Lecture: ‘The City, Space and Landscape in the Age of Globalization and Digitalization’
Mike Featherstone and Tomoko Tamari were invited by the Post Media Research Network, established by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. Following the prescient argument developed by Félix Guattari in the pre-internet period, the research consider that contemporary media environments can be seen as opening to a ‘post-media era’. Guattari optimistically hoped that the transformation of mass media power would help to replace the modern subjectivity with more fluid, collective-individual subjectivities formed via the interactive use of information, communication, intelligence, art and culture machines (Guattari 1990). Looking back on his theory thirty years later, the research project aims to critically re-examine the idea of post-media and try to develop post-media theories more adequate for understanding emerging forms of power under our current social, economic, political, cultural and technological conditions.
Image courtesy of Ryoji Iwata via Unsplash
‘Urban Aestheticization Processes: Cityscape, Landscape and Image’
Mike Featherstone
Abstract
This paper brings together a number of themes about city image, aestheticization and urban experience. Its impetus comes from two main sources. The first is to contribute to a commemorative volume for David Frisby, a friend and collaborator, who died in 2010. Frisby was an influential Simmel scholar who researched cityscapes, streetscapes and modern life. It could be productive to confront the Simmel and Frisby urban heritage with the recent work of Francois Jullien on landscape. The second, is research on Tokyo 2020 Olympics, to better understand the relationship between the Games and the host city, especially the effects on urban life. The connecting point is the notion of city image – what is it, how it is made, how it operates and what is its potential?
‘Consumer Spaces as Urban Spectacles: Department Stores and Sensory Shopping Experiences’
Tomoko Tamari
Abstract
The aim of this paper focuses on modern retailing spaces as urban spectacles by articulating a historical continuity of the nature of department store as an aestheticized sensory space. The paper also examines not only early 20th century department stores, but also contemporary consumer spaces, which have been developing innovative merchandising along with the emergence of digital information technologies. Drawing on the initial stage of Mitsukoshi to illustrate how urban spectacles emerged with development of theatrically organized affective space. The paper also analyses contemporary retailing spaces, which challenge to break the boundaries not only between theatre and consumer space, but also between art gallery and retailing display space. In addition, the paper also applies Bernard Stiegler’s notions of ‘symbolic misery’ and ‘pharmakon’ to explore contemporary retailing spaces which used ‘interactive mirrors’ in order to examine new sensory consumer experiences.
Event listings
Japanese: http://ga.geidai.ac.jp/2018/12/09/research-workshop-featherstone-tamari/