Infiltrated city, augmented space: information and communication technologies, and representations of contemporary spatialities

What is it about?

Augmented reality and augmented spaces have recently been linked to the widespread use of sophisticated technologies. This can also be described as the intensification of our communication skills which have been related to apparent unlimited possibilities of experimenting with and perceiving space with our bodies and minds, when connected with technological tools. However, by contrast with expanded experiences of the past at a personal level (such as in religion, magic, metaphysics or the arts), contemporary technologi- cal augmentation is becoming embedded into our daily lives to such an extent that we are starting to take this mixture of digital technologies and the built environment for granted. In this essay, we argue that, because of this influence on our interactional capabilities, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) might act as catalysing forces trans- forming various experimental and spatial dimensions of cities and urban places. In order to capture, interpret and understand these transformations in urban spaces, places and territories, we tentatively articulate the experimental and epistemological works of two contemporary Brazilian thinkers about urban studies. Lucre ́cia Ferrara and Nelson Brissac Peixoto inspire our arguments with their critical views about how urban space can be under- stood through its various interpretations, and how perceptions of it can be stimulated through artistic provocations of disquieting feelings of strangeness.

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Why is it important?

In this paper we shall, first, reinforce this argu- ment based on the description of augmentation and infiltration as a contemporary urban phenom- enon. In fact, we argue that the ubiquitous and per- vasive characteristics of today’s ICTs are responsible for an ‘infiltration’ of these technologies within built space. Secondly, based on the work of two Bra- zilian scholars of urban studies, we intend to present two different epistemological categories for appre- hending and comprehending such a phenomenon. The first category, coined by Lucre ́cia Ferrara as the adherence of icons and signs to the urban scene, is supported by the idea of an overlap of frag- mentary images of a global urban imaginary with the actual built city. This, in turn, results in an exag- gerated amount of visual signs which, paradoxically, tend to blur our understanding of global and local relationships in terms of information flows and their interference with daily urban dynamics (for instance, the use of high technologies as a sort of urban make-up resulting in an illusion of modernity, rather than a real transformation of space). A second possible approach or category is bor- rowed from Nelson Brissac Peixoto who believes that transformations in urban space and place, regardless of scale and invisibility, can be made visible, tangible and noticeable in the eyes of the general public through some dramatic artistic inter- ventions, intended to provoke a sort of disquieting feeling of strangeness. In the third and last part of this paper, we try to interconnect these categories as common aspects or representations of the same phenomenon as a means to consolidate our original argument about the infiltration and augmentation of cities and space.