"It investigates the critical perspectives of the cultural geography, urban sociology and critical theory, through analyses of the city, urban space and its gendering and the monument. A duality emereges between public art which is bound by the aesthetics of the object, and art as a continuos, participatory process of social criticism"
"The relation between conventional public art and development is one of complicity,whilst emerging practices of art offer resistance to conceptualisations of the city which exclude the interests of its inhabitants. Two roles for art are suggested: as decoration within a re-visioned field of urban design in which the needs of users are central, and as a social process of criticism and engagement, defining the public realm not as public sites but as complex fields of public interest. The tension between these positions is creative. "
Chapter 1: THE CITY
This chapter considers changing ideas of the city which are produced by social structures of value and power.
The snapshot suggests an incidental moment within the city, one instant in its diversity; the distanced view represents the city as a single idea, as if it might always be that way.
