Spatial Aesthetics encompasses two major research projects funded by the Australian Research Council: 'Public Screens and the Transformation of Public Space' (DP0772759: 2007-2009) with Associate Professor Scott McQuire, Profossor Nikos Papastergiadis and Professor Sean Cubitt as Chief Investigators; and 'The Spatial Impact of Digital Technology on Contemporary Art and New Art Institutions' (DP0451581: 2004-2006) with Associate Professor Scott McQuire and Professor Nikos Papastergiadis as Chief Investigators.

Public Screens and the Transformation of Public Space (DP0772759: 2007-2009)

The core aim of this project is to provide a critical analysis of the impact of large electronic screens on contemporary forms of social agency in public space. Its core hypothesis is that the emergent creative practices associated with the new generation of public screens offer distinctive opportunities for public interaction and civic revitalization. Realization of this potential demands the development of new models for utilizing media technologies, negotiating the competing interests of the public and private sectors, and addressing increasingly diverse and mobile urban populations. The project is designed around two related strands: the sociological analysis of public interactions with large public screens, and the contextualization of artistic interventions in city life.

Since the 1980s, the roll-out of digital networks, the proliferation of mobile phones and the installation of large electronic screens in urban centres, has created novel forms of mediated interaction in public space. This reverses the previous dominant trajectory in which broadcast media such as radio and television ‘privatized’ the public sphere by relocating key processes of civic engagement from public to domestic space  It also represents a further stage in the redefinition of cultural institutions such as art galleries and museums, as their content migrates from enclosed sites with defined audiences into the public domain at large. While there are distinct regional and national inflections to these developments, the general trajectory is manifestly global. Large public screens have rapidly become a symbol of contemporary urban development projects across the world. The focus of this research is to examine their potential to constitute a new dimension of public space and civic agency.

The conceptual frame of the research is informed by the interplay of six key questions:

A critical goal of this project is to track the ways public space media are being used to generate new forms of social experience. Andreas Broeckmann has argued that contemporary artists no longer see screens as surfaces that capture attention by means of visual and narrative content, but as sites for the production of new forms of public relationships, a new public sphere mediating physical and electronic space. Our analysis of the cultural practices coalescing around large urban screens and interactive forms of new media will focus on six key areas, differentiated by mode and level of audience participation:

The ubiquity of public and mobile forms of media means that contemporary public space is increasingly constructed through the articulation of physical and electronic spaces. New generation large screen technologies are gaining recognition for their potential to play a key role in urban regeneration. Public screens are becoming policy tools for social cohesion, emphasizing the role of culture in constructing positive urban images, developing the tourism industry, attracting inward investment, and strengthening the competitive position of host cities. The capacity of the new installations to deliver on these claims needs to be tested and evaluated. Public screens represent a new intersection of social and economic interests in the public realm, bringing together diverse agents including artists, city councils, cultural funding bodies, broadcasters, media hardware companies, and local businesses. These partnerships need to be mapped, and their outcomes critically assessed.  Finally, the capacity of large screens to contribute to a robust and inclusive public culture needs to be evaluated.

The leading example of the new public screens is the BBC ‘Public Space Broadcasting’ initiative under the leadership of Bill Morris. Over the last four years, this project has involved the installation of large screens in city squares across five cities, with a further fifteen planned over the next five years. Developed as a not-for-profit project in collaboration with city councils and technology provider Philips, with the primary aim of screening BBC news, information, and sporting events, the BBC ‘Big Screens’ have also developed cultural partnerships in each host city for screening alternative content such as experimental film and video. We have identified the most significant related public screen initiatives in Berlin, Amsterdam, Melbourne and Seoul. The eleven-storey SPOTS media façade in Berlin began showcasing large-scale interactive artworks in November 2005, while the first large public screen devoted exclusively to electronic art and alternative cultural content is scheduled to open in Amsterdam in Spring 2006. This turn towards more innovative, interactive content is now being adopted at the ‘Big Screen’ at Federation Square in Melbourne, the only permanent large public screen in a city centre location currently operating in Australia.  In Asia, the ambitious Digital Media City project developed by Seoul City Council includes a range of large screen displays which can carry large scale artworks as well as customized retail content.

The Spatial Impact of Digital Technology on Contemporary Art and New Art Institutions (DP0451581: 2004-2006)

The core aim of this project was to provide a critical analysis of the major changes currently occurring to the production of art and its modes of display and consumption. Our approach was predicated on the identification of an important historical shift, in which digital technologies are promoting a move away from traditional visual art collections based around material objects such as paintings and sculpture. Our hypothesis was that the new modes of aesthetic production, display and consumption provide both a vital index of the cultural dynamics of globalization, and a critical example of the profound redefinition of the social role of art. This project evaluated the cultural uses of new technology in art institutions and proposes an interdisciplinary framework for theorising the hybrid spatial ensembles and cultural experiences emerging from the impact of digital art on the space of the contemporary art institution.

The conceptual frame of this project was informed by the interplay of five key questions:

This framework was designed to historically situate the emergence of new institutions for displaying digital media arts. It focused on institutions that have been explicitly developed for the production and display of new media and digital arts, such as: ZKM (Karlsrhue, Germany); Kiasma (Helsinki, Finland); Mediateque (Sendai, Japan); ICC (Japan); Australian Centre for the Moving Image (Melbourne, Australia); and the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (Liverpool, UK). The historical importance of this group of institutions lies in the fact that they have not only recognised the key role of screen-based and digital media to contemporary art practice, but that the institutions of art need new philosophical, structural and technological parameters. In the twenty-first century, the museum is no longer only a physical space, and the audience no longer confined to those who are physically present. The emphasis has shifted from the accumulation of symbolic objects to the stimulation of project-based narratives. It is a unique moment in history to observe these transitions and test the veracity of the new rhetorical claims about new media and the arts.

This project was innovative in two key respects. Firstly, its focus on the spatial impact of new technologies on art and cultural institutions offered a distinctive and productive approach to this field. Secondly, its ambition to situate these developments within the spatial discourse developed in the fields of critical social theory and urban sociology allowed us to focus directly on the relationship between the new modes of representation and the new practices of cultural participation. This project was explicitly designed to address gaps in existing theories of contemporary art and new media by situating the new spatial regimes and artistic practices developing in contemporary art institutions in relation to the global flows of culture in contemporary cities. It tested the relationship between the rhetoric and practices of new technology in the arts by examining the day to day experiences of key agents, and situated this analysis in the broader context of the cultural dynamics of globalization.

This project was specifically designed to put into action insights from recent developments in critical theory, which suggest that the role of theory is not just to reflect on objects that are already constructed, but to actively engage in the process through which models of practice, perception and experience are established. An integral part of the research project was intensive fieldwork both in relation to the production of new media art works, and the public display and engagement with such works. Original empirical data has been generated through fieldwork techniques and by qualitative interviews with key practitioners in this field.

A key aim of the project was the generation of a significant platform for formulating cultural policy relating to contemporary art institutions. By developing an historically informed theory of the transformation of the institution of art, the research assisted the development of institutional reflexivity, informing the work of curators, designers and practitioners and funding bodies. In particular, the research helped to clarify: