Author: Lukasz Stanek File Type: pdf In this innovative work, Lukasz Stanek frames a uniquely contextual appreciation of Henri Lefebvres idea that space is a social product. Stanek explicitly confronts both the philosophical and the empirical foundations of Lefebvres oeuvre, especially his direct involvement in the fields of urban development, planning, and architecture. Countering the prevailing view, which reduces Lefebvres theory of space to a projection of his philosophical positions, Stanek argues that Lefebvres work grew out of his concrete, empirical engagement with everyday practices of dwelling in postwar France and his exchanges with architects and planners. Stanek focuses on the interaction between architecture, urbanism, sociology, and philosophy that occurred in France in the 1960s and 1970s, which was marked by a shift in the processes of urbanization at all scales, from the neighborhood to the global level. Lefebvres thinking was central to this encounter, which informed both his theory of space and the concept of urbanization becoming global. Stanek offers a deeper and clearer understanding of Lefebvres thought and its implications for the present day. At a time when cities are increasingly important to our political, spatial, and architectural world, this reassessment proposes a new empirical, and practical, interpretation of Lefebvres ideas on urbanism.

Author: Saloni Mathur File Type: pdf The conditions of alienation and exclusion are inextricably linked to the experience of the migrant. This volume explores both the increasing emergence of the theme of migration as a dominant subject matter in art as well as the ways in which the varied mobilities of a globalized world have radically reshaped arts conditions of production, reception, and display. In a selection of essays, fourteen distinguished scholars explore the universality of conditions of global migration and interdependence, inviting a rethinking of existing perspectives in postcolonial, transnational, and diaspora studies, and laying the foundation for empirical and theoretical directions beyond the terms of these traditional frameworks.

Author: Michael D. Bordo File Type: pdf

Author: Mathias Fuchs File Type: pdf Recognizable, recurring spatial settings in video games serve not only as points of reference and signposts for orientation, but also as implicit sources of content. These spatial archetypes denote more than real-world objects or settings they suggest and bring forward emotional states, historical context, atmospheric attunement, in the words of Massumi, and aesthetic programs that go beyond plain semiotic reference. In each chapter, Mathias Fuchs brings to the fore an archetype commonly found in old and new digital games The Ruin, The Cave, The Cloud, The Portal, The Road, The Forest, and The Island are each analysed at length, through the perspectives of aesthetics, games technology, psychoanalysis, and intertextuality. Gridding these seven tropes together with these four analytical lenses provides the reader with a systematic framework to understand the various complex considerations at play in evocative game design.**Review A major new work in game aesthetics Fuchs neatly sidesteps the stale isolationist dogma of game studies by treating videogames as entwined within the same cultural and psychological forces as other artworks. And about time too! Chris Bateman, game designer and author of Imaginary Games (2011) Mathias Fuchss new approach to the analysis of computer games makes us aware of how much of the spaces occupied by players are in fact dreamscapes, places of phantasmal qualities. The book aims way beyond the spatial turn in game studies and approaches spaces as lived-in phantasms. Full of insights and surprising observations, Phantasmal Spaces is a complex yet widely accessible contribution to the study of our own imagination in times of digital media. Markus Rautzenberg, Professor of Philosophy, Folkwang University of the Arts, Germany About the Author Mathias Fuchs is Professor at the Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media at Leuphana University of Luneburg, Germany. An artist as well as media scholar, Fuchs pioneered the artistic use of computer games and has exhibited work at ISEA, SIGGRAPH and the Millennium Dome. He is the editor of Diversity of Play (2015) and co-editor of Rethinking Gamification (2014).