Picturing the Modern City:Visions,Represent,Imagination

Course content

Introduction to issues of vision and visuality; debate on ´ocularcentrism´and the ´hegemony of vision´; theories of urban representation; ´the city in the field of vision´; De Certeau´s dual model of the city (concept vs. texture); the panopticon and the panorama; theories of spectacle/surveillance and their relevance to the history of the modern city; visual arts and urban iconography; ´modernism in the streets´- the flaneur, the crowd and the shock of metropolitan life; historical development of urban photography, from topographic view-making to the urban snapshot; literary images and urban imaginations; montage techniques and the ´cinematic city´; aerial vision and the issue of urban legibility; psycho-geography and the ´situationist city´; the ´tourist gaze´, travel cultures and the modern cityscape.