoming a more important item on the agenda of Dutch museums, which are trying to attract a bigger and more diverse audience.

Taking an interest in art in public space, I am curious about how art abides within the public space of the contemporary city. How does it relate to the spatial environment of urban sites? In his book Art, Space and the City (2000) Malcom Miles addresses this subject. He notes that the term “public art” generally describes works created in or for sites of open public access. Art has been moving out of the conventional art spaces into the public domain since the 1960’s, and works range from monumental, sculptural objects and community murals to light

installations and performance art.1_{Miles writes that public art claims to reflect on urban spaces}

and to contribute to a re-envisioning and regenerating of the city. This first claim is plausible when we look for example at the fact that public art acts in the public realm, and therefore necessarily extends to issues like the diversity of urban cultures, the functions of public space, the structures of power, and the relations between environment builders and urban

inhabitants.2

Nevertheless, Miles points out that the issue of public art regenerating the city remains speculative. This is because values of contemporary art are seen independently from those of the city. A lot of public art could be said to still live in its own bubble, still being influenced by Modernism that imposes art to be an autonomous, aesthetic realm which acts as an alternative to everyday life.3_{The city, on the contrary, is generally said to involve user-centered strategies}

for urban planning and design. When art and the city are discussed in relation to each other, Miles argues that claims on the effectiveness of the contribution of public art on urban sustainability and social benefits remain vague and undemonstrated, and perhaps they are undemonstratable.4_{Here I wonder what exactly is this urban development or regeneration we}

seem to be looking for. How is it defined, and what does it tell us about how public art is and can be positioned in relation to public space?

Firstly, public space is a concept that is very hard to define. In his book The Production of

Space (1974) Henri Lefebvre argues that space is a complex social construction that is formed

by an interaction between social and spatial relations. According to the writer, a space is formed by means of the human body that perceives lives and produces.5_{In other words, space}

1 Miles, Malcom. Art, Space & the City. Public Art and Urban Futures. London: Routledge, 1997, p.5. 2 Idem, p. 1.

3 Idem, pp. 12-14.

4 Idem, p.2. Miles refers to Selwood 1995 (study of social impact of art programs in British cities by Comedia). 5 Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991 [1974], pp.

13, 14, 162, and Lukasz Stanek. Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011, p. ix.

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constitutes of the way humans relate to it and therefore – to my understanding – does not really seem to exist without them. Adam Kolodziej takes a comparable point of view, but refers to urban space more specifically. He argues that the complex spatial construction of the city is the apex of human civilization. 6_{This means that not only human life and culture are the}

constructors of cities, but cities also reflect the ways our civilization exists and works. On the one hand the development of public space responds to the emotional complexity of human behavior, on the other hand the city's spirit, also called genius loci, affects the way individuals and communities coexist and interact in urban life. So according to Kolodziej, the city strongly reflects the state of our society.7

Being aware of the interconnection between humans and urban environment, I am interested in how public art interacts in between the two. I then find it important to first explore which perceptions of contemporary urban space public art deals with. Miles and Kolodziej both argue that public art takes place within a context of urban environment that in some respects we believe to be subjected to decay, caused by economic and social changes made in the seventies and eighties. Cities are considered to be rational and “practical.” Deriving from the concept of the city as a machine, according to Kolodziej one can notice a disappearance of the city's spirit.8

As I understand it this means that we have lost a kind of phenomenological connection with the city, which is a connection that is based on structures of experience and consciousness. To clarify, the opposite connection would be to see the city as a construction objects, separately reacting upon each other. According to the writers the latter would be the ruling perspective on the contemporary city. Up until today urban progress has been associated with urban and economic expansion through rational planning. Perhaps under the influence of the

Enlightenment, we have compartmentalized our lives by creating cities of order and rules, distanced from our own wastes.9 _{This would characterize urban inhabitants as rational, aloof}

beings, driven by a capitalist economy and losing sight with their individual desires.

But Miles argues the Modernist aspirations of urban progress through economic and rational expansion have been replaced by a post-modern cynicism, which recognizes that these perspectives might no longer be viable in relation to the concept of public space.10 _Kolodziej

argues there is a strong need for recognition of the city as a “dramatic character.” According to the writer the city is not to be perceived as a machine, but as a living organism.11_{This z shows}

a moving away from approaching the city as a set of static objects constructed by commerce, order and rationality, and a moving towards a perception based on a more intensified

emotional and physical experience and consciousness of the city – which Kolodziej claims to be the aim of urban scenography.

In this thesis I want to explore the way public art could play a role in approaching urban public 6 Kolodziej, Adam. ‘Urban Scenography.’ 2008. http://commongroundpublishing.com. Consulted February 23 2014

<http://h08.cgpublisher.com/proposals/78/index_html>. 7 Ibidem.

8 Ibidem.

9 Miles 1997, p. 17. 10 Ibidem.

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space through a different perspective, seeing that its current one has a rather negative connotation. Public art in itself is believed to have the potential to address our perception and experience of urban environment. I want to propose a research on urban scenography, which is an approach to public art that specifically relates to the dramatic construction of space and thereby claims to provide a different perspective on urban spatial environment.

Deriving from theater practice, scenography is an artistic perspective on the visual,

experiential and spatial composition of performance.12 _{This means the discipline deals with the}

way space is constructed and experienced. This might begin to make clear how scenography could also be valuable in researching the way public art can play a role in taking a different perspective on public space. Joslin McKinney claims in The Cambridge Introduction to

Scenography (2009) scenography is not simply concerned with creating and presenting images

to an audience, but regards the audience reception and engagement on both a physical and emotional level. She writes that it is a sensory as well as intellectual experience, an emotional as well as a rational one.13_{This shows that scenography might be a useful approach in}

analyzing how public art could play a different role in the experience of public space.

Thea Brejzek confirms this thought. Being an approach to the composition and experience of space, Brejzek argues that scenography claims to operate far beyond the conventional theater environment. Besides extending its own historical notion as decorative backdrop to a text based drama, scenography moves toward the curatorial practice of art and other artistic spatial practices.14_{Proposing to be an approach to staging spaces in theater, exhibition, installation}

and architecture, Brejzek argues scenography is a particularly suitable practice in all areas of spatial design and curating that contain elements of mise-en-scène, narrativity,

transformativity and perceived reality, which includes art in public space.15

Jekaterina Lavrinec wrote several articles on the idea that the concept of urban scenography could be used as an analytical and practical tool in revitalizing urban space through public art. She explains how an urban scenographic approach to public artworks reveals interconnections between space and everyday scenarios of citizens in the city, and how this awakens the urban inhabitant’s consciousness of his environment. It therefore has the potential to initiate an emotional link between the citizen and the city's space. This link revitalizes public spaces, eventually reanimating and nourishing the city’s spirit.16

Taking on this claim of urban scenography to be an approach to public art that has the poten-tial to regenerate the city, I want to explore in this thesis what notions of urban scenography exist in making and curating art in urban environments, and how exactly the use of urban 12 Howard, Pamela. What is Scenography? London: Routledge, 2002, p. 130.

13 McKinney, Joslin. The Cambridge Introduction to Scenography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. p. 4. 14 Brejzek, Thea, ed. Expanding Scenography. On the Authoring of Space. Publication for the Scenography Expanding 1-3 Symposia, conducted in Riga, Belgrade and Évora, 2010, organized by the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. Prague: The Arts and Theater Institute, 2011, p. 8.

15 Ibidem.

Thea Brejzek, Wolfgang Greisenegger, Lawrence Wallen, eds. Space & Desire. Scenographic Strategies in Theatre, Art and Media. Zurich: Zurich University of the Arts, 2011, p.4.

16 Lavrinec, Jekaterina. ‘Urban Scenography: Emotional and Bodily Experience’. In: Limes: Borderland Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2013): pp. 21-31, p. 21.

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scenography in public art could be of value within our current Western perception of public space. My main question is therefore: How could the approach of urban scenography in public

art offer a different perspective on the contemporary city?

To answer this question, I first want to sketch out some of the notions of urban public space that relate to the subject of public art and urban scenography. This is important because it will shed some more light on the space that scenographic analysis addresses as well as on the con-temporary city's critiques. Thus it might clarify the need for scenographic analysis in public art. I will describe three different well-known perceptions of urban space according to the readings of sociologist Georg Simmel, art critic and poet Charles Baudelaire, and philosophers Walter Benjamin and Michel de Certeau. Although their theories originate from the nineteenth and twentieth century, they write about a construction and perception of the city based on com-merce, order and rationalism, which still appear to be the core of contemporary cities. Fur-thermore, the first three writers found themselves living in times when big European cities turned into capitalist driven places. This might have given them a specifically clear view on how urban environment and urban inhabitants changed into what we know them to be today. I will then expound on scenography itself, by researching how it can be seen as a concept in contemporary art and how it is used in curating our most “public” exhibition space, the city. In a case study of Constant Nieuwenhuys' re-envisioning urban art project New Babylon will explore notions of scenography within this work specifically. Ultimately I wonder about the effect of urban scenography's approach to public art in shaping spaces of experience and engagement in urban environment. Do these experiences intervene with everyday life by awakening our consciousness of our surroundings? Or do scenographic strategies break with everyday life through the representation of the invisible and imaginable, creating an illusionary environment?

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Chapter 1. N

otions of the city

1.1 The metropolis and mental life

Researching the position of urban scenography in public art, I think it is inevitable to take note of the sociology based approach to our idea of the city and how it affects us. To set a clear outline to the context of urban scenography we ought to look at our perception and critiques concerning public space in contemporary cities, in order to explore in which ways public art is and could be positioned in it. Sociologist Georg Simmel's (1858-1918) essay ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ (1903)17_{offers an interesting framework because it focuses on the human}

perception of the city: the relation between the individual and “the outside.” Being one of Simmel’s most influential and timeless essays, it describes the construction and influence of the city on the mental state of its inhabitants, thereby giving some insight in the way urban environment is processed by humans. As urban scenography claims to reveal the

interconnections between space and everyday scenarios that take place in the city, Simmel's observations can give some insight in what these scenarios might entail and how we behave in them. This could pinpoint our position in the contemporary city and thus make more sense of the specific approach urban scenography takes within our perception of urban environment. In addition, Simmel understands the metropolis as a concept beyond its physical boundaries. According to the sociologist the city constitutes of the totality of effects which temporally and spatially transcend from it. He not only perceives the city as the location of modernity, but as a way of recognizing urban environment as an experience,18_{a point of view urban scenography}

also claims to take.

According to Simmel, the deepest problems of urban life derive from the attempt of the individual to maintain his independence and individuality against the weight of the sovereign powers of society, historical heritage and the external culture and technique of life.19 _This

means the psychological foundation of the urban inhabitant is formed by a continuous meeting between both internal and external impulses. The mind is continually stimulated by former and present impressions. While lasting and regular impressions of low contrast – for example those of small town or rural life – take less energy to process, Simmel explains that the striking and ever changing images produced by the city are unexpected and more violent impulses. The tempo and multiplicity of images that appear to the urban inhabitant as he walks the streets form the foundation of his mental life.20

Simmel then argues that being exposed to these thousands of visual modifications, the metropolitan character creates a protective organ to protect his inner life against the

disruptions of external life that threaten it. Instead of reacting emotionally he primarily reacts 17 Simmel, Georg Simmel. ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life.’ In: Gary Bridge, Sophie Watson, eds. The Blackwell City

Reader. Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002 [1903]: pp. 11-19.

18 Borden, Ian. ‘Space Beyond. Spatiality and the City in the Writings of Georg Simmel.’ In: The Journal of Architecture (revised version), Vol. 2 (Winter 1997): pp.313-35, Abstract p. i. Retrieved from

<http://www.academia.edu/4247287/Space_Beyond_Space_and_the_City_in_the_Writings_of_Georg_Simmel> May 26 2014, and Simmel 2002 [1903], p. 17.

19 Simmel 2002 [1903], p. 11. 20 Idem, pp. 11-12.

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rationally, which to some extent numbs his sensitivity and removes him somewhat from his personality as a way of protecting it from the domination of the city. This mental predominance causes the mental life of the metropolitan character to appear essentially intellectualistic.21

Furthermore Simmel argues that the metropolis has always been intertwined with the money-economy, as it is the place where commercial activity takes place. What the domination of intellect and capitalism have in common is a purely matter-of-fact attitude to the treatment of both people and things. Characterized by calculability, impersonality, rationality and

maintaining intellectual relationships, life in the city is very closely connected with its capitalistic and intellectualistic personality.22

How does this attitude and behavior of the urban inhabitant interfere with his perception and experience of the city? A couple of years later Simmel would write that “the interpersonal relationships of people in big cities are characterized by a markedly emphasis on the use of the eyes.”23_{In ‘The Metropolis of Mental Life’ he already starts to describe how the metropolitan}

mentality influences the perception of urban surroundings. The emphasis on the eyes would not mean a clearer view on urban environment, but instead a more superficial observation of passers-by and urban sites. Simmel argues a blasé outlook of the metropolitan type is the first consequence of the rapidly shifting and contrasting impressions. The essence of this attitude is an indifference toward distinctions between objects. Not in the sense that they are not

perceived – which would be mental dullness – but rather that the meaning and value of distinctions between things, and therewith the things themselves, are experienced as

meaningless.24 _{Ironically this reserved and indifferent attitude of the urban dweller toward his}

fellow citizens are the most visible in dense crowds. According to Simmel, precisely the physical closeness through a lack of space in the city makes intellectual distance clearly visible.25

Having described some of the relations between urban inhabitants and their everyday

surroundings according to Simmel’s writings, we can note that these interconnections do not necessarily have a positive connotation. As urban scenography aims to undermine the rational and superficial perception of the city, we can begin to see that it is here where this specific approach to public art could be useful in taking on a more conscious perception of the city. One of the first notions of a less passive urban dweller comes forward in the representation of the flâneur, an imaginary character who wanders around in the upcoming capitalist city and actively observes his surroundings.

21 Simmel 2002 [1903], p. 11. 22 Idem, pp. 12-13.

23 Ganz, James A. Impressionist Paris: City of Light. [tent.cat.]. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2010, p. 19. Ganz refers to Georg Simmel, Mélanges de philosophie rélativiste: Contribution à la culture

philosophique. Trans. Alix Guillain. Paris, 2012, pp. 26-27.

24 “Seated in an economy of commerce, money can be said to have taken away quantitative distinctions and has become a denominator of value.” In: Simmel 2002 [1903], p. 14.

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1.2 The city through the eyes of the flâneur

The flâneur is a literary figure from 19th_{century France, who represents the newly experienced}

anonymity in the rising capitalist city. He was described by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) and Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)26_{and embodies the new kind of freedom that was}

experienced in the modern cities of tis age. The crowd being his natural surrounding, the flâneur is a casual wanderer who anonymously observes the street life of the city. As a way of experiencing the city he perceives his surroundings with a certain detachment or diffused gaze, treating urban scenes as spectacles.27_{However, his perception is a little more nuanced than}

Simmel's blasé outlook. The flâneur is able to encounter the city differently through this non-focus. There is more space for his imagination, as Benjamin argues that the division between reality and illusion fades in the flamboyant visualities of the modern city.28_Furthermore,

although lead by attractions, the flâneur combines his curiosity toward everyday scenes with his physical experience in perceiving the city.29_{This means he approaches his surroundings}

with a certain level of emotional and physical consciousness.

As urban scenography aims to create a more emotional and physical conscious perception of the city, I want to propose connecting the concept of urban scenography to the practice of flânerie, considering the concept as a possible influence on urban scenography. Because as Lavrinec describes in her article ‘From a 'Blind Walker' to an 'Urban Curator': Initiating “Emotionally Moving Situations” in Public Spaces’ (2011), flânerie is exactly the method for establishing a sensitive approach to the everyday city. This is because experiencing the city like the flâneur requires an intensive reflection on the existing routines and structures that appear to him in the public space of the city. The flâneur crosses different everyday paths of people who are working or enjoying leisure time, choses his own paths through them and thereby invents new routes for himself.30

Thus the flâneur is more active in experiencing his urban surroundings than just passively strolling. He is sensitive to his physical experience of the city, constructing the different routines, vistas, sounds, smells and tastes together to his own understanding of his

surroundings. His perception of the city also includes memories, dreams and emotions, as well as his ability to describe the impressions and atmospheres as how he relates to them. This means his self-awareness is raised, and he is somewhat pushed to take a position toward his own individuality amidst the urban spectacle of the nineteenth century. This is how he explores his own perception of the city.31

26 Baudelaire, Charles. ‘The Painter of Modern Life.’ In: Charles Baudelaire. Charles Baudelaire. Selected Writings on Art and Literature. Trans. P.E. Charvet. London: Penguin, 1972 [1863]: pp. 390-435.

Walter Benjamin. ‘Paris: The Capital of the Nineteenth Century.’ Trans. New Left Review. In: Perspecta, Vol. 12 (1969) [1935, 1939]: pp. 165-172.

27 Ibidem.

28 Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. London and Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1999 [1927-1940], p. 21.

29 Lavrinec, Jekaterina. ‘From a “Blind Walker” to an “Urban Curator”: Initiating “Emotionally Moving Situations” in Public Spaces.’ In: Limes: Cultural Regionalistics, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2011a): 54-63, p. 55.

30 Ibidem. 31 Ibidem.

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1.3 Walking in the City

Having discussed the concept of the flâneur, we are getting closer to a view on the city that leaves more room for a reflexive emotional and physical experience of the city walker, like the approach of urban scenography claims to do. Philosopher Michel de Certeau (1925-1986) also recognizes a potential in the city walker to give new meaning to urban settings. He describes his view in his book The practice of Everyday Life (1984), which I want to address here because it seems to resemble the approach of urban scenography.

De Certeau argues that urban inhabitants should stop identifying with their surroundings and model behaviors and should be critical toward existing scenarios in urban space, in order to invent new ones. He critiques what he calls “blind walking,” a non-reflexive use of urban space for which Miles and Simmel describe the outlines, to then bring forward the potential of a more reflexive attitude toward city space that is also considered to be the foundation of urban scenography.32

De Certeau poses a notion of the city as dynamic text, which is being written by citizens through their everyday practices that he says to be necessarily spatial. However, he argues that normally urban inhabitants perceive the city without really seeing it. As an elementary form of experiencing the city, inhabitants walk through urban environments. But their bodies follow the “urban text” they write without being able to read it themselves. As De Certeau illustrates: “Their knowledge of [space] is as blind as that of lovers in each other’s arms.”33

In her article ‘From a “Blind Walker” to an “Urban Curator”: Initiating “Emotionally Moving Situations” in Public Spaces” (2011) Jekaterina Lavrinec makes more sense of De Certeau's line of thought by describing how for a wandering inhabitant the city emerges as spatial configurations of obstacles and their absence, like street curbs, crowds, puddles or

construction sights. They influence the routes, rhythms and bodily experience of the walker, proposing better or worse moving conditions. This practical knowledge about the city is embedded in the spatial structures of the city, formed by power structures like politics or a more concrete example: city planners.34_{Lavrinec tries to illustrate here how urban inhabitants}

automatically walk through the city, without realizing how their paths are affected by urban structures and objects.

However, De Certeau does not think urban surroundings and the routines of everyday life have a dominant effect on the city walker. Power structures might be oppressive, but ultimately they are not able to completely control the spontaneous and creative energies of urban

inhabitants.35 _{De Certeau then wonders how a reflexive position toward the everyday urban}

surrounding could be established. Recognizing everyday life as the site of power structures and 32 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 57.

33 Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002 [1984], p. 93.

34 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 55.

De Certeau 2002 [1984], pp. 98-99.

35 Sommer, Moritz. ‘Is Everyday Life Best Understood as Site For Creative Agency or Structural Determination? Assessing Certeau's reaction to Foucault.’ Essay MSc Political Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, January 18 2013. Retrieved from

<http://www.academia.edu/3400838/Assessing_de_Certeaus_reaction_to_Foucault> April 17 2014, p.7. De Certeau 2002 [1984], pp. xiv-xv.

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inequalities, he poses that actually the very “ordinary” practices of everyday life – like walking, dwelling, cooking and talking – are the creative resistances of people.36_{Individuals navigate}

through life in their own way, through for example streets, newspapers and television, thereby changing existing rules, structures and territories. De Certeau calls the use or consumption of these everyday practices “tactics.” They provide obstacles to ruling hegemonies, and allow a developing of individuality. Through them citizens invent their own ways of living everyday life, referring to the original French title of De Certeau's book, L'invention du Quotidien: we create our own everyday life. From this perspective, resistance to indifference toward urban

environment is everywhere.37

In chapter VII 'Walking in the City' De Certeau expounds on the practice of walking specifically. As an opposition to the non-reflexive blind walking, he first poses the totalizing, elevated perspective of the all-seeing eye, which grasps the urban “text” seen all at once. However, this perspective also appears to be blind in the sense that what the urban inhabitant sees is only a representation of urban life: this panoptic view is seen from on high as an abstract geometrical spatial design.38_{Instead, the urban walker's city down below has the potential to offer a more}

reflexive perspective. The walking citizen makes spatial order exist, so like actors on stage, pedestrians can make parts of the city disappear and exaggerate others. To the Certeau, walking is a tactic through which pedestrians can survive and resist the strategy of the

environment which is planned by those in power.39_{It is this reflexive walker, “choreographing”}

his way through the city, who touches the essence of the conscious approach of urban scenography to public space.

Through the perspectives of Simmel, Baudelaire, Benjamin and De Certeau I have tried to set a framework for our understanding of the contemporary city: the site of public art and urban scenography. The city appears to us as ever changing and contrasting images that cross the eye, and we process them in different ways. Clearly all writers seem to suggest that the controversies, spectacle, rationality, consumerism and routines of the modern city make us respond indifferent to our surroundings and fellow citizens. Regarding this specific form of urban decay, they speculate about a character that is able to re-envision urban environment. This would be an inhabitant who is critical toward the structures and paths of everyday life, thereby revitalizing both public space and his individual experience of the city.

Thinking about such a character, the approach of urban scenography in public art comes to the fore. It is believed to address the urban inhabitant’s consciousness of his urban surroundings, aiming to refocus his perspective and thereby revitalizing public space. Therefore I now want to research what notions of urban scenography exist in making and curating public art and how exactly it claims to change the perspective of urban inhabitants.

36 De Certeau 2002 [1984], p. xviii.

37 Idem, pp. xiv, xix-xx, and Sommer 2012, p. 7. 38 De Certeau 2002 [1984], pp. 91-98.

Lavrinec 2011a, pp. 54-55.

39 Bryant-Bertail, Sarah. Space and Time in Epic Theater: The Brechtian Legacy. Rochester, NY: Camden House; Boydell & Brewer Inc., 2000, p. 12.

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Chapter 2. Urban scenography as a concept in public art

2.1 What is scenography? How sceno graphy takes its notion of space into the field of contemporary art

In What is Scenography? (2002) Pamela Howard defines scenography – a practice originated in theater – as the “seamless synthesis of space, text, research, art, actors, directors and

spectators that contributes to an original creation.”40_{This definition describes scenography as}

the visualization of a dramatic text or idea, translated in a scene or performance space. The term derives from the Greek sceno-grafika which is generally understood as “the writing of the stage space.” Scenography could be seen as the materialization of the imagination,41_which

indicates that scenography’s practice is about the construction of meaning in theater.42

According to Howard and Joslin McKinney, writer of The Cambridge Introduction to

Scenography (2009), scenography is not only a practice in which individual elements form the

composition or design of a performance. McKinney argues it could also be seen as an artistic perspective on the visual, experiential and spatial composition of performance. 43 _{This means}

scenography concerns the reception and engagement of the audience, constructing a physical as well as emotional experience.In other words, it is about perceiving performance space not only as a physical place but also as a concept that is more metaphorical, formed by both experience and imagination of the spectator. Howard notes that this is why space is the first and most important material – and challenge – in scenography. Space is translated and adapted to be linked with an artistic concept or idea, to create a suggestive space, and to create meaning.44

In Space and Desire. Scenographic Strategies in Theatre, Art and Media (2011) Thea Brejzek introduces scenography as a study of space. Its practice has moved into other disciplines such as contemporary art. According to Brejzek, this is caused by a major paradigmatic shift that originated in the 1990's and changed the way theater practice relates towards authenticity, liveness and mediatization45_{. This change derived from a rise of documentary practices, media}

technologies and internet in the field of performance, which implement fragments of urban existence into the theater space.46_{Internationally, scenographers, performers and directors are}

experimenting with urban intervention, digital performance and mixed media formats, which is how they extend the conventional theater space into spaces of action, participation and

critique, Brejzek argues. The single illusionary spaces of the historical stage are replaced by multidisciplinary spaces that have a more metaphorical and virtual character and contain elements of seduction, but also of disillusionment and critique.47_{This means that performance}

spaces are constructed in a way that they do not only take the spectator into the realm of 40 Howard 2002, p. 130.

41 Howard quotes scenographer Jozef Ciller. 42 Howard 2002, pp. 125, xiii-xv.

43 McKinney 2009, p. 4. 44 Howard 2002, p. 1.

45 Refers to the increasing role of the media. 46 Brejzek et al. 2011, p.5.

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fairytale-like illusion and imagination, but also create spaces that are constructed of both realistic and imaginary elements through which they could provide critical perspectives.

I want to note here that Brejzek's “single illusionary space” opposed to the multi-layered space is a way of perceiving performance practice rather black-and-white. However, we do have the ability to place this development in history after the actionist performance art of the sixties and seventies. Ever since then theater has been intertwining increasingly with the public spaces of urban life which provide performance with some critical intent. This being said, the elements of illusion and critique add to our understanding of staging spaces, and I believe it is here where scenography's potential within the field of contemporary art comes to the surface. The practice addresses the construction of space and has the ability to unravel it.

Thus as a concept in performance, scenography has changed and made itself adaptable to other fields of spatial design. With an emphasis on the performative elements of space, 48

spatial design has moved toward “staged gestures of spatiality,” as Brejzek calls it. 49_{It is an}

approach in which spaces are conceptualized, constructed and realized to create meaning and experience. This is why scenography can be used as a transdisciplinary design strategy within as well as outside the conventional theater environment, like in art, architecture and public space. Through this reading Brejzek describes the scenographer not as someone who visualizes scripted narrative in a space, but rather as an author who constructs a space through creating situations, interaction and communication.50

In Narrative Spaces: On the Art of Exhibiting (2012) Frank den Oudsten and Suzanne Mulder argue that the moving of scenography out of theatrical practice coincides with developments in the art world.51_{They refer to the book The Experience Economy: Work is Theater & Every}

Business a Stage (1999) in which B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore predicted an era in

which experience would become a commodity. In their view the consumer was going to want more than a product, he would want experience.52_{This also became apparent in the growing}

interest of the art world in offering experiences. The theatrical exhibitions that were designed in museums and elsewhere from the late 1990's onward have become generally associated with this trend. Mulder notes that the stage-managed exhibitions by a new generation of scenographers show an interesting development in this respect.53 54

48 Concerning the construction and expression of objects. 49 Brejzek et al. 2011, p.4.

50 Ibidem.

51 Kossmann, Herman, Suzanne Mulder, Frank den Oudsten, Narrative Spaces: On the art of Exhibiting, Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2012, p. 10.

52 Pine, Joseph B., James H. Gilmore. The experience Economy. Work is Business and Every Theatre a Stage. Boston, MA : Harvard Business Review Press, 2011 [1999].

53 Kossmann et al. 2012, pp. 150, 155.

54 Earlier on art exhibition has seen some interesting examples of these “narrative spaces” as well, mainly between 1920 and 1940. The avant-garde of this period, such as the surrealist movement, used the exhibition as a way to express their views on art itself. They wanted to express new insights and evoke new experiences. Artists tried to transform the traditional, neutral exhibition area into an environment that embodied their ideology. The surrealists traced back all art to the unconscious. As a reaction to the current dominance of rational thought, they posed the principle of free association, like is experienced in the consciousness of dreams. This specific view could be seen in their exhibition making. For example, Marcel Duchamp created exhibitions that looked like strange suggestive, dreamlike worlds (exhibition of 1938 of surrealist art in Paris). In: Kossmann et al. 2012, pp. 147-150.

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2.1.1 The concept of space in exhibition making

With this specific approach to space scenography has been translated into the practice of contemporary art. Since a couple of decades space has been used as a material in curating exhibitions. In her MA thesis Scenography as New Ideology in Contemporary Curating and the

Notion of Staging in Exhibitions (2013) Margaret Choi Kwan Lam writes that recently

scenography is developing itself as a phenomenon in the exhibition scene of the art world. Scenography acts in the field of contemporary curating and is presumed to announce a radical ideological shift in this practice. As Choi Kwan Lam explains it, it indicates an increasing awareness of the notion of staging experiences in the way that the physical spaces for art are more and more perceived as metaphorical stages – as has been argued above – including different concepts like authorship, architectural embodiment, layered narrative, experience, dramaturgy and expressions of new media.55

I think Carson Chan gives a clear image of what this staging of experience and expression entails in curating today. In his article 'Measures of an Exhibition: Space, Not Art, Is the Curator's Primary Material' he expounds on the notion of space as a material in exhibition making. According to Chan space has become the independent curator’s autonomous object of study by specifically illuminating the physical experience and expression of the exhibition space. Chan here proposes the curator as an auteur, who has come to use space as his primary material.In creating an exhibition experience the curator considers the exhibition space’s scenography, socio-historical context, audience and infrastructure: the aesthetic and intellectual scope of the space.The experience of the exhibition is formed individually within each spectator as he moves about in the space,56_{although his perception can be}

choreographed by the curator in a way that best conveys both the exhibition’s and the artists’ intentions.57 _{Natalie Heinich and Michael Pollak appear to think accordingly. In their article}

'From Museum Curator to Exhibition Auteur: Inventing a Singular Position' they point out how the exhibition space turned into an artwork itself, due to the transformation of the role of the curator.58_{Noting this relevancy of scenography as a study of space in contemporary art, could}

this notion of scenography also be found in curating art in public space, the sites of urban environment?

55 Choi Kwan Lam, Margaret . ‘Scenography as New Ideology in Contemporary Curating and the Notion of Staging in Exhibitions.’ Dissertation MA Curating Contemporary Design, Kingston University London in partnership with the Design Museum, September 2013. Retrieved from <http://online.fliphtml5.com/wojf/ynmk/#p=1> March 2 2014, p. ii.

56 Chan, Carson. 'Measures of an Exhibition: Space, Not Art, Is the Curator’s Primary Material.’ In: Fillip, Vol. 13 (Spring 2011). Retrieved from <http://fillip.ca/content/measures-of-an-exhibition> January 8 2014. Chan refers to Charlotte Klonk. Spaces of Experience: Art Gallery Interiors from 1800 to 2000. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

57 Chan 2011. Also referred to by me in: Koetsier, Marthe. ‘Art & Space.’ Essay for seminar Thinking Modern and Contemporary Art by Eva Fotiadi, MA Art History, University of Amsterdam, January 21 2014, pp. 8-9.

58 Heinich, Natalie, Michael Pollak. 'From Museum Curator to Exhibition Auteur: Inventing a Singular Position.' In: Reesa Greenberg, Bruce Ferguson, Sandy Nairne, eds. Thinking about Exhibitions. London and New York: Routledge, 1996, p. 231.

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2.2 Urban scenography as artistic concept in public space

2.2.1 The city as performance space or scripted narrative

Projecting the concept of scenography on the mise-en-scène of the city, the concept of urban scenography could be seen as an artistic perspective on the visual, experiential and spatial composition of public space. In her article 'Urban Scenography: Emotional and Bodily Experience' (2013) Jekaterina Lavrinec argues its approach could be used to deconstruct existing power structures59_{embedded in urban sights by revealing the interconnections}

between urban life and public space.60_{Considering this to be a viable argument, urban}

scenography could be interpreted as a critique on Simmel's rather pessimistic outlook on the urban inhabitant, who is supposedly controlled by a blasé outlook and rationality. Here urban scenography addresses the potential of the urban inhabitant or spectator to perceive the city through a different perspective.

Taking a closer look at Lavrinec's argumentation, she proposes a link between urban

scenography and the theories of De Certeau on the potential of the urban walker formulated in

The Practice of Everyday Life.61_{Both awaken the citizen's consciousness to perceiving public}

space not only as monumental surroundings of the city, but to the idea that urban sites

planned by panoptic powers actually construct and choreograph our everyday lives – although we can put up resistance to it. Lavrinec argues that theoretically, urban scenography aims to give an analysis of urban reality and proposes an experience of the city that is double layered: it is a physical as well as emotional experience.62_{The spatial configurations of the city produce}

certain possibilities for the urban walker, who can therefore choose to be an active interpreter of urban space. He can passively follow spatial instructions, or he can start developing

alternative scenarios or routes.63_{The urban wanderer can thereby take a more conscious,}

individual and critical stance toward the dynamic configurations of urban elements that form one of the bases for his everyday life, and create new perspectives. Through this approach the urban walker is able to see the city not as a practical phenomenon constructed by static

objects and structures, but is he able to construct it with his individual visualization and imagination, thereby feeding the city's spirit – its genius loci.64

Now I want to consider that theoretically the approach of urban scenography could be described as perceiving public space as a kind of performance space, which is not an ungrounded idea if we look back at De Certeau's theories of public space. As seen in the theatrical background of the term, scenography derives from a historical tradition of linking imagery and text, vision and meaning. This graphic condition is based on the visual translation

59 In urban scenography to be understood as structures of politics, sociology, culture and gender, or a more concrete example: city planners and architects.

60 Lavrinec 2013, p. 21. 61 Idem, pp. 21-22.

62 Lavrinec refers to McKinney 2009, p. 4. 63 Lavrinec 2013, p. 22.

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of text in space,65_{and can be compared to De Certeau's understanding of the city as dynamic}

text which is being written by citizens through their everyday practices. According to his argumentation these everyday practices are embedded in urban spaces, but also have the ability to change its shape. In moving around through the city, between work, home and leisure, people organize and obstruct places every day. This means that they select and link spaces, making sentences and itineraries out of them. This is how the constellation of urban elements, which De Certeau calls “spatial syntax”, can be said to have a narrative structure.66

In her master Thesis City as Narrative in Introducing the New Midway: A Study in Urban

Scenography (2006) Nuria Montblanch also gives insight in the idea of the city as a

performance space. She describes how every city contains millions of conditions for different kinds of narratives. Like in a theatrical performance, these stories are being told by different characters that evolve through interactions, changing emotions, time and space.67 _Lavrinec

writes accordingly that different movements encourage individual “choreographies” of the city walkers.68_{They are formed by the interplay between the human body and everyday settings of}

urban environment.

According to my understanding this makes the city comparable to a performative space as well: it is the overall expression of the construction of different realities of different individuals. The physical dynamics of individual the urban walker, perceivable as choreography, are

performed in the space of the urban environment, perceivable as the staged narrative.69

Kolodziej's approach to urban scenography underlines this notion of urban space. He writes: “It stems from the visualization of life’s script, told by our history, cultural context and, most interestingly, from our emotional needs.”70

As analytical approach urban scenography is a particular field of expertise and way of thinking that draws parallels with dramaturgy. But where the dramaturg is oversensitive to visual and sensorial composition of space and structures it through its spatiality and temporality, I think urban scenography takes a slightly different approach. The foundation of its method becomes visible in De Certeau's argumentation, in which he describes a specific approach to spatial environments. While in a city different narratives are continuously building, De Certeau notes that normally the urban walker (the “blind walker”) does not pay any attention to everyday urban environment, until he is mentally detached from his surroundings – even for a short moment.So he proposes that the urban walker stops identifying with his surroundings, routine 65 Donger, Simon. ‘Gloom. Scenography as praxis of imperceptibility.’ Submission to PHD, The Royal Central School

of Speech and Drama, University of London, 2012. Retrieved from

<http://crco.cssd.ac.uk/456/1/Gloom_Scenography_as_Praxis_of_Imperceptibility.pdf> May 4 2014. 66 De Certeau 2002 [1984], p. 115.

Next to urban curating also other fields use this narrative analysis, for example architectural theory. The discipline attempts to see our physical trajectories through buildings as virtual narratives or dynamic paths of which visitors are asked to fulfill and to complete with their bodies and movements. In: Lavrinec 2013, p. 24: refers to Fredric Jameson 1990, p. 43.

67 Montblanch, Nuria. ‘Introducing the New Midway: A Study in Urban Scenography.’ Abstract from MA Thesis Architecture, Dalhousie University, Canada, 2006. Retrieved from <http://www.nuriamontblanch.com/Urban-Scenography> March 24 2014.

68 Lavrinec 2013, p. 22. 69 Idem, p. 25.

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scenarios and behaviors in order to rethink the composition of space.71_{This is how he is able to}

take a more reflexive position toward existing urban scenarios and invent new ones. It is a certain technique of defamiliarization to establish an active reinterpretation of everyday

choreography, a task which Lavrinec ascribes to the urban scenographer, or “urban curator”, as she calls him.72

2.2.2 Urban scenography as practical tool – Creating awakening situations

As theoretical approach the aims of urban scenography are evident. But how is this

detachment from everyday scenarios and imposed structures, like described by De Certeau, actually brought into practice within urban scenography's approach to public art?

In ‘From Blind Walker to Urban Curator’ Lavrinec points out that the concept of detachment is quite close to the ideas of the Situationist International, an international organization of social revolutionaries that was active from 1957 to its dissolution in 1972. The Situationists aimed to establish a creative distance from their everyday urban surroundings.73_{De Certeau's notion of}

the scripted narrative embedded in urban sites by power structures can be compared to the Situationist's central theory of “the spectacle”, developed by Guy Debord in his book The

Society of the Spectacle (1967).74_{The term refers to the superficial existence of the modern}

city, that introduced itself in the twenties with its commerce, mass media, fetishism of

commodities and alienation. In these cities of spectacles – which were strongly criticized by the Situationists – commerce and commodities rule urban inhabitants and turn them into

consumers. The Situationists rebelled against being passive subjects of the spectacle. One of their techniques to establish distance between them and their everyday urban surroundings was “drifting” (dérive).75

As Lavrinec describes, drifting as a research practice is based on the recognition of the

interconnection between urban settings and the physical as well as emotional experience of the citizen, and a need for a critical perspective on this relation.76_{Debord describes that “in a}

dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and encounters they find there.”77_{Through this}

technique they attempt to resist routine scenarios established by urban planning. Debord emphasized that drifting is different from an everyday stroll, as it involves playful behavior and awareness of psycho-geographical effects.” 78_{Lavrinec notes that in some respects drifting}

71 De Certeau 2002 [1984], pp. xiv, xix-xx. Montblanch 2006.

72 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 57.

73 Plant, Sadie. The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist International in a Postmodern Age. New York: Routledge, 1992.

74 Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Trans. Black & Red. Detroit: Black & Red, 1970 [1967].

75 Debord, Guy. ‘Theory of the Dérive.’ In: Ken Knabb, ed. Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley, CA: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006 [1956]. Retrieved from <http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/theory.html> April 29 2014. 76 Lavrinec 2013, p. 22.

77 Debord 2006 [1956].

78 The effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals. Guy Debord. ‘Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography.’ In: Ken Knabb, ed. Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006 [1955]. Retrieved from

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reminds of Benjamin's flânerie. But where the Situationists drifted in groups to come to more objective perspectives through cross-checking, Benjamin argues that solitude is the most important condition of flânerie because it results in more personal views.79

The Situationists ultimate aim was to create provocative and disturbing urban settings, which would then encourage citizens to invent their own scenarios, different from those proposed by “the spectacle” or the power structures of the modern city. Lavrinec points out that the drift in itself is not a self-sufficient act, but rather the preparation for a resistance of everyday life. It intends to create awareness of the territory where further radical changes were thought to take place.80

So drifting actually appears to be a technique of an initial exploration of the structures of urban settings. The Situationists also developed the concept of “détournement”, which was a more active method to create a reflexive attitude toward everyday surroundings and scenarios – and which also moves closer to the essence of urban scenography's practice in public art. Debord and artist Gil J. Wolman developed this concept, which can be seen as a rethinking of urban scenarios through deconstructing urban structures initiated by disturbing perspectives and situations. Artistic productions were a main playing field of these détournements, as its

expression could bring new decompositions to light.81_{Debord and Wolman wrote in 1956 that if}

détournements were extended to public space, these had the potential to reconstruct whole neighborhoods or even entire cities. They argued: “Life can never be too disorienting: détournement on this level would really spice it up.”82 _{In terms of the physical sites of public}

space, the idea that existing architectural forms could be “détrourned” turned into the Situationist concept of “unitary architecture”, which critiqued the controls of

non-transformative architecture and city planning. Instead it proposed a permanent transformation and reconstruction of the city in temporal and spatial terms.83

In The Situationist City (1999) Simon Sadler points out that the Situationists ultimately wanted to create unpredictable and deconstructing situations within the sphere of artistic practices. He explains that these situations would clearly be some sort of performances with such a strong presence in public space that they would move people to new sorts of behavior based on interaction and play.84_{Sadie Plant adds in her book The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist}

International in a Postmodern Age (1992) that the situations the organization aimed for were

moments that were meant to reawaken urban inhabitants by motivating them to get in touch 79 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 56. Refers to Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

1999, p. 805.

80 Lavrinec 2011a, pp. 56-57.

81 Situationist International. ‘Détournement as Negation and Prelude.’ Trans. Ken Knabb. In: Internationale Situationniste, Vol. 3 (1959). Retrieved from <http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/315> May 4 2014.

82 Debord, Guy, Gil J. Wolman. 'A User’s Guide to Détournement.’ Trans. Ken Knabb. In: Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley, CA: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006 [1956]. Retrieved from

<http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/detourn.htm> May 4 2014.

83 Chardronnet, Ewen. The History of Unitary Urbanism and Psychogeography at the Turn of the Sixties. Examples and Comments of Contemporary Psychogeography. Lecture notes conference, Riga Art & Communication Festival, May 2003. Retrieved from <http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ewen-chardronnet-the-history-of-unitary-urbanism-and-psychogeography-at-the-turn-of-the-sixties> May 4 2014.

84 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 58. Refers to Simon Sadler. The Situationist City. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1998, p. 105.

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with their authentic desires. They were to experience a feeling of liberation and adventure.85

Anything that could disturb the ordered world capitalism and labor – from poetry and political theory to free play – would help to defeat the elements of order and “spectacle” in modern cities.86

The upheavals of 1968 in France are seen as constructed situations that were intertwined with the ideologies of the Situationists. Although it is difficult to point out to what extent the

Situationists had influence on these actions, the movement can be said to have moved people to initiate these situations or to have had a direct impact on the happening of the events. The vocabulary, tactics and aims of the upheavals fully expressed the ideas of the Situationists.87

The events were mainly acted out by students in the streets of Paris (images 1 and 2). The actions brought elements of play, festivity, spontaneity, carelessness and imagination into the realm of human behavior in public space. Participants tried to create situations in which life was considered an exciting game. This was one of their main tactics to mock and provoke capitalist structures. Although the students desperately tried to distinguish themselves from the working population, all the other roles and rules of the capitalist city were rejected. The slogans “Never work!” clearly showed a rejection of the dominating life of labor and commerce. According to Plant the upheavals were something that the Situationists and their predecessors had dreamed about for years.88

Lavrinec argues that for the Situationists urban art interventions provided a good method of creating physically and emotionally moving situations. By disturbing their everyday paths and behaviors, the Situationists could create a reflexive distance from their routines and create space for new perspectives on the construction of their lives, shaped by the cities they live in.89

But although a series of happenings and events occurred, both Lavrinec and Plant note that the Situationists did not convincingly succeed in realizing their plans of creating disruptive situations or defeating the urban everyday life as it then occurred. However, they believed their involvement with the upheavals of 1968 helped a revolution on its way.90_{Leaving this up for}

debate, can we recognize these kinds of disruptions within the practice of urban scenography in the contemporary field of art in public space?

2.2.3 Activist disruptions and rituals

Turning to the contemporary city, Lavrinec poses the concept of “urban curator” in her

exploration of recent notions of urban scenography in public space. With this term she refers to the urban inhabitant who has the potential to take a different perspective on everyday life and is able to create disruptions or new “choreographies” in these routines. According to the writer, the approach of urban scenography can be used as a tool in creating these urban

85 Plant, Sadie. The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist International in a Postmodern Age. New York: Routledge, 1992, pp. 10, 101.

86 Idem, p. p.5. 87 Idem, p. 94.

Although there were also a lot of violent protests and riots during the 1968 upheavals in Paris. 88 Idem, p. 70.

89 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 58. 90 Plant 1992, p. 5.

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interventions.

Lavrinec describes the urban curator as “a reflexive activist, who is conscious about urban structures and problems and reacts to them by initiating actions in public space that are addressed to both urban communities and authorities.”91_{The urban activist studies the city as}

dynamic configuration of everyday life through performing creative and participatory activities in the city. These are comparable to the initiated “situations” of the Situationists.92

Today a great number of interventions, actions, flash mobs, freezes and urban games are organized by urban activists. The New York based collective “Improv Everywhere” aims to produce certain emotional experiences by surprising casual passers-by. In Surprise Torch Run (2014) a performer acting as an injured athlete asked people on the street to carry a burning torch around the block (image 3). Once they turned the corner they were surprised by TV crews and a huge crowd of people cheering.93_{Besides creating a surprisingly scene of chaos}

and joy in urban environment, the collective caused the urban walker to change the routine of his walks through the city. Initiator of the worldwide campaign Free Hugs Juan Mann addressed today's social disconnectivity and lack of physical contact through his actions of giving away hugs to passers-by on the street.94_{According to Lavrinec campaigns, performances and actions}

like these enquire unusual “choreographies” of participants and temporarily cause alternate scenarios, emotions and behaviors in public space.95

The alternative situations created by urban activists use the temporal character of public places like railway stations and parks, but as a rule do not become a ritual of these particular places. However they often spread across the world where they are repeated in similar public places. But being active re-interpretations of routine scenarios and spacial structures of urban places, Lavrinec notes that these “urban rituals” can also function as the subject of activist actions. Urban rituals are repetitive symbolic actions that are connected to a certain urban element and provide the possibility of shared bodily and emotional experience in different public spaces.96

An urban ritual that according to Lavrinec initially started as a spontaneous urban intervention concerns the so-called love padlocks. Couples engrave their names in padlocks and lock them to fences and railings in public spaces, after which they throw away the keys. This ritual can be seen as a symbolic action that connects romantic feelings to a certain place. Being a ritual that is easy to understand, it expanded to cities all over the world. Now it takes only one padlock on a fence to have it be filled with thousands of them only a few weeks later (image 4).97

In terms of creating a regenerating situation in accordance with the aim of urban scenography, this urban intervention connects human emotions and a collective experience to a specific place in the city. But observing the urban interventions of the activist mobs and rituals 91 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 57.

92 Ibidem.

93 Todd, Charlie. ‘Surprise Torch Run.’ www.improveverywhere.com. Consulted April 30 2014 <http://www.improveverywhere.com/>.

94 Mann, Juan. ‘Free Hugs.’ www.freehugscampaign.org. Consulted April 30 2014 <http://www.freehugscampaign.org/>.

95 Lavrinec 2011a, p. 59. 96 Ibidem.

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described by Lavrinec, we must note that these interventions are not very disruptive or critical toward urban structures and powers. They are mainly based on the elements of spectacle, surprise and community, which cause emotions of joy instead of a critical rethinking of public space.

2.2.4 The urban intervention of public art

Recently different writers have explored the expanding notion of space as a material in

curating public art, as I researched in a short essay on art and space for the seminar Thinking

Modern and Contemporary Art.98_{It appears the approach of urban scenography is ultimately}

based on a proposal of disrupting daily urban routines and structures through interventions of art in public space. Looking at public art through the perspective of urban scenography, it has the potential to change the everyday patterns of the city through addressing, composing or disrupting public space.

In her essay 'Public Art as Situation: Towards an Aesthetic of the Wrong Place in Contemporary Art Practice and Commissioning' (2008) Claire Doherty describes art as a space that frames our perception. According to her, space in art practice is not a kind of locality, but an

intellectual or experiential space. Therefore public art can better be understood as an experience that frames and disrupts our perception.99_{In this sense art is not bound to the}

physicality of its location, contains the notion of art being a space in which thoughts are being changed and newly created.100_{Doherty posits public art as a shift in the perception of place:}

“The experience of art is not one in my opinion that necessarily restores a sense of belonging or offers up a moment of resolution, but if truly place-responsive, situation-specific and

contemporary that work of art will shatter the fictions of a stable sense of place, will intervene in the status quo and literally shift the ground between your feet.”101_{This description argues}

that public art has the potential to disrupt intellectual frames, which helps us understand the critical perception of space within the practice of urban scenography.

Doherty brings forward a couple of works that disrupt the perception of place. She describes Francis Alÿs' When Faith Moves Mountains (2002), an action in which five hundred volunteers formed a line along a sand dune just outside Lima and used shovels to “move” the sand dune ten centimeters from its original position (images 5 and 6).102_{This work directs attention on}

the poor living circumstances of the inhabitants of Lima's outskirts.103 _{Another work Doherty}

mentions is Javier Tellez's One Flew Over the Void (2005), an event in the US-Mexican border 98 Koetsier, Marthe. ‘Art & Space.’ Essay for seminar Thinking Modern and Contemporary Art by Eva Fotiadi, MA Art

History, University of Amsterdam, January 21 2014.

99 Doherty, Claire. 'Public Art as Situation: Towards an Aesthetic of the Wrong Place in Contemporary Art Practice and Commissioning.’ In: Jan Debbaut. Out of the Studio! Art and Public Space. Hasselt: Z33, 2008. Retrieved from <http://thinkingpractices.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/doherty-publicartassituation.pdf> March 2 2014, pp. 3, 11. 100 Doherty 2008, p. 6. Refers to Tim Cresswell, G. Verstraete, eds. Mobilizing Place, Placing Mobility. The Politics

of Representation in a Globalized World. 2002, Amsterdam and New York, NY: Radopi, pp. 25-26. 101 Doherty 2008, p. 11.

102 Guggenheim. ‘Francis Alÿs in collaboration with Cuauhtémoc Medina and Rafael Ortega.’ www.guggenheim.org. Consulted May 2 2014 <http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/11412>, and Doherty 2008, p. 9.

103 Although the work is executed in the desert just outside Lima.

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town Las Playas. With the firing of a human cannonball people were flown over the fence that marked to two countries' boundaries (image 7). In this spectacle citizens were physically crossing the literal and metaphorical line of the country from which they were excluded.104

Thinking of other art interventions that constitute itself as disruptions of space, I would like to bring forward the work of Tomas Saraceno. In my view his works operate within the approach of urban scenography because they can be seen as a form of reinterpretation of spatial

structures that shape the physical and emotional experience of public space. Saraceno's Cloud

Cities are quite literally an example of the construction of space, reflecting on today's public

space and proposing a new perspective on everyday life with utopian aspirations. Inspired by soap bubbles and spider webs,105_{they are enormous inflatable installations that propose a}

different choreography to urban inhabitants by opening up a way to a vertical use of public space (images 8-10).

However Saraceno's works are not only scientific test models for aviation and future living environments. The floating installations, in the future possibly to be presented in public spaces outside of museums, are quite literally a reconstruction of space in which a stable sense of place is shattered. People are invited to move around on the elevated structures in which they not only discover a new, unusual kind of public space but are also able to create a different perspective on future public space as well as on the world beneath them. With an over-seeing eye they can watch the urban inhabitants down below, moving in the crowds that they

normally take part of as well.

Saraceno does not just pose the idea of floating urban environments to provoke. He believes that in the future habitats will be able to fly, and he made a lot more works that test this vision. For Portscapes 2, an art project set up to reflect on the creation of new land in the harbor of Rotterdam, Saraceno made in collaboration with the Aerospace Engineering Faculty of TU Delft Saraceno a six meter high flying construction that alluded to future city planning and modes of existence. Solar Bell (2012) was a kind of kite that functioned as a model for floating living environments, aspiring human victory over gravity (image 11).106

The work fits within the aims and methods in urban scenography's approach to public art, because the installation constitutes a disruptive space in public space in the sense that it is the cultivation of what we think is not possible: it crosses the traditional boundaries of space.107

Solar Bell redirects the spectator's thoughts to an elevated use of public space while at the

same time refocusing his conscious on “the world below”, where he can imagine himself to be a tiny being admits of different flocks of people and different paths of everyday life. From this perspective Solar Bell could be said to vitalize a public space that has not yet been used, and 104 Frieze Magazine. ‘Javier Tellez.’ www.frieze.com. Consulted May 2 2014

<http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/javier_tellez/>, and Doherty 2008, p. 8.

105 Trend Tablet by Lidewij Edelkoort. ‘Tomas Saraceno.’ www.trendtablet.com. Consulted May 24 2014 <http://www.trendtablet.com/10319-tomas-saraceno>.

106 Stichting Kunst en Openbare Ruimte. ‘Portscapes 2. Tomas Saraceno.’ www.skor.nl. Consulted May 24 2014 <http://www.skor.nl/nl/zoeken/item/portscapes-2-tomas-saraceno>.

107 Portscapes 2. A Series of Art Projects Aliongside the Construction of Maasvlakte 2. ‘Project: Tomas Saraceno, Solar Bell.’ www.portscapes2.nl. Consulted May 24 2014

Urban Scenography - A different approach to art in public space