Nanna Verhoeff
Nanna Verhoeff (Utrecht University)
Screens as Urban Media Architecture
Show Video Recording
While screens and other media technologies become more and more integrated in the architectural fabric of our cities, we may revisit some conceptualizations of the specificity of screens as flat surfaces for projection. For my approach to screen uses in urban, public spaces, and what we may call the dispositif of media architecture, I connect an understanding of architecture as fundamentally performative with the specificities of screens and interactive media technologies. The temporary screens, projections, and interactive works intervene in, and (re)shape the contours and fabric of urban space. What, then, is the specificity of this mobile and location-based dispositif of urban space and how does this design of media architecture entail a form of urban curation? These questions will be addressed in the analysis of some contemporary urban screen projects that in their design reflect on our relationship to, and engagement with this layering of urban space.
Nanna Verhoeff is Associate Professor of Comparative Screen and Media Studies at the Department for Media & Culture Studies at Utrecht University. She has published widely on a range of screen media, from early cinema to digital media. She published The West in Early Cinema: After the Beginning (2006) – focusing on cinema as a new medium – and Mobile Screens: The Visual Regime of Navigation (2012) – a comparative study of screen media, mobility and spatial practices, such as highway panoramas and early cinema, installations and urban screens, and mobile game consoles and navigation devices. Currently, she is preparing a book publication on urban interfaces and the trope of layers and layering by means of media technologies.