Urban Interfaces: Architecture, Spectacle, Art, City

Abstract

This paper focuses its analysis on the concept of interface in the urban context, that is, the contact surfaces that exist in the city, experienced from different perspectives, related to architecture, art and technology. In face of an increasingly codified and informational-data-reducible world, with constantly changing urban spaces, compressed distances mediated by electronic devices, the question of how to transform a traditional and physical urban experience into a broader and virtual experience is crucial, while guaranteeing a participatory action instead of a merely interactive one. Three case studies of urban structures that have undergone reinterpretation processes are analysed: the urban transformation undertaken at High Line Park in New York; the idea of a park on Minhocão, in São Paulo; and the urban changes promoted by the removal of the Perimetral viaduct in the center of Rio de Janeiro. Such examples give rise to the discussion about various forms of interaction with the city, under aspects of surveillance and control, city as spectacle, public space fruition, pleasure and entertainment, interaction vs. participation, use value vs. exchange value.