Enchanted encounters: moving images, public art and an ethical sense of place

Annie Dell’Aria,Andy Buchanan

doi:10.14324/111.444.amps.2021v20i1.002

Abstract

This article examines site-specific moving images, particularly public artworks that engage windows and monuments as cinematic screens. Employing the concept of enchantment and Doreen Massey’s notion of a ‘global sense of place’, this article analyses how the physical experience of moving image media in public places can enrich and complicate our understanding of place. Artworks by Lynn Hershman Leeson, Ofri Cnaani, Krzysztof Wodiczko and Tony Oursler are explored, in addition to recent protest projections and critical and theoretical investigations of place and enchantment.

Highlights

The relationship between moving images and place is full of contradictions and tensions
Urban screens often prompt cultural anxiety over their contribution to the production of what Marc Augé called the ‘non-places’ of constant circulation and commercial spectacle.1. When they appear in public spaces, moving images become embedded within the physical and discursive sites of the screen
Unlike the homogenising or aggrandising tendencies most often cited with regard to urban screen media, these works use the moving image’s inherent capacity for enchantment to point to pores, cracks and ghosts buried within the urban fabric

Summary

Introduction

The relationship between moving images and place is full of contradictions and tensions. This article examines site-specific moving images, public artworks that engage windows and monuments as cinematic screens.

Results

Conclusion