Visualizing the Street: New Practices of Documenting, Navigating and Imagining the City

The emergence of digital technologies has enabled the production and dissemination of imagery of streets and urban realities in multiple forms. This collection of essays explores the practices of visualizing the street, including user-generated images, professional architectural renderings, digital maps, and drone footages. It examines how these visualizations have constructed new imaginaries of the street and impacted the ways in which contemporary and future streets are understood, imagined, documented, navigated, mediated, and visualized. The book covers a wide range of geographies and engages with various ways in which visualizations of the street function to document street protests and urban change, build imaginaries of urban communities, and navigate streetscapes.

Format: Hardback
Length: 254 pages
Publication date: 04 December 2018
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press

From user-generated images of streets to professional architectural renderings, and from digital maps and drone footages to representations of invisible digital ecologies, this collection of essays analyzes the emergent practices of visualizing the street. Today, advancements in digital technologies of the image have given rise to the production and dissemination of imagery of streets and urban realities in multiple forms. The ubiquitous presence of digital visualizations has in turn created new forms of urban practice and modes of spatial encounter. Everyone who carries a smartphone not only plays an increasingly significant role in the production, editing, and circulation of images of the street, but also relies on those images to experience urban worlds and to navigate in them. Such entangled forms of image-making and image-sharing have constructed new imaginaries of the street and have had a significant impact on the ways in which contemporary and future streets are understood, imagined, documented, navigated, mediated, and visualized.

Visualizing the Street investigates the social and cultural significance of these new developments at the intersection of visual culture and urban space. The interdisciplinary essays provide new concepts, theories, and research methods that combine close analyses of street images and imaginaries with the study of the practices of their production and circulation. The book covers a wide range of visible and invisible geographies — From Hong Kong's streets to Rio's favelas, from Sydney's suburbs to London's street markets, and from Damascus war-torn streets to Istanbul's sidewalks — and engages with multiple ways in which visualizations of the street function to document street protests and urban change, to build imaginaries of urban communit.

In conclusion, the collection of essays in Visualizing the Street offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary exploration of the emerging practices of visualizing the street. By examining the diverse range of images, technologies, and practices that shape our understanding of urban spaces, the book provides valuable insights into the complex relationships between visual culture, urbanism, and social change. As we navigate the rapidly evolving digital landscape, it is essential to consider the ways in which visualizations of the street can both challenge and reinforce existing power structures, and to explore the potential for new forms of visual representation that can promote greater equity, diversity, and sustainability in our cities.

Weight: 558g
Dimension: 241 x 161 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9789462984356
Edition number: 0