Form, exform, and information in public space

Mikkel B Tin

doi:10.7577/information.4662

Abstract

If the urban tissue can be compared to a verbal text, how appropriate, then, do the linguistic disciplines prove in urban studies? This article briefly shows how morphology (Oliveira, 2016) and semantics (Benveniste, 1971) help us understand the city’s physical structures as well as the meaning these structures embody. Then follows a more substantial discussion of poetics (Ricœur, 1991) and its relevance to research on art in public space. An artistic intervention in public space may in fact appear as a poetic trope within the prosaic context of the city (De Certeau, 1988). Interrupting the smooth run of the urban machinery, it may re-inform what has become redundant. Thus, Marianne Heske’s House of Commons not only questions our definitions of form and exform (Bourriaud, 2016); in-forming an ex-form, it also questions the power of definition and other power structures inherent in the cityscape.

Highlights

If the urban tissue can be compared to a verbal text, how appropriate, do the linguistic disciplines prove in urban studies? This article briefly shows how morphology (Oliveira, 2016) and semantics (Benveniste, 1971) help us understand the city’s physical structures as well as the meaning these structures embody
Art in public space may refer to a variety of things: an equestrian statue of a ruler centrally placed in front of a palace and intended to last for centuries, or a painting that tours a few days on the side of a subway car before it is removed by the
As a metaphor, constructed intentionally by the conceptual artist Marianne Heske, it turned out to be extremely prolific in meaning (De Ridder, 2017, p. 49-51). When her artwork was criticized as ‘out of place’ that very reproach confirmed its function as a poetical trope: As long as the little red house stood abandoned along the highway, awaiting to be demolished, it was ‘in place’ and redundant

Summary

From form to information

Art in public space may refer to a variety of things: an equestrian statue of a ruler centrally placed in front of a palace and intended to last for centuries, or a painting that tours a few days on the side of a subway car before it is removed by the. Urban morphology deals with exactly such environments where we are likely to find art in public space, and that makes it interesting to our purpose In his authoritative presentation of urban morphology, the Portuguese morphologist Vítor Oliveira suggests the following succinct definitions: Urban morphology is ‘the study of urban forms, and of the agents and processes responsible for their transformation’. Our everyday urban context is full of forms but poor in information In his hermeneutics, the French philosopher Paul Ricœur (1913-2005) works primarily on written texts, and in his work The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary studies of the creation of meaning in language, he studies the function of metaphor and the reason for its occurrence: ‘It could be that the everyday reference to the real must be abolished in order that another sort of reference to other dimensions of reality might be liberated.’ While the prosaic text aims at a univocal and efficient reception of the message, and requires logical coherence, a trope is made and meant to provoke bewilderment first and, subsequently, new information

Michel de Certeau and the poetics of everyday practice

Marianne Heske informing her House of Commons

Conclusion