roughing up digital visualisations of and in cities

I have a new chapter out, in a book edited by Shirley Jordan and  Christoph Lindner called Cities Interrupted.  The collection explores the potential of visual culture – in the form of photography, film, performance, architecture, urban design, and mixed media – to strategically interrupt processes of globalization in contemporary urban spaces.  My chapter looks at different ways that digital visualisations of new urban development projects can be ‘interrupted’ – that is, their smooth and glossy surfaces made a bit more problematic.

The chapter covers a lot of different tactics, all of which engage with different aspects of these very complicated images, from picturing their decay to spotting their mistakes to satirising their atmosphere.  It also has one of the worst titles I’ve ever come up with: “Dimming the scintillating glow of unwork: looking at digital visualisations of urban redevelopment projects”.  Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it.

The…