Public Space? Lost and Found

The book, inspired by Spanish artist Antoni Muntadas and his early coining of the term “media landscape,” features the participation of Spanish architects Andrés Jaque, Juan Herreros and Beatriz Colomina.

Public Space? Lost and Found documents how critical spatial practices have expanded the concept far beyond the physical confines of the city square. It considers the role of aesthetic practices within the construction, identification and critique of shared territories, and how artists or architects can heighten our awareness of rapidly changing formulations of public space in the age of digital media, vast ecological crises, and civic uprisings.

The book combines significant recent projects in art and architecture with writings by historians and theorists. Contributors investigate strategies for responding to underrepresented communities and areas of conflict through the work of Marjetica Potrč in Johannesburg and Teddy Cruz on the Mexico-U.S. border, among others. They explore our collective stakes in ecological catastrophe through artistic research.

Contributors also look ahead, casting a critical eye on the fraught impact of digital media and the Internet on public space.

This book is the first in a new series of volumes produced by the MIT School of Architecture and Planning’s Program in Art, Culture, and Technology.

Contributors

• Andrés Jaque – Politics do not happen in Squares
• Juan Herreros – House, Home, Public Space
• Beatriz Colomina – Privacy and Publicity in the Age of Social Media
• Antoni Muntadas – Public Space: Projects and Contexts