When the computer becomes a cultural medium, cultural interfaces with aesthetic values, strategies, and designs are needed. Consequently, the development of urban interfaces can also profit from an aesthetic, cultural approach. From classical monuments to the 1960s Situationists and the 1970s New Game Movement, art plays a crucial role in defining and reflecting urban spaces. Contemporary art projects and groups such as Ars Electronica Futurelab's WikiMap, The People Speak, and Blast Theory explore user-generated content in new digital formats and genres (e.g. urban games, locative media, and urban screens). They thereby continue the tradition, and further reflect on the ways in which experiences of interfaces affect spaces and digital urban living.

Based on research in interface culture and interface aesthetics, the interplay between the urban space, its citizens, and new interfaces will be investigated. The hypothesis is that art and artistic practices can enrich digital urban living. They can contribute to a democratic urban space by exploring how new interfaces affect relations between public and private, and generate new forms of civic communication and creative production. They can contribute to an enriched cultural environment by engaging citizens in a dialogue, with cultural history and heritage forming new urban identities. Thus, art and artistic practices become a key part of new urban interfaces. Through strategies from digital art and literature, sound art, and computer games, this perspective will contribute to digital urban living by addressing how aesthetics for new urban interfaces can be developed, as well as addressing the basic question:

How may new kinds of interfaces affect relations between the public and the private, and generate new forms of civic communication and creative production?

Inquiries about the project can be directed to associate professor  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Tags: digital aesthetics | interface aesthetics